Elizabeth Warren Fights against Global Warming, Separates Herself from Hillary Clinton [View all]

[Cal33]

Last edited Sun Feb 9, 2014, 04:42 PM - Edit history (1)

More than a month ago Elizabeth Warren finally separated herself clearly from Hillary Clinton, regarding the issue of climate change and global warming. Here is the story: TransCanada Corporation wants to build the Keystone XL Pipeline to carry oil from Alberta Canada's tar sands to two refineries owned by Koch Industries near the Texas Gulf Coast, for export to Europe; and Hillary Clinton has helped to make that happen, but Elizabeth Warren has now taken the opposite side. Clinton had worked behind the scenes to ease the way for commercial exploitation of this, the world's highest-carbon-emitting oil, 53% of which oil is owned by America's Koch Brothers. Secretary Clinton's State Department allowed the environmental impact statement on the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline to be performed by a petroleum industry contractor that was chosen by the company that was proposing to build and own the pipeline, TransCanada. That contractor had no climatologist, and their resulting report failed even at its basic job of estimating the number of degrees by which the Earth's climate would be additionally heated if this pipeline is built and operated. Their report ignored that question, and instead evaluated the impact that climate change would have on the pipeline, which was estimated to be none. President Obama himself is now trying to force the European Union to relax their anti-global-warming regulations so as to permit them to import the Kochs' dirty oil. His agent in this effort is his new U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman, from Wall Street.

But on December 20th, Senator Warren signed onto a letter criticizing the Obama Administration's apparent effort to force the European Union to agree to purchase this oil. Six senators and 16 House members, all Democrats, wrote a letter to Froman on Friday asking him to elaborate on his position on the matter. "If these reports are accurate, the U.S. Trade Representative's
actions could undercut the EU's commendable goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its transportation sectors," these
22 Democratic lawmakers wrote. This is, essentially, a rebellion by 22 progressive congressional Democrats against the Clinton-Obama effort to provide a market for the Kochs' dirty oil. This letter was actually written by Representative Henry Waxman and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

What is at issue in the Keystone XL and Alberta tar sands matter is governmental policies that will determine whether the tar-sands oil will undercut the production-costs of normal oil. If the Kochs win, then the existing governmental policies will change in ways that will eliminate this cost-advantage of normal oil. The benefits to Koch Industries, from this competitive re-alignment in favor of tar-sands oil, have been estimated to be around $100 billion. David and Charles Koch would then become the two wealthiest individuals in the world.

On December 17th, the Republican House budget chief, Paul Ryan, threatened to drive the U.S. Government into default unless President Obama approves the Keystone XL Pipeline. President Obama holds the sole authority to approve or disapprove this project, because it crosses the international border, but he has delayed this decision for years, because he doesn't want to enrage the environmental community. Senator Warren has now joined with the progressives on two big issues that arouse intense opposition to her from the aristocrats who finance most political campaigns: She opposes the taxpayer-handouts to Wall Street, and she now also opposes the entire planet's, basically, environmental handouts, to the owners of the most-harmfully polluting corporations, such as Koch Industries. (The other owners of tar-sands oil are Conoco-Phillips, Exxon-Mobil, and Chevron-Texaco.) This could be a turning-point in Warren's political career. She's no longer at war against only the financial industry corruption that dominates the conservative (Clinton and Obama) establishment within the Democratic Party (and all of the Republican Party), but she is also at war against their environmental corruption. Clinton's extensive Wall Street network is already busy behind the scenes, to discredit if not smear Elizabeth Warren. If Big Oil will now be donating to Wall Street's pro-Hillary campaign against Warren, then Warren will be lucky even to keep her Senate seat.

My admiration for Elizabeth Warren has gone up another notch. She is willing to dare and risk so much for the sake of giving the
American people a better chance. Character assassination does lasting political harm, and it works best against candidates whose policy-prescriptions are the hardest to attack; and every major politician knows that this is so. Hillary Clinton has a huge following that wants to see her as president. How many would still number themselves among her supporters, if they had known of the above? I, myself, would still prefer her to an out-and-out Republican, like Romney. But it is a choice of the lesser of two evils. I would like it much better to have a decent, left-of-center Democratic candidate, who would be working for all the American people, not just for the corporations.

We are in desperate need for a change, and time is not on our side. Who knows? The coming 3 years may be our last
chance. Plutocracy is already more than half way replacing democracy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/elizabeth-warren-comes-do_b_4483753.html?utm_hp_ref=politics