Keystone XL: Set to Reject

[ProSense]

Keystone XL: Set to Reject

by Michael Brune

All across America, people are gathering to draw attention to the threat that the Keystone XL pipeline poses to clean air, clean water, public health, and the stability of our climate. Last night alone, thousands attended nearly 300 vigils in 49 states. This outpouring of hope and frustration came together in just a few days, in response to the release of a deeply flawed report by the State Department that underestimates the consequences of building this pipeline across the heart of the United States.

People are hopeful because the decision to reject the Keystone pipeline is in the hands of President Obama, who has stated his firm commitment to fight climate disruption. He will be advised by Secretary of State John Kerry, a long-standing champion in the effort to solve the climate crisis that is already upon us, already stirring extreme weather like Superstorm Sandy, the polar vortex, droughts, and wildfires. These leaders know that Americans have embraced clean energy and have no interest in retreating to dependence on the dirty fossil fuels of centuries past. So I'm cautiously confident that the president and secretary of state will do the right thing and stop this pipeline in its tracks.

People are frustrated, however, because the report released last Friday was largely written by a contractor that stands to profit if the pipeline is built. Not surprisingly, it gives the pipeline a passing grade, while virtually every credible expert has already given the project a big fat "Fail."

Biased as it is, though, the report sets the stage for President Obama to reject this dirty, dangerous manifestation of Big Oil's greed, by abandoning the contention in earlier drafts that KXL would have no significant impact on climate. Instead, it concludes that the pipeline would contribute the equivalent of an additional 6 million cars on the road to annual greenhouse gas emissions.

The president is on record that he will not allow Keystone XL to be built if it would "significantly exacerbate" carbon pollution. The pollution from six million cars is anything but insignificant. And a more credible independent analysis estimates that carbon pollution from the pipeline would be equivalent to more than 37 million gas-guzzling cars -- or 51 coal-fired power plants. How does that make sense at a moment when we are making progress against climate disruption by retiring dirty coal plants and building more and more wind turbines and solar panels to create the energy that is already powering Teslas, Leafs, and Smart cars?

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/04/1274935/-Keystone-XL-Set-to-Reject

[blm]

1. I hope so, but, Keystone was sealed back in 2010, and I think WH is shielding HRC's candidacy

for 2016 and using Kerry to do it. I fear that, once again, Kerry will be taking a bullet for power players who don't deserve the sacrifice. If Keystone goes through it will be Kerry's lifelong legacy as an environmental activist that will take the hit.

[hatrack]

2. I will believe it when he blocks it

Until such time, it's not even worth holding your breath for.

[ProSense]

3. Michael Brune

and others have been trying to counter the media spin, which seeks to create the impression that the report sealed the dealed in support of the pipeline.

Oil and Financial Industry Quotes Highlight Keystone XL as Essential Tar Sands Lynchpin

It has been a pretty frustrating day on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline front. Lots of reporters seem to have been working off of the State Department's briefing that took place this morning, rather than reading the actual Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that came out late afternoon today. There's an array of issues that the first wave of stories seem to be getting wrong--and we will deconstruct some of that stuff later. But the issue of Keystone XL being the lynchpin that determines whether unsustainable plans to triple production of the dirtiest oil on the planet continues to get short shrift. Simply put, if the President says no to this project, the tar sands industry will be forced to take their foot off the pedal, which in turn means easing off one of the fastest growing sources of carbon pollution in North America.

- more -

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jmogerman/oil_and_financial_industry_quo.html

Bill McKibben Reacts to Latest Keystone XL Environmental Impact Statement

350.org co-founder Bill McKibben issued the following statement this afternoon in response to the latest State Department environmental impact statement on the Keystone XL pipeline:

“The intrusion of reality into this process is really important. The report concluded that in a scenario where we take climate change seriously and regulate climate pollution, this pipeline will indeed have a ‘significant impact’ on climate change. So now we’ll find out if that’s the world Barack Obama and John Kerry want. This report gives President Obama everything he needs in order to block this project. This is the first environmental issue in years to bring Americans into the streets in big numbers, and now they’ll be there in ever greater numbers to make sure the President makes the right call.”

http://350.org/press-release/bill-mckibben-reacts-to-latest-keystone-xl-environmental-impact-statement/

[hatrack]

4. Ryan Lizza, New Yorker 9/16/13; 12/10/13 (Re. Podesta's self-recusal)

Obama listened politely to Steyer, his wife, Kat Taylor, and their guests, then told them that climate change was one of many big issues he intended to address before he left office. “He was extremely impressive in terms of understanding the issue,” Steyer told me. “But he was saying, ‘I need to put this in the context of a whole program that I’m trying to get to. This isn’t the only thing I care about.’ ” Taylor said, “We didn’t get the answers we wanted.” At the larger reception, Obama joked about how the Republican Party’s miserable showing with Latinos in the 2012 election had been “clarifying” and said that passing immigration reform was a real possibility in the next few months.

On the issue of climate change, he was far more pessimistic. He reminded his audience that many Americans don’t share the views or the culture of Steyer’s guests. “The politics of this are tough,” he said. “Because if you haven’t seen a raise in a decade; if your house is still twenty-five thousand, thirty thousand dollars under water; if you’re just happy that you’ve still got that factory job that is powered by cheap energy; if every time you go to fill up your old car because you can’t afford to buy a new one, and you certainly can’t afford to buy a Prius, you’re spending forty bucks that you don’t have, which means that you may not be able to save for retirement.” He added, “You may be concerned about the temperature of the planet, but it’s probably not rising to your No. 1 concern.” To some in the room, it seemed that the President was speaking for himself. He never mentioned Keystone. “The clear takeaway for Tom was that the President issued us a challenge,” one of Steyer’s political aides said. “Go out there and make the public-policy case as to why this pipeline is not in our country’s best interest.”

Ed. - emphasis added.

EDIT

In recent months, Obama has been looking for ways to act without Congress. Climate change happens to be the one policy area that requires almost nothing from Capitol Hill in order for him to make a major difference. “In my State of the Union address, I urged Congress to come up with a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one that Republican and Democratic senators worked on together a few years ago,” he said in his June climate speech. “And I still want to see that happen. I’m willing to work with anyone to make that happen. But this is a challenge that does not pause for partisan gridlock. It demands our attention now. And this is my plan to meet it.” He directed the E.P.A. to issue new rules curbing emissions from coal-fired power plants. Electricity plants running on coal produce more than a quarter of U.S. carbon pollution. Depending on the stringency of the new E.P.A. rules, they could be even more consequential than his 2012 automobile regulations.

Accounts of Obama’s private views about his second-term climate agenda suggest that he sees the E.P.A. rules as his real legacy on the issue, and that he’s skeptical of the environmentalists’ claims about Keystone. “He thinks the greenhouse-gas numbers have been inflated by opponents,” Ambassador Doer said. Journalists who discussed the issue with Obama earlier this year in off-the-record sessions said that he told them the same thing. Some of Steyer’s allies on the climate issue also remain unconvinced that Keystone is the right battle. Rubin, who will be an adviser to the climate initiative being launched by Steyer, Paulson, and Bloomberg, says he doesn’t oppose the pipeline, and Shultz, another adviser to the new effort, favors approving Keystone. “This is oil that’s going to be produced whether or not there’s a Keystone pipeline,” Shultz said. “Get over it!”

Ed. - emphasis added.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/16/130916fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all



Podesta told me earlier this year that his case against Keystone was twofold. One, he believed the weight of the evidence suggested that the pipeline would indeed accelerate the production of oil from the oil sands and increase greenhouse-gas emissions over the long term. “There’s a lot of oil flowing from there, right? They’re not gonna stop doing that. But do we want to facilitate supercharging that?” he said. “That’s the question. And the answer to that I think is no, because of the climate impact.”

He was emphatic that Obama’s own test cannot be met. “I think he should not approve it,” Podesta said. “I’m of the view that you just can’t meet the standard now that Obama set out: Does it or does it not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution? What are the net effects? And I think a fair review of that would say the net effects are big and they’re negative.”

In his interview with me, Podesta also argued that if Obama wanted to get anything accomplished in a second term, the President had to be expansive in his use of executive power. Climate-change policy, Podesta believes, is fertile ground. Without any involvement from Congress, Obama’s E.P.A. can implement regulations to dramatically reduce carbon emissions, and the President could set a new course on energy policy by cancelling Keystone.

EDIT

Update: A White House aide e-mailed late on Tuesday to say that Podesta would recuse himself from working on the Keystone Pipeline decision.

“In discussions with Denis,” the aide said, speaking of the White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, “John suggested that he not work on the Keystone Pipeline issue, in review at the State Department, given that the review is far along in the process and John’s views on this are well known. Denis agreed that was the best course of action.”

EDIT

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/12/john-podesta-and-the-keystone-xl-pipeline.html

[ProSense]

5. I saw those, but

I can't really get into quotes in an article from people citing "accounts of Obama’s private views."

That kind of thing really has nothing to do with the OP or my point about Brune's goals.

I'm glad to see that people are continuing to press the President to reject this.

As Keystone Decision Looms, Buried Report Cites TransCanada’s ‘Inadequate’ Pipeline Inspections
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/04/3247031/transcanada-pipeline-report/

[hatrack]

10. More to the point, my response to McKibben re. his take on Copenhagen spy revelations

Powers-that-be do what they do, which is preserve the order of things as they are. Why? Because that's the way we've always done it.

To quote Warden Norton in The Shawshank Redemption, "Nothing stops. Nothing . . .You understand me? Catching my drift? Or am I being obtuse?"

Nothing stops. The people who "represent" us will stop at nothing to ensure that nothing stops. Holy, Sacred Economic Growth has been received from on high as the Answer to Everything, and if things aren't working out at the moment, all that means is that there hasn't been enough Holy, Sacred Economic Growth. That growth will be powered (as always) by ever-increasing amounts of flaming carbon. Why? Because that's the way we've always done it. Oh, and it's cheaper that way.

When Obama signs off on Keystone, what will you say? Better start preparing your remarks now, because when the announcement comes down (probably late on a Friday afternoon in November, maybe even Black Friday, when no-fucking-body is going to pay attention) we'll be waiting to hear how working within the system is working out for us. Sure, there'll be a little greenwash - maybe a solar panel tax credit extension, or a new National Monument designation (minimal acreage, bleached corals, flaming beetle-killed forests, melting glaciers, fracked springwater, disappearing wildlife) to daub a bit of rhetorical baking soda on the sting.

You might also want to consider changing the name of your organization. The world hasn't been below 350ppm since October 1989, and we won't be in that territory again until a whole lot of things are very different than they are now.

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/sio-keel-flask/maunaloa_c.dat

And building on that, what has to happen for an international agreement to take shape and be signed and committed to? For that matter, what has to happen for a simple contract to be fulfilled, even a mortgage or a car loan? Trust. The simple, powerful belief that your counterpart is negotiating in good faith.

What trust remains now between America and her many negotiating partners on all things climate, particularly regarding a theoretically binding treaty intended to control atmospheric carbon? Zero, thanks to the sure and certain knowledge that America spied on allies and adversaries alike at Copenhagen, and used the information so gained to break the process of forming a post-Kyoto agreement.

And who controlled the American spy apparatus working in the run-up to Copenhagen and during the negotiations? President Obama.

It wasn't that there was much of a chance of creating a binding treaty at Copenhagen. For that matter, there isn't much of a chance of any treaty acceptable on political and economic grounds making much of a difference, given the speed with which the natural world, utterly indifferent to "pragmatism", "economic reality" or election timetables, is manifesting world-shaking change. But it would have been better than nothing. At least we could have tried.

In the vacuum we now inhabit on the environmental leadership front, we and all generations to come can enjoy the full, bitter flavor of American exceptionalism at our leisure.

[ProSense]

11. What does

all of that mean in the context of Brune and McKibben still pushing for the administration to reject it?

"Powers-that-be do what they do, which is preserve the order of things as they are. Why? Because that's the way we've always done it. To quote Warden Norton in The Shawshank Redemption, "Nothing stops. Nothing . . .You understand me? Catching my drift? Or am I being obtuse?"

OK, so your position is nothing is going to change. If that's the case, I assume that you never expected the pipeline to be rejected. That's fine. Throwing one's hands up and simply waiting for an expected and perceived inevitable outcome is one approach.

Clearly, those who are still pushing for a different outcome don't believe it's a done deal.

[hatrack]

12. Your idealism (and theirs) is commendable, if sadly misguided in this case

Will it be dented when Obama approves Keystone? Or will you be here to remind us that the Republicans would be even worse on climate and environmental issues?

When the car is driving over the cliff, it doesn't really matter whether it's going 55 or 110. All we're collectively capable of doing, apparently, is bitching about what's on the stereo - moving the steering wheel or hitting the brakes would destroy freedom, or something like that.

[sabrina 1]

7. A simple 'no way' would suffice. That way there could be no rumors or misunderstandings.

[hatrack]

8. Yes, that would clear away lots and lots of "ambiguity", wouldn't it?

[polichick]

6. Me too.

[TheMathieu]

9. I have faith that he will reject it.

And will consider it a betrayal if he does not.