Calling All Keystone (XL) Cops! The Pipeline Hits More Snags

[The Straight Story]

Three weeks back, when we last checked in on the lively, sometimes absurd fight over the Keystone XL pipeline, opponents of the project had just raised alarm about undisclosed conflicts of interest between ERM (ERM:LN), a U.K.-based company the U.S. State Department has relied on to assess the potential environmental impact of the proposed line, and TransCanada (TRP), the company that wants to build it. Previous conflict of interest allegations about the Keystone XL had led to congressional complaints and an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General. The new disclosures raised the prospect that the project might be further delayed by a new ethics inquiry.

Since then the saga has featured still more twists, including:

• President Obama chuckling (per the New York Times) as he low-balled the number of construction jobs the pipeline might create;

• revelations that a dozen or more state and federal Republican lawmakers apparently sent letters endorsing the pipeline that had been written by fossil fuel lobbyists;

• TransCanada’s announcement of a longer, 1,864-mile, $12 billion pipeline that, if completed, would certainly make good on the company’s name, and make the Keystone XL look more like the Keystone XS; and,

• Claims by the Washington-based Checks and Balances Project that a new U.S. government special investigation is underway over ERM.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-02/calling-all-keystone-xl-cops-the-pipeline-hits-more-snags

[cantbeserious]

1. Oligarchs Raping And Pillaging The Earth - All Aided And Abetted By Paid Politicians And Henchmen

eom

[Auntie Bush]

2. Oligarchs named Koch.

[rhett o rick]

3. Arent they actually building it as we speak? nm

[The Straight Story]

4. Parts of it, yes

But there is a difference on what the feds approve and states:

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/energy/20130619-in-east-texas-safety-concerns-over-keystone-pipeline.ece

On Wednesday, the mayors of three small towns along the pipeline route asked federal regulators to investigate why work crews were pulling up and replacing sections of the still-uncompleted Keystone.

“The extent of the ongoing excavation now in our region begs the question of the integrity and safety of this new pipeline,” Reklaw Mayor Harland Crawford wrote in a letter to the U.S. Pipeline Hazardous Material Safety Administration.

Reklaw’s mayor was joined by officials in Gallatin and Alto — about 130 miles east of Dallas — in pressuring regulators into releasing more information about the pipeline.

Designed to connect Gulf Coast refineries with sprawling crude storage facilities in Oklahoma, the southern segment of the Keystone is scheduled to begin flowing by the end of the year. The northern section that would bring crude from Alberta’s oil sands field is still waiting for U.S. State Department approval.

[rhett o rick]

5. Havent they started on the northern section? I heard about problems in N. Dakota.

Is there a good source that is keeping up to date on the progress?