Keystone XL pipeline
Keystone pipeline as GOP poison pill
Desperate Republican seeks to link pipeline approval to the payroll tax cut extension
Pipeline politics(Credit: Reuters/Stephen Lam) Ever since the Obama administration announced it would delay its final decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline until 2013, Republicans in Congress have been plotting ways to get around the lengthier review process ordered by the president, which would include a rigorous assessment of health and environmental impacts by the State Department.
Last Wednesday, a group of Republican senators, including Nebraska Sen. Mike Johanns, co-sponsored a bill that would fast-track the pipeline, requiring President Obama to issue a decision on the pipeline within the next 60 days and precluding a more in-depth review of its impacts. Now, Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry, with support from House Speaker John Boehner, is seeking to attach a provision that would force a quick decision on the pipeline to a bill designed to extend unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts, which are currently set to expire Jan. 1 of next year.
The proposal to extend unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut has divided the Republican Party, with some arguing that the measures are too costly and will create little economic benefit, while others are reluctant to oppose measures that would provide relief to tens of millions of American workers. Sensing advantage, President Obama and the Democrats are pressing hard for approval of the extension of the benefits and the payroll tax cut.
Boehner recently described his payroll tax proposal as turning “chicken shit into chicken salad,” indicating that he’s going to make Democrats pay for any legislative victory. He knows that a bill proposing to hasten the Keystone review process would never make it through Congress on its own, and is hoping to keep the pipeline’s adversaries from scuttling the proposal by attaching the quick review to popular legislation that Democrats are determined to pass.
Terry’s proposal would transfer decision-making authority from the State Department to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and would require FERC to issue a ruling on the pipeline almost immediately, within 30 days of receiving a permit application — despite the fact that, as George Zornick points out, “FERC has not been involved in the Keystone process whatsoever,” and has no prior experience with similar projects.
Environmental groups claim the strategy is simply an attempt to evade a public debate about the pipeline: Environmental leader Bill McKibben described the negotiations as going on “behind closed doors in money-filled rooms.” Kim Huynh, a dirty fuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth, called the House GOP strategy an attempt to slip the Keystone decision “under the radar of the U.S. public, limiting the ability for real debate.”
While Huynh called the bill a “really long shot” for congressional approval, Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups have mobilized to block it with a petition signed by a hundred thousand people asking Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi not to give in to Republican pressure. Becky Bond, the political director of CREDO Action, which organized the petition, said that the group is only asking that Democrats stick to their guns, saying that people are “sick of being thrown under the bus to appease Republicans” in what she described as a “game of chicken” between the two parties.
In an open letter to Reid, a group of five Democratic senators, including Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., called the attempt to seek legislative go-ahead for the pipeline “completely inappropriate,” warning that removing the State Department from the process of making decisions about cross-border projects would “set a troubling precedent.” After meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Wednesday afternoon, Obama said, “Any effort to try to tie Keystone to the payroll tax cut, I will reject.”
Still, while this particular attempt to get the Keystone pipeline approved is unlikely to succeed, it is only one of several environment-related riders the GOP is seeking to sneak into various pieces of upcoming spending legislation, including proposals that would block the EPA from regulating agricultural runoff and limiting toxic air pollution from cement kilns.
Alyssa Battistoni writes about the environment and politics from Seattle. More Alyssa Battistoni.
The truth about Keystone
Focus on the pipeline distracts from the real question: Whether we should be using tar sands oil in the first place
The Syncrude tar sands mine north of Fort McMurray, Alberta. (Credit: Reuters/Todd Korol) When President Obama announced his support for the southern half of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline last week in Cushing, Okla., it was a blow to the environmental groups that had worked to stop the pipeline from going forward and succeeded in delaying approval of its northern half. In particular, Obama’s statement that his administration had already approved “enough new oil and gas pipelines to encircle the earth” seemed intended to remind anti-pipeline campaigners that Keystone XL is just one of many pipelines with the potential to transport Canadian tar sands oil to the United States, and TransCanada just one of many players in the energy game.
Continue Reading CloseAlyssa Battistoni writes about the environment and politics from Seattle. More Alyssa Battistoni.
Keystone pipeline will spill, study predicts
It's a matter of when, not if, say Cornell economists
Members of the "chain gang" assemble a pipeline near Burlington, Ill. (Credit: AP) Republicans have sought to frame the Keystone XL pipeline as a job-creating project being thwarted by “radical environmentalists.” Is it? A new Cornell University study claims that the pipeline could actually have a negative impact on the economies of the states it would pass through.
“In the national debate, job creation has been set alongside environmental concerns in a rigid either-or fashion,” says Sean Sweeney, one of the study’s authors, “But oil spills also kill jobs, they consume resources, they have an impact on health, and can also lead to a lower quality of life.”
Continue Reading CloseAlyssa Battistoni writes about the environment and politics from Seattle. More Alyssa Battistoni.
Surprise: Bush backs Keystone pipeline
As the GOP gets desperate to blame higher gas prices on Obama, their role as the Gas and Oil Party becomes clearer VIDEO
Former president George W. Bush (Credit: AP/Tony Gutierrez) Unemployment is down, consumer confidence is up, the GOP is waging a crazy, unpopular jihad against contraception, and its presidential candidates get less popular as the primary season continues. So blaming President Obama for rising gas prices has become the party’s new strategy.
The problem is, there’s nothing any president can do to make gas prices go down, and Mitt Romney, at least, admitted as much on Fox today. That won’t stop him and his rivals from dishonestly insisting the president is to blame. They continue to insist that the president’s refusal to drill for oil on every square inch of land or sea that may harbor it, and to green light the environmentally disastrous and economically questionable Keystone XL pipeline, is to blame for the pain at the pump.
Continue Reading CloseJoan Walsh is Salon's editor at large. More Joan Walsh.
Pipeline foes beat back bogus gas price claims
Two Capitol Hill victories show environmentalists' strength -- but they may be temporary
The Keystone Oil Pipeline is pictured under construction in North Dakota (Credit: © Handout . / Reuters) Ever since President Obama delayed the decision to grant TransCanada a permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline pending further environmental review back in January, Republicans have been cooking up various schemes to force the project’s approval. A few weeks ago, Republican leaders stuck Keystone mandates into both the House and Senate drafts of the transportation bill. In response, anti-pipeline activists kicked into high gear and mobilized supporters to send over 800,000 messages to their representatives within 24 hours, and the president threatened to veto any bill containing a Keystone rider.
Continue Reading CloseAlyssa Battistoni writes about the environment and politics from Seattle. More Alyssa Battistoni.
Trench warfare rages over Keystone pipeline
The GOP tries every which way to undo the Greens' modest victory
Protestors outside the White House demand a stop to the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. (Credit: AP/Evan Vucci) When the Obama administration announced last month that the Keystone pipeline project would be delayed pending a more thorough environmental review of its impacts, Keystone’s opponents celebrated, but warned that the fight was far from over. Sure enough, pipeline politics remain front-and-center as those in favor of the pipeline seek to circumvent the longer review process while its opponents struggle to fend off attacks on their tenuous victory. The past few weeks have seen a burst of legislative maneuvering as Republicans seek a way to rubber-stamp the pipeline without the president’s approval.
Continue Reading CloseAlyssa Battistoni writes about the environment and politics from Seattle. More Alyssa Battistoni.
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