Forum Post: Congress Speeds the XL
Posted 10 years ago on May 22, 2013, 11:33 p.m. EST by shoozTroll
(17632)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Not being partisan here, just posting what happened.
"By a 241-175 vote, the House of Representatives passed the largely symbolic measure to end regulatory delays on the Keystone XL Pipeline, a project which House Speaker John Boehner noted is shown in polls to have the support of most Americans."
They didn't poll me.
How about you?
To emulate a rather prominent politician, I was for Keystone XL until I was against it.
Keystone XL will provide the most efficient way of transporting oil so it would reduce greenhouse gas emission relative to other means of transportation. However, its existence will encourage large-scale exploitation of the Canadian bitumen which requires a great amount of natural gas to provide the heat for the processing of the bitumen in the sub-arctic climate and for the hot liquid to flow through the pipeline. That will basically blow the greenhouse gas emission savings right out of the water. It was the reason why Canada had decided to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol, anticipating that it would bust its own greenhouse gas emission commitment.
The high-pressure hot sludge of steam, cheap hydrocarbons, and processed bitumen will corrode the pipeline at elevated rates -- industry people use heat for accelerated failure testing of industrial components. If the sludge escapes, it will likely form hydrocarbon remains that will be virtually indestructible -- after all we pave our roads with asphalt (a cheap and heavy hydrocarbon) for durability, don't we? I do not like the prospect of having my land or water source 'paved' over by a leak of very dirty heavy hydrocarbons (not to mention the toxic chemicals).
Besides, the crude will flow to the Gulf of Mexico coast for refining and for export so its impact on U.S. gas prices will be close to zero (except for the Mid-West whose gas prices will be increased due to the disappearance of the land-locked oil glut). The jobs aspect in the short term during construction phase will be good for blue collar jobs but over the long term the pipeline will have very few long-term jobs (because it will be so efficient) and cut into employment in the green-energy sectors which are in general higher paying and better for our world.
I just do not see how the U.S. would not come out looking like a fool in the long term if the Keystone XL pipeline extension were built.
Oh, Canada, I admire you as a great and most valuable neighbor but please do not fall prey to those who bow to the god of money. I heard that Canadians were proud that Canada was NOT like the U.S. (justifiably so) but Keystone XL would certainly make Canada far more like the U.S. That would be most unfortunate.
Part of the aim is to reduce supply in the midwest so they can raise prices there by around $0.30 a gallon.
That's a hell of a lot of profit, on how many cars in that area?
Many Millions.
I've posted often about bitumin issues in Canada, they also want run a pipe all the way to Montreal, much of it through old pipes that were never designed for bitumin.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/krystalline-kraus/2013/05/bitumen-canadas-national-disaster-day-action-on-tuesday-may
That will siphon off quite a bit of gas money from our Mid-Westerners to the shareholders of TransCanada et al.
As some have already divulged, the U.S. Congress has members who are shareholders -- no surprise there, after all, we already know how truly wealthy members of the U.S. Congress are and how anyone who is NOT wealthy will just become wealthy rather miraculously if they make it to the U.S. Congress. Yes, you can truly become made there!
It will be really sad if Canada is to turn into another plutocracy like the rather plainly cursed U.S. And mind you, Pluto is none other than the Roman god of the underworld and aptly the U.S. has a lot of plutonium. Yes, indeed, the U.S. has the bombs, the money, the deaths, and the governing cracies.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/brent-patterson/2013/05/harper-spins-canadian-mining-peru
They already are.
I thought that the U.S. was alone in having the 'little tail' wagging the 'Big Red Dog'. I was apparently mistaken. There are 'little tails' wagging in other places aside from the U.S. What a world we live in, ruled by so many 'little tails' in all kinds of places!
There's abandoned Canadian mines all over the US.
Like good little corporate citizens the CEOs take all the profit, and when the mine dries up they've already taken theirs, so they just bankrupt it and leave the mess for someone else to clean up.
They then re-incorporate 50/100 miles away and do the same thing all over again.
Ain't capitalism grand.............:)
Oh! Now I see what those peculiar hills and colored waters were all about -- they were the excreta of Capitalism, monuments to bygone minings. Was that really Colorado's namesake?
'For purple mountains majesty', the defunct corporations built the peculiar molehills and poisoned waters for the ant people and their children in the U.S. What monuments they are to plutocracy!
They are probably present worldwide.
In the rest of the noise, the World has forgotten.
http://politicalgates.blogspot.com/2011/12/citigroup-plutonomy-memos-two-bombshell.html
Anyone who has ever tried to wipe anything from the internet knows how ridiculous a notion that has been. If Citi has the hubris to do that, more power to it!
What will happen is that Citi will transfer its money to the law firm representing it but the plutonomy memos will still be available worldwide. If we enlist the help of China which plays this game of intellectual properties very well, we can say good luck to Citi to find these memos behind the Great Wall of China.
That hubris has proven effective, but I thought I'd remind people of their reality.
Of how they look at us.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/wall-street-doesnt-just-run-the-show-they-write-th/
I agree that Citi has hubris, not only trying to wipe out information already on the internet but also meddling in exempting derivatives from the Dodd-Frank re-regulation effort which has already turned into somewhat of a farce.
My take is that the derivatives mess that had precipitated the financial melt-down is still very much with us. There are still hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of derivatives out there. Near the height of the financial melt-down, Citi stock was trading like a yo-yo, depending on the federal reserve's intervention and the perception of whether that would happen. Citi most likely still has huge amount of these derivatives stuffed full to its gills. In that context, it is very understandable why derivatives should be exempted from regulation and be senior to depositor's 'assets'.
If people do not understand what being 'senior' means, they deserve to have their deposits 'bailed in' (respecting the people's wish to have no more 'bail-outs') to fill the abyss of the derivatives mess.
Canadian-style Bail-In
"Canada’s large banks are a source of strength for the Canadian economy. Our large banks have become increasingly successful in international markets, creating jobs at home."
I'd be curious to know, what jobs those banks "created"?
More tellers?
Canada's banks by and large were not causing nor affected significantly by the financial meltdown due to Canada's more conservative banking regulations (accolades to the good sense of the Canadians). For example, TD Bank (Toronto-Dominion Bank) made inroads into the U.S. financial market.
As for what jobs those banks "created," there are tellers, managers, security personnel, ATM machine servicing, etc. for the bank branches. These are mostly jobs in the U.S. where the U.S. customers live. I doubt very much that there were many jobs created in Canada.
I know that because the U.S. was in a similar position with its successful market penetrations of Europe and Asia. Although some U.S. brands become wildly successful overseas, there were not many jobs created at home at all.
Still it is good to see TD Bank eat the cake of the likes of Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Citi because these banks were culpable for the financial meltdown. Citi deserves extra spanking for messing with our legislative and financial re-regulation efforts. Damn those (largely Republican) politicians in bed with Citi.
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Canada is America's left nut.
Wholly moldy guacamole! Even Canada may be infested by those greedy bastards. I can see why the likes of TransCanada not only want to shove Keystone XL through the U.S., they are well on their way to shove it through North America to become TransAmerica. I wonder if shish kebab is being made and will be roasted soon.
I coulda stopped XL?....actually I was polled by someone, for like 15 minutes on XL, and Obama.
a lot of the questions seemed to be geared towards "choose whats best for jobs" or "it has been proven to be not harmful to the environment"
I should have really been more outspoken than I was, and believe me I was very outspoken....there was a part on climate change, or maybe that was just my own thoughts... instead of XL would be way bad, way way way way way way way way bad for usa
I should of gone Samuel Jackson off, ok next telemarketer beware.
they were like oh it may bring down gas prices
This was like 2-3 weeks ago on my land line (my only line)
and some of the questions were slightly anti-obama, probably ones that
implied he hadn't helped economy.
the dude was like "feels like we've been talking for a long long time" it was very long. he was probably happy someone knew what was XL
I really missed the this site today...thought I was getting hacked or something, almost went to the library, ....Thanks BradB
I haven't received a phone poll since before the election and those were all from conse(R)vative outfits. One of them even hung up on me.
I guess Michigan is too far from the pipeline for them to bother, or maybe they were just checking on how well the PR machine was working were you are.
they don't poll anyone
They fake it?
This is a quote from Boehner.
That's not a traditional Copper Tone tan.
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I'm sure they must have used the ever so reliable, ( for saying what a certain faction wants to hear ) Rasmusson polling service.
I all know is, no one asked me.
They could have saved some money though and just asked FLAKESnews...................:)
But they prefer to waste money.
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Won't it be fun when a tornado tears it to little pieces?
Then they can jack up the cost of gas to well over $4.
BTW
We are pumping more out the ground that ever before.
Our gasoline reserves are higher than they've been in over 30 years, and we're still around $4 now.
How much was a gallon back in the 80s?
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"Have we reached peak oil?"
Yes, we have already reached the plateauing phase of peak oil. That is why we urgently need to find a way out of the bad effects of descending the other side of the peak.
"Peak oil" is a term they use to keep prices artificially high.
A kind of scare tactic.
As far as the "big pool" is concerned, is it were true, they wouldn't be using the XL to raise prices in the midwest.
these oil will be owned privately
When and where in North America is it otherwise?
so little traffic here today.
looking forward to Sat.
here's some old relevant music from Rush, just listen to the priests.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWLxT5OFcWg
damn link don't work, well it really wasn't important
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Meanwhile on the northern end.
http://grist.org/news/canadas-government-is-spending-millions-to-get-you-to-like-the-keystone-pipeline/
If they would spend that money to do the correct thing, would we still be in these dire straits?