Keystone Approved
Disaster for the climate. Hardly surprised, greatly disappointed. Obama will not go down as a president good on environmental issues.
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Bored with screwing over its own indigenous population, the U.S. government decides to take a shot at helping Canada screw over its First Nations.
Lots of First Nations, and First Nations individuals, making money off oil. More nuanced than you might think.
It’s true, and I actually do know that it’s nuanced, but for the purposes of sarcasm I suspended it. And it would be paternalistic to suggest that our job is to protect native peoples from themselves (we’ve been down that road before, too). But there’s been almost no discussion on this side of the border of potential impacts or FN politics at all, which is a real issue.
Just to be clear, I meant in Canada.
Oh no. Not that I didn’t expect it. But he stalled for so long that I thought there was an off chance he might say no to the whole thing, though with all the news about it throughout the last several months it has seemed that they would not have been as far along in their process as they got if the fix was not in.
Was considering going on a road trip to Nebraska’ Sand Hills region during an upcoming Spring Break – guess we better go ahead w/ it, or will they build the thing around the region?
I believe they rerouted it.
Have you been to the region? I was wondering if there was any spot in particular to glance at while driving through.
I’ve always wanted to go, but have never been there.
Carhenge? Fort Robinson?
Dismal River, Niobrara River, Snake River, golf if you’re into that sort of thing.
It may still be a fait accompli, but it’s my understanding that this is an environmental assessment report, not final approval.
Technically yes, but the public comment period is going to be essentially meaningless. This is the final decision, barring something extremely unexpected.
And you know this how?
Because every environmental writer know this to be true?
The final EIS needs to incorporate responses to public concerns, notably different from responding to public concerns.
I’d still change you headline — it hasn’t been approved.
Not the most convincing citation I’ve ever seen. We’ll see what actually happens.
Care to make it interesting?
It was a a pretty much a foregone decision even before the release of this report. Change your headline: it’s false.
Oh knock it off.
Knock what off? Pointing out the that you just wrote a demonstrably false post:
Fine, go get your news somewhere else.
I do public interest environmental law for a living — Erik’s headline is flat out incorrect. Rather than go into the NEPA procedures, I’d just point out that in the article linked to, one of the opponents of the pipeline states that there still is time for for the Administration to reject the pipeline. How could there yet be time to reject the pipeline if it was “approved” yesterday?
Oil Change International Executive Director Stephen Kretzmann has a detailed reaction here, excerpt:
“Our concerns with the impact statement for the Keystone XL pipeline released today are extensive and only serve to further strengthen the clear need for Secretary Kerry and President Obama to reject this proposed pipeline project. This month’s largest-ever Forward on Climate rally and other events make it clear that there is a large and growing movement that will support them should they choose to reject this dirty pipeline. Over the next 45 days, we are confident Americans will make this abundantly clear to the Administration.
Imagines Erik taking out a wad of cash and throwing it on the table
If it’s not an approval of the pipeline, it’s at least an approval of the draft EIS. The language is imprecise but not worth quibbling over given the main point, which is that this is a bad sign for the environment.
Even if it weren’t terrible in terms of climate change in an ecological sense, it’s still terrible in the context of a political climate.
+1
Denial is an understandable emotion.
Have you ever been driving in a minor car accident? Know that feeling of “oh, fuck” as time slows down and your brain desperately searches for a way to make that not have just happened? Well, that. We’re royally screwed. My daughter’s life prospects just got much, much worse.
I’m not a violent person. But if there were someone I could shoot to stop this thing, including myself, I’d do it. (Don’t worry; there’s not.) This pipeline will kill at least tens of thousands. That is, unless we were almost all doomed anyway.
The good news is that we were all doomed anyway.
There are people to shoot, but it won’t affect things. We’re fucked. (The planet, pace Carlin, is fine.)
Unfortunately we’ll be taking a lot of other species down with us.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Well, it’s not President’s Obama fault. The State Department is trying his hands.
Amazingly, some people are capable of blaming Obama for stuff he’s actually responsible for while not blaming him for stuff that he isn’t. I’m sorry you still find this so difficult to grasp.
Wait what?
If Obama is responsible for something then he’s responsible for everything.
And if he’s not responsible for something then he’s not responsible for anything.
This is just a clear application of the “Obama Podens” inference rule.
Whoops — your insecurity is showing.
Yes, my comment was a parody of the kind of comment some people (not you, usually) make to absolve him of responsibility, and if you think there won’t be people trying to pass this off as Kerry’s decision as opposed to Obama’s, you’ve been drunk for four years.
Personally, I’m inclined to wait for it to happen before I criticize it, but anyway.
That’s some pretty low-grade trolling, mizner. You write something deliberately stupid, and then when someone points out the stupidity, it’s a sign of their insecurity.
If someone without a recognizable handle wrote your comments, he’d get pancaked.
Yes, thank God for my recognizable handle. Phew.
Wow, I guess I really hit a nerve.
Standing out from the plethora of your objectionable qualities is your obsessive desire to have the last word. I’m still having trouble believing you’re more than 8 years old. I *do* believe it, but it’s not easy.
I know you are but what am I?
It’s good to make an impression.
If you didn’t post for three days, no one would remember you were ever here.
There is no point in blaming Obama (or any other politician) for anything, really. If your idea of a good government is based on electing a bunch of Mahatma Gandhis, you’re already fucked. Forever.
I’m still working on the Ryan Reynolds campaign.
The Green Lantern will save us, I am sure.
It’s not his fault, because he’s not the whole government, but let’s not pretend that if his hands were untied he’d make a different decision. I’m assuming you saw the same State of the Union address I did.
Onion Headline
Drone Attacks on Ecoterrorists Near Keystone Pipeline
Found To Be More Humane Than Anything LBJ Would Have Devised
OY!!!
That’s about all I got, except an “OY!!!!!!!!!!!!!” to something completely unnecessary!!!
If the Canadians wanted to ship their oil sh*t for INTERNATIONAL (NOT US use!!!), why didn’t we tell them to ship it across their own Rocky Mountains, or, about 500 miles of the St. Lawrence Seaway?
The jobs will be negligible.
The potential for environmental damage – CATASTROPHIC!!!!!!
This is beyong FECKIN’ stupid, and environmentally irresponsible!!!!
OY!
OY!!
OY!!!
OY!
That’s should be ’500 miles NORTH of the St. Lawrence Seaway!’
OY!
As I recall from listening to the CBC’s As It Happens, there is a tar-sands-to-BC pipeline underway as well (presumably for shipping to east Asia). It was hitting some regulatory obstacles having to do with its infringements of First Nations land rights.
Not underway. Stalled for now.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, shut the fuck up c u n d gulag. Global warming is no excuse to try to stoke the flames of nationalism.
I didn’t realize that not wanting that filthy sh*t shipped from Canada on, or near, the Mid-West’s Ogallala Aquifer, could be considered “nationalism.” I kind of look at it as ‘environmentalism.’
My point was, either the Canadians build a processing plant near where they get that tar-sands oil, or ship the filthy sh*t across their own territory, to be sold internationally.
If there’s a leak of any significance over that aquifer, and it penetrates it, that may not have an impact on global warming, but it sure as hell will have a big impact on the underground water supply for much of the Mid-West. One that’s already strained from Big-Agra tapping into it. And one that will clearly be impacted if the draught continues – as it’s likely to, with global warming.
If that’s nationalism, then so be it.
I’ve always wondered why they don’t just build a pipeline across Saskatchewan and Manitoba and a terminal on Hudson Bay since they’re pretty much guaranteeing that port will be ice-free year round.
The Albertans want to ship their oil. Not all Canadians, and definitely not most First Nations Canadians. Alberta is the Texas of Canada. Actually linking them together was only a matter of time.
Not even all albertans. As an Albertan, I know that oil is coming out of the ground. With that as a given, I want to do as much of the processing here as possible. I want those jobs for my province, since its my province paying most of the externalized costs in contaminated water, destroyed environments etc etc… A close second is refining it in Canada and selling you people value added products instead of continuing to be an exploited resource colony.
It would be best of course, if that crap stayed in the ground and we preserve a habitable planet, but that was never more than fantasy. What boggles my mind is that people are still having children. Talk about child abuse: here you go son, enjoy barbarism and gradual devolution back to the Iron Age!
The XL pipeline will only be built if we allow it to be built. There’s already an on-going blockade of the southern leg. As for the rest of it, I think it’s important to remember that only humans have rights, property doesn’t. So we should just smash it to pieces.
Well, that could be an option, although a very bad one with great personal risks like prison time and such.
Riskier than a 4 degree rise in global temperatures?
Depends on how one values prison time.
Does the prison have air conditioning?
Depends on how one values prison time.
Thank you Erik.
Yes, it’s called CRIME
Hate to break it to you, but the “will it send me to prison?” model of morality is unconvincing. This is probably because it is indistinguishable from calculated sociopathy.
One mans terrorist is another man’s waffle chef, you worthless waste of skin.
You’re overestimating the consequences of this specific project. Yes, burning oil is bad. Yes, tar sands are a particularly carbon intensive form of oil. Yes, building this pipeline locks in an economic advantage in the long term for this bad form of oil. However, stopping it will have no noticeable effect in isolation.
You wouldn’t be going to jail to prevent 4 degrees of temperature change. You’d be going to jail to prevent 0.00000004 degrees of temperature change.
The pipeline is symbolic of the mismanagement of common resources and the willful destruction of a sustainable environment in which anywhere close to a population of 7 billion humans can live.
If you wanna be symbolic, write a poem. Politics should be focused on tangible results, especially if you’re willing to engage in civil disobedience to get there.
I kind of agree here- I don’t get what blowing up the pipeline would accomplish in terms of heading off climate change. Won’t they just get oil somewhere else? I do see the problem with it threatening the Ogallala Aquifer though.
Well I won’t be going to jail for blowing up the pipeline anyway. I haven’t believed in the possibility of preventing global warming for over a decade. It’s a big part of why I have no children, because THERE IS NO FUTURE.
Sorry for the shouting, but really, we are so very done.
It’s extremely difficult to be optimistic, I agree.
I know math is hard, but that’s wrong.
(citation omitted)
One of the rights humans in the US enjoy is the right to own private property that will not be stolen or destroyed without due process of law.
Humans will not own that pipeline. They will merely be victimized by it.
Unless that property is handed over to TransCanada under eminent domain laws.
Harrumph.
What is your fantasy violence supposed to accomplish? At best, you plant a bomb and spill some oil, creating a minor environmental disaster. You and your accomplices go to prison. Insurance pays the loss to the pipeline operator and the oil is flowing again in a week.
The cost of insurance depends on the perceived risk. The goal would be to put one additional cost in the minds of industry to take into account when deciding whether it is profitable it exploit a potential source of dirty industry. Terrorism has not stopped access to abortion or animal testing, but it has had a noticeable effect on both. (Not saying it’s a good idea).
Which is why Earth First were so effective…
Don’t worry. Obama says he’s going to use “executive actions” to combat climate change.
Once I heard that, I just assumed that was going to be the political cover for Keystone.
Actually, disappointing as the approval of KXL is/will be, it’s not nearly as important in terms of sheer GHG tonnage as EPA regulation of existing coal plants (KXL represents a potential 0.07% emissions reduction, while CAA regs could represent up to a 5% reduction). I’d wait for that before declaring the President a failure on environmental issues.
+1 for valid point.
Earlier we had a great post on the coal plants. We should keep it in mind.
Yes, this is bad. Sure, Obama doesn’t seem to especially care for the environment.
He’s coming out about even on it. Least we can sleep easier knowing it’s not McCain up there just deregulating every pollution causing industry.
The “logic” of this decision is that with oil prices this high, the oil will flow with or without a pipeline. This is mostly true. The only long-term solution is a gas tax, to take those windfall profits from Exxon and put them to (mostly) good use in the government.
But meanwhile, those extra profits will be funding oil lobbying and accelerated production. That’s the real difference this makes, and it’s plenty bad enough.
A gas tax doesn’t take “extra profits” from the energy companies. The tax taxes money out of the pockets of those who purchase gasoline.
And this is a terrible idea because it would disproportionately hurt the lower income earners the most who spend a larger percentage of their income on fuel.
What a dope.
…because everyone who takes Ekon one-oh-one knows that firms get to set prices at whatever they want, and make whatever profit they want.
Right. A global, uniform tax would mostly just shift profits from oil companies to governments. It would also reduce the uncertainty around future prices, making investments in efficiency more likely.
If it is not uniform, then it will mean oil is more expensive in high-tax areas and less so in low-tax areas. So in this sense you could say it shifts money from high-tax citizens to low-tax ones, or from low-tax governments to high-tax ones. Obviously I’d rather be the winner in that zero-sum game but it’s far more important not to be big losers in the enormous and non-zero-sum game of climate, aka the entire fucking world.
Use some of that revenue to offset the higher cost-of-living expenses for the poor. Not that difficult, eh?
As in subsidizing the mass transit that the poor disproportionately use? Sounds good to me.
Perhaps, but the extent it does so depends on the relevant elasticities of supply and demand. To flat out say that the tax incidence will be 100% on the consumer is a claim that certainly does not follow a fortiori.
Funny that gas companies hate this tax that won’t hurt their profits at all so very much. Generous, they are. Beneficent, even.
Boehner is right about one thing– Obama has balls of marshmallow.
Obama’s interests and concerns are the same as the .01%, not us.
Given up on using left-leaning bloggers’ names, ‘cakey?
Climate change is not in the interests of the .01%.
I guess it probably will get approved, but it hasn’t been approved yet. I don’t understand why you’re reporting it this way when everyone else is (accurately) reporting it as the release of the State Department’s EIS.
I should add: I especially don’t understand why you’re reporting it wrong when that’s only likely to give people who care about stopping the pipeline from being built the impression that the final decision has already been made, and that there will be no opportunities to engage in lobbying or activism before the President makes the actual final decision this summer.
Because it’s the only hurdle that matters?
I don’t really know what you’re talking about, or why you think you have the inside track on the administration’s thinking. The EIS doesn’t commit the administration to do anything, and the final decision remains with the President. I think the pipeline is likely to be approved, and this report makes it likelier, but it doesn’t of its own force “approve” anything, and there’s no particular reason to think that Obama’s decision is pro forma or immune to influence at this point.
Well, since his own Administration said that the pipeline is no big deal, won’t mean much and has little downside in its report, I’m not sure how you can say this doesn’t reflect the Administration’s thinking on the matter.
Disappointing. I though the Kerry appointment was a good sign.
Yeah, I thought that too. I guess I’ll continue to act as though what I do matters, but it’s getting more difficult.
A big fat fuck you! to everyone who voted for him.
And just in time for spring natural disaster season! Better find what needs to be cut in order to pay for disaster emergency spending. The crazy people destroying this planet will demand it.
Except for the fact that the AFL-CIO, a fairly big supporter of the president, supported the pipeline just two days ago. Its just not the fact that everybody who supported him opposed the pipeline.
Yup. Isn’t Loomis supposed to be the labor guy? Isn’t that kind of a significant factor in all this?
AFL-CIO supported pipelines in general, not this particular one. Disappointing as all get out, but not precisely the same.
OK, but everyone knows, including the constituent unions, what the AFL actually meant on that.
A week after the election, this came out.
60 Percent of Democrats Support Keystone XL Pipeline
Either less than 40% of Democrats voted for him, or you don’t exactly have your finger on the pulse of the Democratic electorate.
Both you and Richard take exception to the term ‘everyone’. I strike it from the record and instead replace it with ‘a core constituency’.
And in addendum, I submit ‘on an issue that negatively impact everyone, whether they support it or not’.
It’s a lot tougher when you have, like, eight “core constituencies.”
“Core constituency” means “me.”
Unfortunately, no one* cares about the environment when the economy is bad.
*Offered in the same spirit as your initial “everyone.”
Vintage Obama. Bad policy that dispirits his supporters while mollifying his enemies not at all.
Saying you care about the climate changing into an unmanageable shitstorm and actually doing something about it are two different things.
If Obama cared about Global Warming, stopping this pipeline would be the very least he could do. He obviously thinks it is just another political issue.
It’s a shame he doesn’t approach it the same way as nuclear arms control. An issue he truly cares about and has a strong track-record on.
I love this reasoning: wait until one decision doesn’t go your way, and then retroactively declare that to be the one action that mattered.
Not CAFE standards. Not green energy investments. Not closing coal plants. Nope, Obama actually did all of those, so by definition, those can’t be “the very least he could do.” Stopping the Keystone Pipeline is the one action by which we can judge his seriously – and we learn this only after he issues a negative decision.
That’s entirely fair, though Obama has also disappointed environmentalists quite a few times, like with smog standards and obvious delaying on climate regulations until after the election. There have been steps forward and backward.
Even in the field of “smog standards,” we see this failed reasoning. The Lisa Jackson EPA has issued very stringent rules on air pollution, including on smog precursors. And yet, there was one proposed rule that was delayed -and whattyaknow, according to a certain segment of environmentalists, that was the one air pollution regulation that really matters, a fact which, once again, we learn only after that ruling came down.
You argue about semantics upthread too. So when Obama does something terrible, is this all you have left?
He could block the pipeline, he did not. He could kill the environment for shits and giggles like the Republicans, but he represents himself as someone who cares about Global Warming.
Neither of my comments have anything to do with semantics.
Do you actually know what “semantics” means?
You made arguments. Bad ones. The difference between “everyone who voted for him” and “a distinct minority of his supporters” is not semantic. Neither is the logical and factual problem you have here. Obama does act like someone who cares about global warming. This is one decision out of any number he has made over the course of his presidency, and his record is very strong overall – but you don’t understand the concept of “overall.” You have a very strong feeling right now, about this one action, and you feel like making absurdly overbroad generalizations about Obama’s performance as a whole is a good way to work through them. Well, maybe it is, but it leads to you writing some really dumb things.
It isn’t actually your disappointment in the decision that’s the problem. As I wrote, I don’t like it, either. The problem is that you make arguments in support of your position that are so stupid, so dramatically at odds with discernible reality and even the lowest bars of intellectual integrity, that they make my right eye start twitching when I read them.
It isn’t actually your disappointment in the decision that’s the problem.
Actually, I kinda think it is. Once we accept that Obama is plutocratic scum and the Enemy, the politics will get simpler.
We knew what to do with Bush. Attack, attack, attack unrelentingly til he was discredited and destroyed.
Shoulda started in 2009.
Militant lefties destroyed George Bush? Your notions of historical causality are, shall we say, idiosyncratic.
“You” did start in 2009. How’s that working out for you?
Joe, this was said before he issued a negative decision.
Coal primarily closed because of market forces – natural gas is cheaper to produce.
So I wouldnt attribute that to the EPA. In fact Obama has not done too much, but that’s not really his fault. The votes in the past two Congresses are not there.
….
Someone less lazy than me find all the links, but this is straight up wrong.
Obama’s administration have levied significant coal emission standards that made it unprofitable to keep running coal. Yes, it was on the way out anyways. But the capital required to build a natural gas plant isn’t exactly laying around in everyone’s pockets.
February 20 Obama Golf Weekend with Jim Crane and Milton Carroll who I presume will someday want to hear this ex-President’s views on 3-irons at 100k a speech
But Obama is good for the gays! Lousy for blacks and working women.
He’s probably played more rounds of golf at this point than all Presidents since Eisenhower combined. Obama cares about Obama, and nobody else.
Oh, I think he cares about pancakes too.
If only he had a pretend ranch so he could spend his time clearing brush.
I can’t wait for McManus to start talking about Obama using a teleprompter.
He’s also a muslim i hear.
A toast: TO THE TAR SANDS! May they give us years upon years of carbon streams blowing into Mother Earth’s face! I know I’ll be drinking to that tonight.
Cheers! Now would you kindly put more water in the filtration tank? Champagne always makes me thirsty.
Don’t forget to plug in the Tesla!
Boot leather is a hell of a drug.
Okay, so they issued a DEIS. They will have to allow public comment, substantially respond to the comments, and include those responses in the FEIS. I’m not clear on State’s NEPA implementing regs (if they have any), but they may still need to wait a while after issuing the FEIS to sign the Record of Decision (ROD). The DEIS is the second step in the process. If Scoping comments weren’t well addressed in the DEIS, that’s a hole in the document. If DEIS comments aren’t substantially responsive, that’s another hole. If there are potential impacts unexplored, that’s yet another hole. Guarans, if there are any legal holes in the doc, they will be ripped open via lawsuit. I would anticipate that the legal challenges post-ROD will be at least a 2-year process.
There is no requirement that the responses be substantive, if such a thing could even be measured.
There is no requirement, true, but when the consultant/lead fed includes canned responses that seem as if they were written by a tenth-grader, it becomes a legal hole in the document.
Just to be clear, this is actually a Draft Supplemental EIS (DSEIS).
If it’s any consolation, I ultimately expect that the tar sands aspect will not ever be fully exploitated under the current technological vision. Simply because it’s a major technological project in a harsh, distant area and utilizing some new processes–all this with a relatively dubious ROI and under a persistent deflationary climate. As far as the tar sands, specifically, goes, I suspect that this is entirely about maintaining the value of mineral rights and leveraging that into profits elsewheres (tho’ stealing land is a potential angle as well). The key check will be when shipping water becomes more valuable than the marginal profit from the refined petrochems. That, I think, is inevitable as places becomes ever thirstier.
Besides, we’re already doomed, for the most part. So we’re just fighting for the shortest distance to reach that light at the end of the tunnel.
OK, I’ve read a couple of news reports. The major concern in that State Dept. report seems to be about the bad ecological effect, not so much of the pipeline itself, but of the increased mining and use of tar-sands oil that the pipeline would stimulate. Yes, it’s nasty stuff, both to extract and to use—up to 19% more carbon emissions than from regular crude. But the report made the point, presumably after competent investigation, that even without the pipeline, those tar sands would be mined anyway, to just about the same extent and with the same results.
If that’s true, then stopping the pipeline seems like a pointless gesture. And let’s not forget we’re talking about Canada. I can’t demand that Canada trash its environment so I can drive around, but the other side of that coin is, do I get to tell Canada what it can and can’t do, according to my own eco-conscience?
Bitter Scribe: As someone up-thread mentioned, Canada is not a land locked nation. You get the point, right?
Not really.
Um…Oglalla Aquifer? What reason do we have to make it easier for Canada to ship their tar sands oil to our coast for refining (by the Koch Bros, IIRC) and sale on the international market? And risk environmental damage to do it? Let em build their own fuckin special refinery in Canada and sell it directly to the Chinese (who already have it under contract, or so I’ve heard).
Woo hoo! I look forward to saving 3 cents a gallon in the year 2021.
It will be very exciting.
And fueling your jet with #2 oil.
So I see from some previous comments that Erik Loomis and his followers are now advocating going Full Unabomber.
It was only a matter of time I suppose.
But I am afraid I must inform the administration of URI that they are employing a wannabe pipeline bomber.
He’s just not that into you, dude. Let it go.
I have just emailed the administration of URI, with the quoted comments, and a link.
Loomis is inciting domestic terrorism and will face the requisite professional, and possibly legal, consequences for doing so.
PS I AM NOT A CRANK
What on earth are you even talking about?
This is really a special moment in the history of LGM trolling. Where as Speak Lies saw the comment in question as me pointing out correctly that such activities would be a crime and pounced on that for his bizarre purposes, Carbon Pancakes accuses me of ecoterrorism. My my, who knew our trolls could separate themselves out, with one proving more dishonest than the other.
Consistency is the hobgoblin of little trolls.
Be sure and let us know what you hear back!
You should ask for his head on a stick. With pancakes.
You keep on crying wolf, little boy. The more often you do it, the sooner someone will listen.
Carbon Tax.
There, I said it.
That is the apple to shoot for.
I don’t disagree. But when that isn’t possible? As I said the other day, you have to have different options on the table. There has to be room for the lobbying/legal efforts and for the grassroots efforts. I will tell you that without the McKibben-led movement and some other grassroots stuff going on, the depression overtaking the environmental movement would be utterly overwhelming.
As of tonight, the depression is overwhelming. Good thing I’ve got a full liquor cabinet.
[...] Keystone Approved (Lawyers, Guns, and Money) [...]
This decision does highlight the limitations of our electoral politics. While electing the Lesser Evil remains important, active, non-electoral political activity is critical. With the exception of the brief (and receding) moment of Occupy, the left largely seems to have forgotten this…or at least failed to put it in action.
Obama will go down as the President who closed the coal plants. Obama will go down as the President under whom American GHG released declined faster than any other country in the world. Obama will go down as the President who jump-started the American clean energy industry. All of these accomplishments, and not just one thing that happened yesterday, need to be taken into account if you’re going to discuss his overall record on the environment.
This decision aside, Obama will go down as the President who turned around the aircraft carrier.
[...] the weekend, I’m too tired to write about real news, and it’s too soon for any more Woodwardgate posts. So, since a good critic can let you enjoy [...]