Proposed pipelines and opposition

[Boom Boom]

The Fight Over Fracking
 
March 2012: Eastern Canada shows concern about fracking. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has not faced the same wrath from environmentalists in Canada compared with the oil sands industry. That could change as the activity picks up pace in the country and stories from the United States where shale gas recovery has been blamed for contaminating water tables and even earthquakes, attract regulatory scrutiny. Although 70% of all gas wells in Canada now use fracking, the treatment remains divisive even within various provincial governments. Shale gas-rich Quebec has slapped a moratorium on fracking, while Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are hamstrung by public backlashes, which has made exploiting relatively low reserves politically unappealing. Meanwhile, pro-fracking provinces, Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, have allowed producers to use the method to access previously inaccessible gas resources. link

[Boom Boom]

  On CTV's Question Period today,  someone said even China may decide they do not want our dirty tar sands bitumen to refine, because their air quality problems are getting so terrible. That sounds odd, given China's interests in the tar sands.
 
  I hope POTUS says NO to Keystone XL, but I wouldn't count on it. 

[Toedancer]

*not related to pipelines*  Boom Boom, you watch these shows, did you see Michael Sona on QP? I heard he was going to finger who was behind the Sask. robocalls.

[Boom Boom]

Yeah! Michael Sona blew me away. Do we have a thread for that?

[Toedancer]

Just use Robocalls Scandal. I'm curious as to what he said.

[Toedancer]

After reading MacLean's page on capntrade/carbon tax I'm convinced Obama/Kerry will do a carbon tax and Harper will go along with it. Trouble is it will be on our shoulders, not the industry, which really pisses me off.
http://www2.macleans.ca/tag/carbon-tax/


As for China, they play fast and loose with buying up and trading.


China, as reported in Macleans, is making hay on this carbon scam - page 40 of the Feb 4, 2013 edition "China has emerged as the biggest user of the UN's carbon credit program, which give companies credits for clean energy investment they make to their businesss that they can sell on international carbon exchanges. Chinese companies represent 45 per cent of projects registered under the program and 65 per cent of its total of the emissions reductions." But they are NOT reducing emissions! This kind of program simply feeds an ugly beast and destabilizes the overall economy while doing nothing for the environment...and impoverishing taxpayers when the chickens come home toroost. This is NOT REVENUE.

[Boom Boom]

Keystone XL got a big boost today when it passes the State Dept. environmental assessment. But I've been watching news programs tonight, and some are arguing the US doesn't need tar sands oil. Still have 40 days to go before Obama decides one way or another - I think he's going to screw his friends who got him elected (twice)  and approve it. 
 
The planet is too damned warm now - wait until the tar sands expand exponentially. 

[Toedancer]

Gary Doer doesn't know Canada buys $780M crude from Chavez


An Ambassador's role is typically apolitical, and that is for good reason. An Ambassdor's job is to represent the country, not the Prime Minister and his political party. Making undiplomatic statements to the U.S., our largest trading partner, is what happens when this division between ideology and diplomacy gets blurry, as it appears right now.
A single pipeline is not worth ruining our relationship with the sleeping giant Canada sits above. It might wake up and realize it's being duped into helping Canada reach the highest bidder on export markets, which will be no help to the U.S. consumer asgas prices will go up for many, contrary to the fictitious story that Gary Doer and the Harper government is feeding the U.S. media.

[Toedancer]

Keystone XL got a big boost today when it passes the State Dept. environmental assessment. But I've been

This Report?


Appears to have been written by a contractor for TransCanada!! for an undisclosed amount of money 

[Alison]

Appears to have been written by a contractor for TransCanada!! for an undisclosed amount of money

Amazingly enough, Toe, that's how it's normally done.

INTERIM GUIDANCE FOR THE USE OF THIRD-PARTY CONTRACTORS IN
PREPARATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL DOCUMENTS BY THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE

A “third party contractor” is a contractor that is selected by, chosen by and working under the direction of a federal agency, but that is being paid by the applicant.

If you want your megaproject to go through, you pay for the required environmental impact study done by a third party contractor - hence the ERM-TransCanada 2012 contract.

If the State Dept did the work themselves, conflict-of-interest rules would kick in; not so with industry contractors who all have ties to each other.
 
The problem with the last two Keystone EIS's was that they were done by Cardno Entrix, a company with an existing relationship with TransCanada and on the recommendation of TransCanada to the State Dept! They also handled the State Dept pipeline webpage and all the public hearings on the pipeline.


I wrote about this here and here in July/Sept 2011. Think Progress picked it up with more info - same writer you link to above - and 3 months later the NYT did an expose, causing a new EIS to be done.


The problem with the new contractor, ERM, is that while they don't have a prior direct relationship to TransCanada, the point firmly made by the State Dept,  they farmed the work out to other companies who do - like EnSysEnergy who work for Koch Industries. Koch's of course is where the pipeline starts.


Edit : added link to State Dept.

[Boom Boom]

  NYT: When to Say No
 
excerpt:
The State Department’s latest environmental assessment of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline makes no recommendation about whether President Obama should approve it. Here is ours. He should say no, and for one overriding reason: A president who has repeatedly identified climate change as one of humanity’s most pressing dangers cannot in good conscience approve a project that — even by the State Department’s most cautious calculations — can only add to the problem.
 
excerpt:
Supporters of the pipeline have argued that this is oil from a friendly country and that Canada will sell it anyway. We hope Mr. Obama will see the flaw in this argument. Saying no to the pipeline will not stop Canada from developing the tar sands, but it will force the construction of new pipelines through Canada itself. And that will require Canadians to play a larger role in deciding whether a massive expansion of tar sands development is prudent. At the very least, saying no to the Keystone XL will slow down plans to triple tar sands production from just under two million barrels a day now to six million barrels a day by 2030.
 
excerpt:
It is these long-term consequences that Mr. Obama should focus on. Mainstream scientists are virtually unanimous in stating that the one sure way to avert the worst consequences of climate change is to decarbonize the world economy by finding cleaner sources of energy while leaving more fossil fuels in the ground. Given its carbon content, tar sands oil should be among the first fossil fuels we decide to leave alone.

excerpt:
In itself, the Keystone pipeline will not push the world into a climate apocalypse. But it will continue to fuel our appetite for oil and add to the carbon load in the atmosphere. There is no need to accept it.

[Boom Boom]

On P&P tonight:

The Republican governor of Nebraska is tabling a bill to take away the decision-making of Keystone XL  from Obama. He's doing this because he believes Obama is stalling on making a decision because whatever decision he makes will upset his support base from unions or environmentalists. Thus, he's going to have Congress make the decision for Obama instead, and the only hurdle now will be the Senate - and the governor believes he has at least 60 votes there in support of XL.
 
 

[greenvie]

On P&P tonight:

The Republican governor of Nebraska is tabling a bill to take away the decision-making of Keystone XL  from Obama. He's doing this because he believes Obama is stalling on making a decision because whatever decision he makes will upset his support base from unions or environmentalists. Thus, he's going to have Congress make the decision for Obama instead, and the only hurdle now will be the Senate - and the governor believes he has at least 60 votes there in support of XL.

I saw that smug so-and-so tonight. Even Evan Solomon found him impossible to converse with, but ES's avowed promise to be "impartial" as always prevented him from doing a decent interview. Canadian journalists are too nice by far. And this jerk took advantage of that.

[Boom Boom]

I get really, really depressed when I see the kind of smugness that the Republican showed on P&P tonight. He thinks it's almost a slam dunk that Keystone will be approved. Joe Oliver was just as smug - he was on earlier. I really can't stand Oliver to any degree whatsoever.

[Boom Boom]

Senators fight to take control of Keystone decision as key Democrat casts doubt on pipeline’s value
 
excerpt:
 
A bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate on Thursday would give Congress the power to approve TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline project to link Canada’s oil sands with refineries and ports in Texas.
   
The measure, unveiled by John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican, and Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, would take approval of the more than 800,000-barrels-per-day pipeline out of the hands of the Obama administration.
 
excerpt:

Obama ruled in early 2012 the administration needed more time to evaluate a revised route through Nebraska submitted by TransCanada to avoid sensitive ecological areas.
 
Keystone backers in Congress pushed to override Obama’s call and approve the line themselves, but a vote last year in the Senate fell four votes short of passage.
 
Hoeven said this time the bill should pass because the previous vote was held before Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman approved TransCanada’s revised path of the pipeline. Hoeven also said he believed he has enough votes to overturn an Obama veto should it reach that point.
 
“I think so because we have knocked down all of the excuses for not doing it … and it’s something the American people want,” Hoeven said.