Obama may punt on the pipeline
[Posted Karl]
Via HotAir’s Tina Korbe, I think we all expect this L.A. Times story is the introduction to another Profile in Leading From Behind:
The Obama administration is considering a move that could delay a decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline by requiring sponsors to reduce the project’s environmental risks before it can be approved, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.
The step might put off a decision until after the 2012 election and be a way for the White House to at least temporarily avoid antagonizing either the unions that support the pipeline or the environmental activists who oppose it as President Obama gears up for his campaign.
Tina notes this should be a no-brainer when employment is the top agenda item for voters. Moreover, as Robert J. Samuelson recently noted, it should be a no-brainer from the standpoint of concerns about carbon emissions:
If Obama rejects the pipeline, he would — perversely — increase greenhouse gas emissions. Canada has made clear that it will proceed with oil sands development regardless of the American decision. If the United States doesn’t want the oil, China and other Asian countries do. Pipelines would be built to the West Coast. Transporting the oil by tanker to Asia would almost certainly create more emissions than moving it by pipeline to closer U.S. markets.
Granted, greens would likely oppose a pipeline going west, but the opposition is likely to be less intense and the domestic benefits more concentrated in Canada.
It’s a sad situation. As Pulitzer Prize-winning energy historian and consultant Daniel Yergin notes, only politics threatens our energy supplies. Any transition to renewables likely remains decades away, as wind and solar remain expensive, intermittent and difficult to scale, while political issues plague nuclear as the most viable alternative to fossil fuels. At National Review, Peter Thiel recently published a lengthy piece (and one I disagree with partially in other respects), one point of which is the degree to which our current political debates about income inequality and overleverage reflects the failure of our energy policy — a failure obscured in part by the tech boom. Obama’s energy policy — whether the dithering on the Keystone XL project or perpetuating the scandal of Tomorrowland symbolized by the Solyndra debacle — is one of his most costly.
–Karl
Obama is just about ready to declare victory in the war on jobs.
It’s been a long hard slog.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 11/7/2011 @ 4:47 pmfeets!
Karl (f8f210) — 11/7/2011 @ 4:49 pmthe SCOAMF punting on a decision?
this is both unexpected and unprecedented.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 11/7/2011 @ 4:51 pmThe Obama administration is considering a move that could delay a decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline by requiring sponsors to reduce the project’s environmental risks before it can be approved, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.
Color me shocked! We knew that Obama has always banked on the environmentalists using litigation to forestall the pipeline moving forward, but now he can keep them in his back pocket for future fookuppery.
ColonelHaiku (ad6eba) — 11/7/2011 @ 4:54 pmTens of thousands of Jobs and renewed drilling in Alaska now that ACES is certain to be repealed and can only imagine 2 million barrels a day of crude, and condensates bringing even more jobs and prosperity
I wonder why the unions are not pressuring Obama. It would be a huge influx of workers into their sphere of influence
EricPWJohnson (d84fb0) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:09 pmBarcky’s War on the Economy and Jobs continues apace.
JD (318f81) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:13 pmOh look! The serial liar is slamming Sarah Palin again. How cute!!!
Icy (bd2739) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:15 pmPlease stfu Eric your not a conservative you oppose ACES because it didn’t put VECO out of business earlier enough.
DohBiden (ef98f0) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:19 pmWe must face the Great Canadian menace presented by TransCanada, Obama, promised ‘electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket’ some promises he keeps.
narciso (0fc95f) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:27 pmhttp://www.therepublic.com/view/story/a1616fddc105434e90307d0dab06d1c0/AK–Parnell-Overseas-Trip/
Wohoo oil say lower those taxes baby!
EricPWJohnson (d84fb0) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:35 pmnarcisco
transcanada is Exxonmobil
yeah baby GO …. BIG …. OIL ……
EricPWJohnson (d84fb0) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:37 pmNo, just like BP isn’t TNK, a joint venture is not a merger.
narciso (0fc95f) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:39 pmSome lying fabulist is about to go off the rails. Again.
JD (318f81) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:40 pmI know shockah, Hanson, the AGW scamster at NASA, calls the Keystone pipeline, the Needle, McKibben
narciso (0fc95f) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:43 pmcall it an enormous carbon bomb. ‘Billy Madison all around.
narcisco
It was a first then they bought them, which is typical with ExxonMobil, they lead from the front
EricPWJohnson (d84fb0) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:49 pmIt was at first, sorry
EricPWJohnson (d84fb0) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:49 pmReee peal ACES, Repeal ACES!!!!
Stop the damage – let lose the dogs of drilling
Unleash the seismic!!!!
DRRRRRRRILLLLLLLL and REeeFine baby! Crack that crude!!!!
Go go go go
EricPWJohnson (d84fb0) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:53 pmcondensates!
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:53 pmits whats for breakfast happy
EricPWJohnson (d84fb0) — 11/7/2011 @ 5:55 pmI still think it is sad when someone is swilling Night Train and posting over at the local library.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 11/7/2011 @ 6:02 pmReee peal ACES,repeal ACES
It gives the corrupt joooo owned oil companies a free pass.
FIFY Eric.
Sorry but I had Eric’s head buried in my crotch.
DohBiden (ef98f0) — 11/7/2011 @ 6:04 pmDoh
Oil – its for everybody!
EricPWJohnson (d84fb0) — 11/7/2011 @ 6:06 pmOil-Oh my lordy the oil companies sexually harassed me.
DohBiden (ef98f0) — 11/7/2011 @ 6:38 pmI don’t get it. Is there a troll.com site someplace where they assign trolls to various blogs? I never knew there were so many marginal personalities in the world that had to get off on posting scads of stupid comments on comment pages.
I mean, if the stuff was meaningful, ideas backed by argument, facts and reason, that would be one thing, but this s*it is just embarrassing. Verbal excrement at best.
At the very least could we insist on a better quality of troll?
Kevin M (563f77) — 11/7/2011 @ 7:02 pmKevin,
I’ve posted on this blog tons of reports, assessments, financial statements on this subject, the rest – well just read – so today I engaged in a little bit o bit
But if you want to know there are great sources the Oil and Gas financial Journal and the ADN which links experts reports that are very hard to find on the internet
EricPWJohnson (d84fb0) — 11/7/2011 @ 7:06 pmIs that English?
JD (318f81) — 11/7/2011 @ 7:09 pmKevin,
case in point just made
EricPWJohnson (d84fb0) — 11/7/2011 @ 7:19 pmDidn’t I see an announcement a few days ago that the President said he would make the final decision on whether it is a go or not?
Cheshirecat ^..^(____)~~~ (a1fcca) — 11/7/2011 @ 7:31 pmSo his decision is no decision?
No surprise since his inactions on pumping oil out of the Gulf of Mexico has cost thousands of jobs.
The Unions need some new leaders. But then again the public sector unions don’t care about their private sector brethern.
To not to choose, after the billions of dollars and years of preparation, is itself a choice,
narciso (0fc95f) — 11/7/2011 @ 7:35 pmLuddites tend to be happy until the lights go out.
No, that’s not right. Luddites tend to be happy when the lights are on them.
When the lights go out, they want the government to stop the cold.
Ag80 (ec45d6) — 11/7/2011 @ 7:41 pmMy name is Barack Obama and I vote—–PRESENT.
elissa (acaeff) — 11/7/2011 @ 7:41 pmSorry the ADN are debbie schlusselesque maniacs.
DohBiden (ef98f0) — 11/7/2011 @ 7:43 pmNo it’s more Kos for Polar Bears, with a occasional
narciso (0fc95f) — 11/7/2011 @ 7:49 pmindustry hack like Paul Jenkins, real people who actually think like our Dubai traveller, shudder.
Gomer Pyle had more leadership ability than Obama.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/7/2011 @ 7:52 pmHerman Cain would be laying some pipe if he got elected president. Guar-on-teed.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/7/2011 @ 8:47 pmhe’s so awesome like that
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 11/7/2011 @ 8:47 pmADN has or had a chummy relationship with VECO backed Lyta Greene.
DohBiden (ef98f0) — 11/7/2011 @ 8:49 pmI don’t think that the Canadian government would wait very long to switch the pipeline to Vancouver as they currently have a majority in parliament for the next four years. It will be interesting to see the unions watch as all those jobs that would have been created on the US leg switch to the Canadian side.
Having said that, I’m not sure that Obama would trade the blue collar union vote he would lose for putting the brakes on the pipeline for a green vote he already has and has nowhere else to go.
scr_north (9ce014) — 11/7/2011 @ 10:04 pm@scr_north: never underestimate the SCOAMF’s ability to seize failure from the jaws of success…
it’s about the only thing he’s really good at, besides being a moron.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 11/7/2011 @ 10:22 pmYou’re welcome
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 11/7/2011 @ 10:28 pmIn the 20th-Century, millions died from politically induced famine;
AD-RtR/OS! (fc5a11) — 11/7/2011 @ 10:46 pmIn the 21st, it will be from politically induced energy shortages.
Yes, they did, but with this crew, one doubts that they would have ever built the TAP in the first place, of course Biden opposed the vote, and Agnew
had to break the tie;
http://www.adn.com/2011/11/07/2159374/state-skeptical-about-huge-gas.html
narciso (0fc95f) — 11/8/2011 @ 5:03 amWhile Obama punts the decision, the Canadians will say the heck with it and sign a supply contract with China. We are so screwed…
sam (1a8310) — 11/8/2011 @ 7:22 am…so the Republicans really really better get their act together. Why are we having candidates debates a full year before the election? I, a poliical junkie, are at the point where I’m tuning all of this out. The attention paid to the Cain “scandal” is laughable. He won’t be the presidential candidate, and the allegations aren’t even credible 12-15 years after the fact with no complaints or charges filed. It’s really easy for someone to allege wrongdoing years and years later. Has he been involved in anything like htis more recently? No? Then who cares what happened 15 years ago (so long as no one died and he didn’t allegedly do it again). I don’t think I’ve paid 5 minutes worth of attention to it. And I eat political news for breakfast…
sam (1a8310) — 11/8/2011 @ 7:28 amEPWJ, if the shoe fits…
Kevin M (563f77) — 11/8/2011 @ 7:29 amKevin – it seems epwj is not self aware enough to realize you were referring to him.
JD (207300) — 11/8/2011 @ 7:35 amAny transition to renewables
likelyremainsdecades awayimpossible, as wind and solar will always remain expensive, intermittent and difficult to scale.The statement needed some fixes, glad I could help.
There are no magical tech solutions to the problems of wind and solar. Wind will never be anything but an expensive niche power source, and solar’s only hope lies in Ocean Thermal or Solar Power Satellites, and probably not even them…
Smock Puppet, Jingle Rewriting Expert (2fb1c2) — 11/8/2011 @ 11:34 am