Obama pushing to start Keystone XL pipeline construction as soon as possible

by | Mar 21, 2012 | Mining & Drilling

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.

The approval, which would infuriate environmental groups, could allow construction on that portion to begin before November’s presidential elections instead of next year.

Obama’s tour starts with a visit to the country’s biggest operating solar farm in Boulder City, Nevada. The White House said in a statement: “The president will highlight his administration’s focus on diversifying our energy portfolio, including expanding renewable energy from sources like wind and solar, which thanks in part to investments made by this administration is set to double in the president’s first term.”

But the visit seemed a detour on a trip apparently solidly focused on fossil fuels and the price of gas at the pump.

Obama has been under nonstop attack from Republicans for rising petrol prices, which now stand at well over $4 (£2.50) for a US gallon in some parts of the country, and for his decision in January to halt the pipeline because of a section running through an ecologically sensitive part of Nebraska.

On the campaign trail, Newt Gingrich has said he would cut gas prices to $2.50 if he is elected president, and Mitt Romney has taken to demanding Obama sack his energy secretary, Steven Chu, the interior secretary, Ken Salazar, and his Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Lisa Jackson. Gingrich calls the three the “gas hike trio”.

But Obama’s forthcoming speech at a pipe yard owned by TransCanada, the Canadian company behind the project to pump crude from the tar sands of Alberta, was seen as a strong signal that the pipeline – at least, the portion running from Cushing to Port Arthur, Texas – is back on track.

The White House said last month it would allow the southern portion, which requires no State Department approval, to go ahead. It was not immediately clear how Obama would push the process along further.

TransCanada has said it will go ahead with the Cushing-Port Arthur segment of the pipeline as soon it gets the go-ahead from the army corps of engineers.

The White House said in a statement Obama’s visiting Cushing was intended to show his commitment to “improving and supporting the infrastructure that helps us leverage our domestic resources, while also ensuring these projects are developed in a safe and responsible way”.

It continued: “This includes a pipeline that will transport oil from Cushing to the Gulf of Mexico, which will help address the bottleneck of oil that has resulted in large part from increased domestic oil production in the midwest.”

Fast-tracking a portion of the pipeline would be a huge disappointment for a broad coalition of activists who have campaigned against the project, framing it as a test of Obama’s green credentials.

Friends of the Earth accused Obama of trying to dupe his environmental supporters by initially rejecting the pipeline, and then turning around to expedite the project. “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,” the group said. “It would seem so.”

But Obama has come under even greater pressure from Republicans and some Democrats to approve the pipeline, and lower gas prices.

The schedule for the two-day energy roadshow exhibits those competing pressures. From his first stop at the solar facility in Nevada, which produces enough power for 17,000 homes, Obama is due to head to the oil and gas fields of New Mexico.

While there, he is expected to talk up the expansion of domestic oil and gas production during his time at the White House. In recent days, administration officials have been touting the expansion of domestic oil and gas production over the last few years. Much of that expansion is due to fracking, in another disappointment for environmental groups.

After his stop in Oklahoma, Obama is expected to end his trip with a speech on conservation at Ohio State University in Columbus.

From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/21/obama-oil-fuel-pipeline

BC First Nations standing firm against Enbridge pipeline threat

BC First Nations standing firm against Enbridge pipeline threat

by | Mar 15, 2012 | ACTION, Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying, Mining & Drilling

By Shawn McCarthy / The Globe and Mail

Ottawa is headed for a legal showdown with British Columbia first nations if it insists on proceeding with the Northern Gateway pipeline, the leader of the Yinka Dene Alliance warns.

Chief Jackie Thomas, of the Saik’uz First Nation, was part of a delegation in Ottawa Tuesday meeting with opposition members of Parliament to build support for their anti-pipeline stand. She said her group will pursue a legal challenge if Ottawa approves the pipeline over their objections.

Along with other first-nation communities, the Dene alliance has taken a firm stand against Enbridge Inc.’s plan to build a crude oil pipeline across their land to transport oil-sands bitumen to the B.C. coast for export to Asia.

“We will defend our rights, no matter what bully tactics the federal government throws at us,” she said. “Our decision has been made: Enbridge will never be allowed in our lands.”

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has lashed out at opponents to the Gateway pipeline, saying they are undermining the country’s national interest and oppose all resource development.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made it a key priority of his government to diversify oil and natural gas exports beyond the traditional U.S. market to target growing Asian markets.

Ms. Thomas said the Saik’uz community is not anti-development. It is working with other mining, forestry and energy companies on projects. It is partnering with Apache Corp., a U.S. oil company, on a pipeline to feed a liquefied natural gas plant in Kitimat, which would also be aimed at exporting energy to Asia.

But the community feels an oil pipeline would be far more risky, and far more disruptive to the salmon fisheries and other species.

“They can’t attempt to offset the water needs of my community, the salmon that goes in the water, and the animals and plants on the land that are in jeopardy,” Ms. Thomas said.

Read more from The Globe and Mail:

Photo by Jake Hills on Unsplash

Tar sands project could emit up to 47.3 million tons of carbon by devastating peatlands

by | Mar 12, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Climate Change, Mining & Drilling

By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay

Environmentalists have targeted the oil-producing tar sands in Canada in part because its crude comes with heftier carbon emissions than conventional sources. Now, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has found an additional source of carbon that has been unaccounted for: peatlands. Mining the oil in the tar sands, dubbed “oil sands” by the industry, will require the wholesale destruction of nearly 30,000 hectares of peatlands, emitting between 11.4 and 47.3 million metric tons of additional carbon.

Once destroyed peatlands will not return note the researchers: “Constraints imposed by the postmining landscape and the sensitivity of peatland vegetation prevent the restoration of peatlands that dominated the premining landscape.” Instead drained peatlands will be turned into upland forests, which will store considerably less carbon.

“Claims by industry that they will ‘return the land we use—including reclaiming tailings ponds—to a sustainable landsca that is equal to or better than how we found it’ and that it ‘will be replanted with the same trees and plants and formed into habitat for the same species’ are clearly greenwashing,” the researchers write.

Already carbon emissions from the tar sands produce significantly more carbon than conventional sources with various research showing around 20 percent higher than conventional oil to three times higher. However, such estimates have not included the loss of carbon due to peatland destruction, which the researchers estimate will be equal in total to “seven years worth of carbon emissions by mining and upgrading (at 2010 levels).”

A recent study has found that if the entirety of the tar sands were exploited it would raise global temperatures 0.64 degrees Fahrenheit (0.36 degrees Celsius). This represents around 45 percent of how much the world has warmed since the Industrial Revolution.

“Oil sands mining is frequently criticized as a carbon-intensive means of acquiring oil. Its contribution to the global carbon imbalance has provoked numerous calls to slow oil sands development, including, most recently, a letter to Canada’s prime minister signed by eight Nobel Peace Laureates,” the authors write.

Criticism of the tar sands does not rest on carbon emissions alone. The tar sands has resulted in the destruction of pristine environments, consumes massive amounts of freshwater, and is allegedly linked to high cancer rates in nearby communities. The mines themselves have been dubbed the world’s largest industrial project.

Still the Canadian government, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has relentlessly pursued the expansion of the mines and is now pushing controversial pipelines to bring tar sands oil to a global market either south through the U.S. (the Keystone XL Pipeline) or west to the coast of British Colombia. The government argues exploiting the full-scale of the tar sands is essential to the Canadian economy.

Oil pipeline trucks stopped by Oglala Lakota people at Pine Ridge Reservation

Oil pipeline trucks stopped by Oglala Lakota people at Pine Ridge Reservation

by | Mar 7, 2012 | Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation

By Chase Iron Eyes / Last Read Indians

March 5th, 2012, everyone had their ear to the new moccasin telegraph. Social networks, telephones, and word of mouth networks were abuzz with reports of Oglala Lakota Nationals preventing oil pipeline materials, destined for Canadian Tar sands and/or Keystone XL infrastructure locales or some unknown destination, from being transported across the Pine Ridge Reservation’s Treaty territory. Information travelled to Debra and Alex White Plume (Owe Aku, Inc. “Bring Back the Way) and Olowan Martinez that semi-trucks loaded with enormous oil pipeline components were set to cross Oglala territory sometime during the afternoon on March 5th, 2012; “We did not know where the equipment was going, but we knew that these trucks were too huge, too heavy, and too dangerous to pass our roads. We thought the equipment may be going to the Tarsands oil mine, or other oil mines in Canada,” Debra White Plume explained.

A call went out via digital media and other sources for all able bodied and willing participants to mobilize and report to Wanblee, South Dakota, for an impromptu gathering of scores of activists ready to block the road with their bodies to prevent semi-trucks and pipeline components from crossing Oglala Territory. Within minutes the confrontation happened as several State and Tribal police officers and other officials responded to the tense scene. Oglala Tribal police arrived immediately with one Sergeant telling the road-blockers that the South Dakota Highway Patrol was parked a few miles down the road at the border between Oglala Country and the State of South Dakota but that the SD Highway Patrol would not proceed onto the reservation. Notably, this Sergeant also advised those present that the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) was en route to the reservation in two vans from Rapid City, SD. However, at the conclusion of the day there were no signs of such FBI presence.

The Texas semi-trucks, transporting 1.25 Million-dollar “Treater Vessels” used in oil, gas and element separation, were stopped in their tracks as they approached the human roadblock. The human roadblock that featured two Lakota grandmothers: Renabelle Bad Cob Standing Bear (in her wheelchair) and Marie Randal (in her 90s). The drivers were questioned by those forming the blockade as to why they were crossing Oglala lands. One of the drivers responded that they did not know they were crossing Indian land, only that they were following company directives regarding their assigned routes and that their Canadian Corporation had received this particular route information as a result of a partnership with the State of South Dakota, whose elected officials have always supported the Keystone XL pipeline. This information prompted Tom Poor Bear (Vice President of the Oglala Lakota Nation) to phone South Dakota State officials in Pierre, SD, inquiring as to the nature and origin of the route of the stopped truckers. South Dakota affirmed to Oglala Vice President Tom Poor Bear that indeed the State was involved with planning such route, ostensibly without consulting the Oglala Lakota Nation. The heavy-hauling trucks were allegedly cutting through Oglala country in attempts to avoid a $50,000.00 per-truck-fee to pass through using State of South Dakota roadways.

Read more from Last Real Indians

Obama administration applauds TransCanada decision to start constructing section of Keystone XL

by | Feb 28, 2012 | Mining & Drilling

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.”

The company’s decision, Carney said, “highlights a little-known fact — certainly, you wouldn’t hear it from some of our critics — that we approve, pipelines are approved and built in this country all the time.”

Obama’s decision last month to reject the full 1,661-mile Keystone XL pipeline from Canada’s tar sands has become a focal point of Republican efforts to portray him as responsible for the recent spike in gasoline prices, and they fault him for blocking a project they say would create jobs and reduce America’s dependence on oil imports from unstable foreign sources.

The Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner of Ohio, poked fun Monday at the White House salute of TransCanada’s decision.

“The president is so far on the wrong side of the American people that he’s now praising the company’s decision to start going around him,” Boehner said in a statement to ABC News.

A recent national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press suggests that Obama’s Keystone decision could become a political liability. Though 37 percent of those surveyed said they’d not heard of the pipeline, 66 percent of those who had heard of it said the government should approve it, while just 23 percent opposed it.

In fact, energy experts say that the Keystone XL pipeline wouldn’t do much to lower gasoline prices. The recent price spike stems largely from speculators bidding up prices at a time of growing fear of future oil-supply disruptions if a war with Iran develops over its nuclear program.

TransCanada will be the second pipeline moving oil from Cushing to the Gulf Coast. The other is already built and owned by Enbridge Inc. The two pipelines will reduce the glut of oil in the Midwest “and in doing so will raise the price of oil in Cushing and the Midwest and will lower the price very slightly in the rest of the world,” said Severin Borenstein, a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

Prices in the Midwest could go up between 10 and 30 cents a gallon, ending the region’s cheaper gasoline compared to other areas, he said. If the full pipeline is constructed, the impact on world oil prices would “never really be noticed” because it would be so small, a few cents or less per gallon, that it would be “lost in the noise of other changes.”

TransCanada also told the State Department on Monday that it plans to submit a new application for the rejected segment of the pipeline, and Carney said the president’s rejection last month “in no way prejudged future applications.”

The White House contends that House Republicans forced Obama to reject the earlier cross-border application by not giving it enough time to review the project.

Republicans accuse Obama of putting off the decision until after the 2012 elections so as not to upset environmentalists.

Environmental groups made the pipeline a test of Obama’s will to move the country off fossil fuels and to slow climate change. They also say the pipeline would put the Ogalalla Aquifer, streams, farms and wildlife habitat at greater risk of oil spills.

Kim Huynh of Friends of the Earth said in a statement Monday that the pipeline would be an “environmental disaster” and called the administration’s welcome of TransCanada’s plan “an alarming about-face.”

“The administration must stop trying to have it both ways,” Huynh said. “President Obama cannot expect to protect the climate and to put the country on a path toward 21st century clean energy while simultaneously shilling for one of the dirtiest industries on Earth.”

From TruthOut: http://www.truth-out.org/white-house-applauds-decision-build-part-keystone-xl-pipeline/1330439983