Koch Brothers stand to reap huge windfall if Keystone pipeline project is approved

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Jamie Henn

Why Obama May Be About to Give a Giant Handout Out to the Billionaire Koch Brothers
The brothers control nearly 25% of the tar sands crude that is imported into the US and own mining companies, oil terminals, and refineries all along the Keystone XL route.

October 20, 2011 |


Here's a unique political strategy for you: in the lead up to a crucial election, as anti-corporate sentiment is sweeping the nation, consider giving a huge handout to a major corporation that happens to be your biggest political enemy and is already spending hundreds of millions to defeat you and your agenda.

If that seems too crazy to believe, welcome to the Obama 2012 campaign.

Right now, President Obama is faced with the most crucial environmental decisions he is going to face before the 2012 election: whether or not to approve the permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,700 mile fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the continent, the Canadian tar sands.

The Keystone XL isn't just an XL environmental disaster -- the nation's top climate scientists say that fully exploiting the tar sands could mean "essentially game over" for the climate -- it also happens to be an XL sized handout to Big Oil and, you guessed it, the Brothers Koch. You want fries with that? ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/152814/why_obama_may_be_about_to_give_a_giant_handout_out_to_the_billionaire_koch_brothers/

[ThomWV]

1. Obama will not turn this one down and it is indeed a disaster in the making.

Hillary certified it and Obama will approve it.

[SpiralHawk]

2. Pungent, is the stench of RepubliRot with this one

What a total frikken boondoggle...

[UnrepentantLiberal]

So, Barack Obama... What's it gonna be?

Just how much have you sold out?

[UnrepentantLiberal]

3. Dupe

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. pipeline will run directly over the Ogalala aquifer

which has already become tainted from 50 years of fertilizer and pesticide use, and is shrinking at a fast clip.

About 27 percent of the irrigated land in the United States overlies this aquifer system, which yields about 30 percent of the nation's ground water used for irrigation. In addition, the aquifer system provides drinking water to 82 percent of the people who live within the aquifer boundary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer

The Ogallala Aquifer: Saving a Vital U.S. Water Source
The massive underground water source feeds the middle third of the country but is disappearing fast. Can it be conserved?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-ogallala-aquifer