Obama Must Be CALLED OUT, NOT CODDLED, On Keystone XL Bait-and-Switch

[Segami]

Now - not after the tar sands spigot is turned on - is the time to support the efforts of courageous Texas landowners who could stop Keystone XL's administration-approved southern leg in its tracks.

"...There are many possible roads to victory, but the surest path to defeat is to not even try..."





Twenty-five environmental leaders recently signed on to an open letter to President Obama urging him to avoid any "deal-making" with the Canadian government and to reject a presidential permit for Keystone XL's proposed northern leg. As the letter remarked: "Building Keystone XL will expand production in the tar sands, and that reality is not compatible with serious efforts to battle climate change." I share my colleagues' objection to any deals between the United States and Canada over Keystone's prospective northern leg, but what the open letter posted by 350.org ignored is the well-reported fact that the 485-mile southern leg of Keystone XL already is being built. Did the president engage in deal-making to facilitate this?


Regardless of what the president decides about the northern leg permit in 2014, Keystone XL's southern leg - which is now 95 percent built - is ready to begin pumping more than half a million barrels of climate-destroying tar sands daily from landlocked Alberta to Gulf Coast port refineries by as early as the end of this year. This "reality is not compatible with serious efforts to battle climate change." Last spring, Obama made a special trip to Cushing, Oklahoma, to hold a press conference directing his administration to "cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done." He said this about Keystone XL's southern leg only months after announcing he was postponing, until after the election, a decision on Keystone XL's northern leg.


This is classic bait-and-switch. By breaking Keystone XL into northern and southern legs, he was able to give his environmental base something it wanted (a "victory" to crow about), while giving TransCanada something it needed (access to port refineries). When Obama released his climate action plan in June, he said, "The question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it's too late. ... I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that's beyond fixing." He cannot now stand idly by while Keystone XL's southern leg is completed and expect anyone to believe what he said. If the Obama administration could conjure up a way to fast-track construction of the Keystone pipeline, it should be able to conjure up a way to stop it.




cont'




http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19842-obama-must-be-called-out-not-coddled-on-keystone-xl-bait-and-switch

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Absolutely right. n/t

[Segami]

2. "...The price the president would pay for such a courageous act likely would be high,..

...but it would help ensure his legacy as a president, and as a father, who saw the dangers of the gathering storm and chose to do something before it was too late. Of course, the odds of him making such a bold move are slim to none, absent massive public pressure, which will not be forthcoming as long as his friends in the environmental movement continue coddling him, instead of calling him out...."

[cui bono]

5. +1

[russspeakeasy]

7. + 2

[Scuba]

3. +1 Thanks Segami.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

4. Thank you.

[jazzimov]

6. Here's the thing,

Canada is determined to extract this tar sand oil, even though many of us think they shouldn't. This is Canada's business, and if we want to point out the issues we need to take it up with Canada.

They are also determined to export the oil, which means if the Keystone pipeline is denied they are still going to ship it overland to Louisiana.

This is the choice we have to make - pipeline vs trucks. Lots and lots of trucks.

The pipeline is a lot less likely to have a "failure". If it does, the problem will be bigger but it will be localized. If the pipeline is nixed, the trucks will eventually have one or more issue. It will be less and maybe we can contain it, but it WILL happen and probably more than once. Plus it will be less predictable. Plus the trucks themselves will cause more pollution.

Although I would prefer to stop the issue at it's source, that source is Canada which we have little control over.

So our choice is the pipeline or overland trucking. Of the two, I would choose the pipeline as the most environmentally responsible. I would rather stop it completely, but we don't have that choice.

[Fuddnik]

8. I thought they were planning on using rail as a back-up plan.

[moonbeam23]

9. I would rather stop it completely, but we don't have that choice.

Why NOT? Canada is a foreign country, and this is as much as an invasion as a military one, if they can just waltz in and destroy our environment!! Fuck them and fuck Obama if he lets them...

[TheKentuckian]

10. Here's the thing they can do what they want in their own borders

I'm not trying to get to yes here. No is good.

[zeemike]

11. If that is the case why don't they refine it themselves and ship it from their ports?

But no, they want to ship it across the continental US to a deep water port in the Gulf of Mexico and let America share some of the profits from doing it...that makes no sense, unless you consider that it is a global company, and America is heavily invested in it...and their government,just like ours, is there to facilitate their enterprise.

[sabrina 1]

14. Canada is bribing the US now and we are going to pay the bribe with our

environment? I might be misunderstanding you but that appears to be what you are saying.

I don't think we should care one bit what Canada wants to do. THIS is OUR Country and we will be living with the destruction of the environment.

And what do you mean they will go through Louisiana? Isn't that part of the US?

The US Government IF it cared, and I know this is a pipe dream, excuse the pun, about this country would have already told Canada where to take its pipeline and would have long ago protected this country from this potential disaster for our environment by passing Federal Laws forbidding it.

[dionysus]

12. thats his worst decision, imho, if it goes through.

[NuclearDem]

13. All he has to do is say no.

Two letters.

This isn't a constitutional amendment or trying to get a gun control bill through Congress. The ball is squarely in his court and he has the power to stop it with two letters.

N

O