As of yesterday, President Barack Obama had issued an extremely low total of two vetoes over his more than six years in office. Now he has issued a third one: a veto of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring the dirtiest source of oil in the world — Canadian tar sands — down to Texas where it could be refined and shipped overseas. The primary advocates of the pipeline were the Charles and David Koch, the rapacious industrialists who have vowed to spend as much in the 2016 Presidential election as either of the two major parties.
Keystone XL would have undone much of the good that California has done in fighting catastrophic climate change. It would have posed continuing prospects of disaster for communities and aquifers along its route due to leaks. And, for those who want to get all practical about it, it would have profited the United States (other than the Koch Brothers and their thralls) virtually nothing. It would lead to temporary construction jobs that could better be directed to needed infrastructure repair — and beyond that pretty much zilch.
This is a signal day for the Obama Presidency — and introduces an issue that will probably be significant during the 2016 (and 2020, and beyond) Presidential elections, because it’s the rare Republican Presidential candidate who would have had the brains and the guts to issue this veto. It is especially a victory for organizations such as 350.org who know that getting atmospheric carbon dioxide levels back down below that threshold is critical to humanity’s continued long-term existence.
As he is often able to do, Steven Benen puts today’s action into its proper larger perspective.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/begun-the-veto-era-has
One of the few scientists trying to deny the risks of global warming:
” He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/us/ties-to-corporate-cash-for-climate-change-researcher-Wei-Hock-Soon.html?_r=0
*President Obama did really good on this one. Now those Shale Oil Investors in Canada can go spin on their shovels. The Canadians need to move that oil into Vancover and really mess up that beautiful harbor. Heck, a good oil spill there could take out Puget Sound…….. Thank you Mr. President for saving us for the moment. Next!
thanks mr president
my oil company stocks just went up again
What on earth does that stupid little comment actually mean?
well, it may be stupid to you but the reality is that if canadian oil shale is precluded from moving from canada to the united states, then alternative options, ie oil companies who drill in other places in other places make more money. thus, people who own that stock see their stock increase in value
i realize that this is capitalistic economics, something you try to ignore, but that is how the world works
Not really.
The search for other sources of oil (presuming the lowest hanging fruit has been plucked – or is off limits) will tend to become more expensive, driving up the cost of the product to producer and consumer. There would be very little benefit to your oil stocks – unless your holdings include a company that gets lucky relative to the others and can successfully undersell them.
Yes. As the price of a barrel of oil goes up, more reserves (the difficult, expensive to extract ones) become viable. As it goes down, the reverse is true. A recent Blloomberg article placed the break even point for Canadian tar sands at $80/barrel. The break even point for difficult to extract domestic sources was ~$70, and the easy stuff is less.
The oil is and will continue to go to market, period. Pipelines are safer and more energy efficient than are rail cars. The odds of accidents are smaller with pipelines than rail.
IF your motivation is to safeguard the environment then the clear choice is to use pipe rather than rail cars to send the oil to market. It’s really very easy and simple, unless you’re blinded by green dogma of course.
*Sorry Carlo, your Oil Companies have a great history of duplicity and lies in the face of the facts. “We love the smell of a good veto in the morning…..smells like
victory!”
Stop feeling and start thinking!
Pipelines are safer and more energy efficient, period.