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Obama Now Scrambles To Approve Transcanada Pipeline... Or At Least Half Of It; Environmentalists Furious
What a difference two months of record high gas prices make. After Obama unceremoniously killed the Keystone XL pipeline proposal in January, and has since seen his popularity rating slide in inverse proportion to the surge in gas prices, which as noted yesterday have now passed $4 (still quite a bit better than Europe's $9.81 average/gallon), he is now actively seeking to fast-track its approval. Or at least half of it. Per Reuters: "President Barack Obama will issue a memo on Thursday directing federal agencies to prioritize permitting of TransCanada's southern leg of the Keystone oil pipeline, a senior White House official said on Wednesday. With his Republican opponents hammering away at the president over high gasoline prices, Obama will visit Cushing, Oklahoma on Thursday to promote his energy policies, which include support for the southern leg of the pipeline."
It gets funnier:
But TransCanada has not yet applied to build the southern leg, so it remains uncertain exactly which agencies would need to grant permits. Fish and Wildlife, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers are some that would almost certainly would have to sign off.
TransCanada will also need permits from Oklahoma and Texas which could slow the process.
The memo "directs federal agencies to name the Cushing pipeline as a top priority of the new executive orders' expedited permitting process," the official told reporters in a conference call. The memo will also push the agencies to prioritize other oil pipelines that would relieve bottlenecks getting petroleum to market
So let's get this straight: Obama is seeking to fast-track an "application" which has not "applied", and even if he does approve it, at least three other agencies' palms will have to be greased. In the meantime, nobody knows what happens with the other half.
In the meantime, while nothing at all is certain to get done for years to alleviate the Cushing Congestion, the environmentalist have finally realized they too were just Corzined:
Environmentalists are crestfallen. They've mounted a massive campaign against Keystone XL, assailing the plan to transport millions of barrels a week of bitumen from the Alberta oilsands — an energy source they decry as "dirty oil" — through six U.S. states to Texas refineries.
"The administration cannot purport to protect the climate while simultaneously bending over backward to allow a pipeline to the continent's biggest carbon bomb," Kim Huynh of Friends of the Earth said in a statement.
Huynh wondered if environmentalists have been snookered.
"Was the president's initial rejection of the Keystone XL simply a farce to temporarily appease the environmental voters who dared to hold him to his own promises about real leadership on the climate and shifting to 21st-century clean energy solutions? It would seem so."
Bill McKibben, who spearheaded several White House anti-pipeline protests last summer, noted that some had suggested Obama rejected
Keystone XL for purely political purposes.
Then again this is all in a day's work for the man who has just succeeded in bringing YTD debt issuance to a record $122 billion over net tax refunds as of today.
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USA: The Foxconn of Oil
Question: where does the majority of refined hydrocarbons in the US get refined?
Answer: the refineries on the Gulf Coast. Surely a Zero Hedge reader is not so ignorant as to think a significant increase in supply has no affect on price? Perhaps you are so ignorant as to think a major new supply would be routed to an area that is already maxed out on refining capacity?
Question: What environmental risk?
Answer: The reduced environmental risk that comes from pipeline transported oil versus tanker transported oil. Actually there is a net REDUCTION in environmental risk.
Why the opposition by environmentalists? Because they hate the oilsands. And because they are ignorant enough to believe that they can affect the production and sale in another country of one of the most liquid commodities on the planet by refusing to buy it. So they cut off their nose (a certain supply source from a friendly, politically secure, major trading partner) in order to spite their face (send that money to Venezuela/Saudi Arabia/Iran etc. - they don't trade any more than absolutely necessary with us and they are happy to spend the money on hatred of various types.)
And because the 'environmentalists' are just cut-outs for the resource scarcity cartel.
Can you think of a better way to maintain orderly control on distribution and discovery short of chaotic control via a war in the ME?
Is Solyndra building this pipeline ?
This portion from OK to TX does not cross an international border. TransCanada doesn't need Obama's or the State Departments approval for Jack Shit! WAKE UP!
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Obama has snookered everybody who support him for notable reasons... He is makes Cheney a blood brother far as I can tell....
I don't have the time to get y'all the links,but they have been building this section in Texas for the last few months.saw it somewhere,maybe Alex Jones,a few landowners trying to go to court,like that will stop bidness in Tx.even got the enviromentalist and the tea partiers on the same side,some coalition there.greenies and Paultards together,that may be the point where the constitution lies.
Keystone says that htey don't need approval,using eminent domain like a bitch tho.I think this portion is just to replace smaller pipeline,but they get to run it where they want,not along other lines.
How can you approve a pipeline {upper section} when the company doesn't know what route it will take ?
This pipeline is to get oil out of the US,not to help you amerikans.FIGURE IT OUT!!! The oil goes to Port Author to be refined and exported,and those refineries are in a FREE ENTERPRISE ZONE!!! Tax free for the multinationals ya know.we get the pollution,and no taxes from the profit.
it is like when they spayed corexit all over the gulf to hide the oil.a chemical England and most EU countries prohibit.how can we get all of the pollution and no benefits from this?it could only happen in the US and other THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES!
I hear a lot of you bitch about the US,and I've decided it's time is up.I don't have long here,but I'm telling my kids to get the hell out while they can
We are going to use all the oil on the planet and burn it at some point... it is the best energy source there ever will be... and we will never find it anywhere else as some biomass waste on another planet
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take technology as far as it can go with as much collaberation as possible maximizing our global capasity to its limits in order to solve the problem of life as we know it
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while we still can... and not be 'chinsey' with it
Wait a minute....enviromentalists think they were played.....that Obama was just placating them for their votes.....SHOCKING.
Odd that in 2009 Obama approved the Alberta Clipper, a pipeline that can carry up to 800,000 barrels daily, more volume than Keystone.The Clipper was a smarter project because the environmental footprint of the route was shorter and, to boot, it was destined for refineries in a Democratic stronghold, Chicago. Keystone traversed the Lower 48 and farmland to get to Texas refineries.
Here is the deal, there is a transportation bottle neck right now. Canadian crude has been discounted at times, over the past 10 weeks, $30 to WTI. So the clever Canadian producers have started bypassing WTI pricing and are shipping by railcar straight to the Gulf Coast. They get Brent price for it that way. So instead of getting $106 for WTI they are getting $125 Brent per barrel. Yes it costs them about $20 per barrel, but they still up $25 over Canadian pricing.
So, the dirty oil sands are still making it into the US. As is the cleaner oil from the Bakken in Saskatchewan. And the evil capitalist oil producers are making money.
Unless Yanks can get rid of their oil addiction (and what is left of their economy) they can either depend on Canada for some of their oil, or get deeper in bed with the mid-east or other geopolitical hot spots (nigeria etc.).
well, the railroads must love the business @ $20/bbl US? L0L!!!
subidize that rolling stock! whee!
now, after reading you, i look at the "map" and see that it doesn't seem to have the great lakes! and the water port of chicago!
canadian cartography? Hahaha! we made better maps than that in 4th grade, as i'm sure you did, also. chicago isn't even on the map, and if it were, it would be land-locked?
hey, thanks!
this is one strange-looking map; i'm gonna save it to my hard drive as "reutersObamaNationzForCushingBullshit"; it is like the hall of mirrors and very wide, proportionately making N-S distances seem shorter than E-W distances by distortion
here is a more standard projection of the same relative area from the nat'lWeather HPC Surface Analysis see the difference in how the map is projected? what the hell is going on here?
Yes, like a pipeline can be build in a day... fast enough to knock prices down before the election...
Or at least seem like he's trying to do something.
Why do I feel like there is an albatross around my neck?
The computers all you brainiacs are using to post this shit are made using what??? The CDs you stick in the computers are made using what?
The oil coming from Canada will either be refined by the USA, with strict regulations on emissions, or by China with the loosest.
You are the dumbest fuckers on the planet.
or we could just recycle the garbage in landfills to extract oil, natural gas & metals. Even the carbon has a use: it sells for more than the price of gold per weight because of the price of toner.
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/apr/anything-oil
Our ManChild POTUS has lost the plot. And Soros with his Petrobras stake is having a W inning T he F uture moment:)
The pipeline connecting Cushing to an international port will raise the WTI price to approximate the Brent price. Good job President Osama!