Keystone-Xl

By ENews Park Forest The Army Corps of Engineers has confirmed that Canadian oil firm TransCanada has submitted applications to Corps district offices in Tulsa, Galveston, and Ft. Worth for a Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP 12) to build the southern leg of the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma through Texas to the Gulf Coast. TransCanada has pursued a NWP 12 to further evade a thorough, science-based review of its pipeline’s likely impacts. Its recent application submission triggers a 45-day deadline by which the Corps must approve or deny the permits. The Corps can approve or reject the permits before the 45 days are over but if the agency does not respond within the 45 days, the permits are automatically approved by default, allowing TransCanada to proceed with construction. ...

By Rocky Kistner / Natural Resources Defense Council In the Dakotas, members of the proud Lakota Nation rose in protest this week to join a 48-hour hunger strike in opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline—and all tar sands pipelines—they say will destroy precious water resources and ancestral lands in the U.S and in Canada. On Sunday, dozens of hunger strikers and supporters marched at a rally against tar sands oil mining operations and pipelines in Eagle Butte, S.D., an impoverished community on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, close to TransCanada’s 1,700 mile proposed Keystone XL pipeline route to refineries in the Gulf. ...

By Indigenous Environmental Network Native Americans gathering in Cushing, OK today to protest President Obama’s words of praise for the Keystone XL pipeline were forced by local authorities to hold their event in a cage erected in Memorial Park. The protestors were stunned that their community, so long mistreated, would be insulted in such an open manner instead of being given the same freedom of speech expected by all Americans simply for taking a stance consistent with their values. ...

By Suzanne Goldenberg / The Guardian Barack Obama is expected to speed up approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline on Thursday after taking to the road with what the White House is billing as an “all of the above” energy tour. Obama’s planned visit to the oil hub of Cushing, Oklahoma, on day two of the energy tour has raised expectations he will speed up approval of the southern US-only segment of the pipeline, running from the town to Port Arthur, Texas. ...

By Richard Simon and Christi Parsons / Los Angeles Times With gas prices becoming a high-octane campaign issue, the Democratic-led Senate beat back a Republican effort to advance the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline project. Thursday’s vote to attach the project to a must-pass transportation bill failed 56 to 42, with 11 Democrats joining Republicans to support the measure. Sixty votes were needed for passage. President Obama had called senators to urge a no vote. ...

From Mother Jones The debate over the Keystone XL pipeline has moved from the White House to a farm in Texas. Third-generation farmer Julia Trigg Crawford is engaged in a court battle over whether TransCanada, the company that wants to build the massive pipeline from Canada to Texas, has a right to declare eminent domain on a portion of her family’s farm. Earlier this week, TransCanada announced that it intends to move forward with the portion of the Keystone XL pipeline that extends from Oklahoma down to Texas. This 485-mile-long portion of the pipeline doesn’t cross international borders, which means it won’t need approval from the State Department or President Obama. But it does cross right through Red’Arc Farm, which Crawford and her family own. ...

By Lesley Clark and Renee Schoof / McClatchy With President Barack Obama facing fire from Republicans over the rising cost of gasoline, the White House moved quickly Monday to trumpet a Canadian company’s decision to build a section of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Cushing, Okla., to Houston after Obama blocked a longer path last month. Press Secretary Jay Carney hailed TransCanada’s announcement and used it to counter Republican criticism that the administration has stifled oil and gas production. He said that the Oklahoma to Texas section of the pipeline would “help address the bottleneck of oil in Cushing that has resulted in large part from increased domestic oil production, currently at an eight-year high.” ...

By Agence France-Presse TransCanada Corp announced Monday it would go ahead with construction of part of its Keystone XL oil pipeline that does not require US presidential approval, a stretch from the state of Oklahoma to the US Gulf Coast. The company also said it will resubmit its proposal for the entirety of the pipeline from Canada that was rejected last month by US President Barack Obama, a move that sparked an election-year row over energy policy and the environment. ...

By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times The prime minister is talking about being “held hostage” by U.S. interests. Radio ads blare, “Stand up to this foreign bully.” A Twitter account tells of a “secret plan to target Canada: exposed!” Could this be Canada? The cheerful northern neighbor: supplier of troops to unpleasant U.S.-led foreign conflicts, reliable trade partner, ally in holding terrorism back from North America’s shores, not to mention the No. 1 supplier of America’s oil? ...