by Samuel Ezerzer
Blogger and Radio Show Host
January 24rth 2013
Civil Disobedience If Keystone Pipeline Is Built ;Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune
From left are Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., speaking, Sen. John Hoeven, R-ND, rear, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. More than half the Senate on Wednesday urged quick approval of TransCanada's controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, ramping up pressure on President Barack Obama just days after he promised in his inaugural address to respond vigorously to the threat of climate change. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON - 53 Senetors on Wednesday urged quick approval of TransCanada's controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, giving pressure on President Barack Obama just days after he promised in his inaugural address to climate change.A letter signed by 53 senators said Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman's approval of a revised route through his state puts the long-delayed project squarely in the president's hands.
"We urge you to choose jobs, economic development and American energy security," the letter said, adding that the pipeline "has gone through the most exhaustive environmental scrutiny of any pipeline" in U.S. history.
"There is no reason to deny or further delay this long-studied project," said the letter, which was initiated by Senators John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and signed by 44 Republicans and nine Democrats. Another Democrat, Jon Tester of Montana, supports the pipeline but did not sign the letter.
TransCanada is seeking approval by the Amercians for a $5.3-billion pipeline that would carry crude from Alberta's oilsands and U.S. shale formations to Steele City, Nebreska. That pipeline would link up with another $2.3-billion conduit line to Texas refineries, which is 40 per cent complete. That segment does not require a U.S. federal permit.
The two projects were originally part of one big pipeline proposal that the Obama administration rejected last year. TransCanada opted to cut it up into two projects while the Nebraska issues were sorted out.
Source: National Energy Board (Canada)
Also in the news
Financial Post Jan 23rd
John Kerry and his wife have agreed to divest holdings in a Canadian oil company, as well as dozens of other investments, in an effort to avoid conflicts of interest as the Massachusetts senator prepares to become America’s next secretary of state.
The Canadian Press reported last week that Kerry had as much as US$750,000 invested in Suncor, a Calgary-based oil company whose CEO has urged the Obama administration to greenlight TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline.
“I am committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct for government officials,” Kerry wrote in the agreement with the State Department’s ethics office.
“I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter that has a direct and predictable effect on my financial interests or those of any person whose interests are imputed to me, unless I first obtain a written waiver.”
Environmentalists had called on Kerry last week to divest of all the Canadian oil company’s holdings.
John Bennett executive director of the Sierra Club Canada, the country’s largest national grassroots environmental organization, says the club’s board will consider lifting its prohibition on civil disobedience later this month.
Photograph by: Ashley Fraser , Canwest News Service
OTTAWA —One of Canada’s largest environmentalist organizers will decide later this month whether to drop its prohibition against civil disobedience — and if the Sierra Club of Canada takes that step the first target will be proposed oilsands pipelines to the B.C. coast.
Spokesman John Bennett, noting that the Sierra Club’s U.S. cousin has already taken that step, said the organization’s board is responding to grassroots members exasperated by the lack of government action on climate change.
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