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What is wrong with the Keystone XL?

Deacon923 said:
seems like in a sane world, the elephants and donkeys would get around a table and make a deal. The elephants can have their pipeline for their corporate cronies. The donkeys get some beefed up environmental protections, some spending on alternative energy, maybe a trust fund to pay for any spills, so their environmentalist/alternative energy corporate cronies are happy. Problem solved.

instead it seems like everyone is making it their hill to die on.
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RJKarl said:
Why won't the EPA simply state- Prove you can clean up a spill; show a real plan for the clean up and put aside an escrow to pay for any leaks or problems.

If Keystone is so safe, they should have no problems with any of the above.
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I pretty much agree with RJ. But I don't know that any elected donkey politicians have suggested this as a solution.

The main problem with big dirty petrochem infrastructure is that sometimes it fails and it's really hard to prove who was responsible, as was somewhat the case with all the fingerpointing in the BP/Halliburton Gulf spill, or we know who is responsible but they don't have enough assets to clean up and compensate the victims, as was the case with the company in WV that ruined an entire town's water supply and promptly declared bankruptcy. We need this infrastructure to run our economy for the foreseeable future, so it seems to me that the appropriate government response is not "just say no" but to make sure that the people profiting off the infrastructure are responsible for any problems. You know, personal responsibility, which conservatives and libertarians are supposed to be all about.
 
Deacon923 said:
I pretty much agree with RJ. But I don't know that any elected donkey politicians have suggested this as a solution.

The main problem with big dirty petrochem infrastructure is that sometimes it fails and it's really hard to prove who was responsible, as was somewhat the case with all the fingerpointing in the BP/Halliburton Gulf spill, or we know who is responsible but they don't have enough assets to clean up and compensate the victims, as was the case with the company in WV that ruined an entire town's water supply and promptly declared bankruptcy. We need this infrastructure to run our economy for the foreseeable future, so it seems to me that the appropriate government response is not "just say no" but to make sure that the people profiting off the infrastructure are responsible for any problems. You know, personal responsibility, which conservatives and libertarians are supposed to be all about.
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Except in this case - corporations aren't people, so they shouldn't have personal responsibility.
 
ImTheCaptain said:
b/c it's the definition of modest, short term gain with little benefit being buttressed with risk of spills in the US and the promotion of one of the most destructive extraction methods outside of mountain-topping. sounds like you think environmentalism is dumb, not politics.
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Not really.

1 - The oil is coming out of the ground anyway. The only thing that will change that reality is for the Middle East to slash the price of oil making this method of extraction too costly. And any move in that direction, which could well come in an effort to make the US import more oil, won't last forever.

2 - Because the oil is already coming out of the ground it has to be transported. That is happening by rail and by truck. And those methods are far dirtier and riskier to the environment than using a pipeline.

Essentially the argument of those who oppose the pipeline when grafted against the facts on the grounds is non-sensical at this stage and counter-productive to the cause they want to promote.

NPR had a piece on this yesterday and it was noted by an environmentalist that original opposition was on the grounds not building the pipeline would prevent production. That ship sailed long, long ago. And the environmentalist noted the risks of not building the pipeline to the environment now outstrip those of building it. This is nothing more than a symbolic game at this stage.
 
DeacMan said:
Not really.

1 - The oil is coming out of the ground anyway. The only thing that will change that reality is for the Middle East to slash the price of oil making this method of extraction too costly. And any move in that direction, which could well come in an effort to make the US import more oil, won't last forever.

This is totally irrelevant. None of this will go into US trucks or cars. It will be exported to Asia where there are weaker emissions laws.
2 - Because the oil is already coming out of the ground it has to be transported. That is happening by rail and by truck. And those methods are far dirtier and riskier to the environment than using a pipeline.

It's a Canadian product to be sold in other foreign markets. Why does it ever have to enter the US? Why should the US risk any potential problems for something that has no benefits to the US?

Essentially the argument of those who oppose the pipeline when grafted against the facts on the grounds is non-sensical at this stage and counter-productive to the cause they want to promote.

NPR had a piece on this yesterday and it was noted by an environmentalist that original opposition was on the grounds not building the pipeline would prevent production. That ship sailed long, long ago. And the environmentalist noted the risks of not building the pipeline to the environment now outstrip those of building it. This is nothing more than a symbolic game at this stage.
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RJ, it doesn't sound like your issue is with the pipeline. With or without the pipeline, it's entering the US. The pipeline is simply a safer and more efficient way for that to happen. The choice is not between oil vs no oil, the choice is between trucks/rail vs pipeline. If you want to discuss banning the oil from entering the US at all, that's a different argument and really doesn't have anything to do with the pipeline in particular.
 
I think this alone should be the beginning and end of the Keystone Pipeline- British Columbia rejected allowing the Canadian based product to be shipped through their Canadian province, because they believed it to be too dangerous. They didn't believe the companies could do it safely.

http://ens-newswire.com/2013/06/03/british-columbia-officially-rejects-enbridge-tar-sands-pipeline/

"VICTORIA, British Columbia, Canada, June 3, 2013 (ENS) – Oil spill cleanup concerns have led the British Columbia Government to reject a proposed multi-billion dollar tar sands oil pipeline that the Canadian company Enbridge wants to construct across the province.

In its final submission Friday to the federally-appointed Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review Panel, the province states that it cannot support the Enbridge Northern Gateway project because the company “has been unable to address British Columbians’ environmental concerns.”

Environment Minister Terry Lake said, “British Columbia thoroughly reviewed all of the evidence and submissions made to the panel and asked substantive questions about the project including its route, spill response capacity and financial structure to handle any incidents. Our questions were not satisfactorily answered during these hearings.”

“Northern Gateway has said that they would provide effective spill response in all cases. However, they have presented little evidence as to how they will respond,” Lake said. “For that reason, our government cannot support the issuance of a certificate for the pipeline as it was presented to the Joint Review Panel.”

Why US citizens have to take risks to enrich Canadian companies when their own countrymen rejected the project as too iffy?
 
It neither creates jobs (50 permanent probably) nor harms the environment according to Ron Fournier.
 
Go said:
It neither creates jobs (50 permanent probably) nor harms the environment according to Ron Fournier.
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This is just a fuckwittery argument over political positions and not one based around examined facts and how they relate to American lives.

Common-sense waived bye-bye to American politics long ago.
 
TuffaloDeac10 said:
Symbols are important. Greens picked this fight and now they need to win it. For the momentum.

"People don't really know how huge momentum is. Momentum is huge" Ray Lewis
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Fighting a battle with little to gain doesn't make a lot of sense if you are trying to win a war.
 
RJKarl said:
Why US citizens have to take risks to enrich Canadian companies when their own countrymen rejected the project as too iffy?
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RacerDeac said:
RJ, it doesn't sound like your issue is with the pipeline. With or without the pipeline, it's entering the US. The pipeline is simply a safer and more efficient way for that to happen. The choice is not between oil vs no oil, the choice is between trucks/rail vs pipeline. If you want to discuss banning the oil from entering the US at all, that's a different argument and really doesn't have anything to do with the pipeline in particular.
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Go said:
It neither creates jobs (50 permanent probably) nor harms the environment according to Ron Fournier.
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Environmental impacts are not the same as cleaning up spills.

They haven't proven they clean up a spill. It is inevitable there will be spills. The ones they've had so far have been terrible and badly resolved.

Why can't they wait until they prove they can fix the problems they will cause?

If it's not going to help jobs, not going to impact our consumption and isn't even welcomed in other Canadian provinces, why should we allow it here?

Why should we become Canada's dumping ground? Since when should America become Tijuana?

This is another issue where Obama and the Dems have failed miserably on the messaging. If the US public knew that the Canadians didn't want this pipeline in their backyards and could have spills, our people would be opposed to it.

Obama, et al, have failed again.
 
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Not everybody laps up left-wing talking points like you do.

From everything I have read, the technological innovations of alternative energy solutions to automobiles are on the cusp of overwhelming fossil fuel technology from a cost perspective. It will be interesting to see where we are 10-15 years from now.
 
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i guess i'll never understand the weirdly entrenched positions of the right and left when it comes to the relationship of commerce and environment
 
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