Could Obama Craft Horse Trade Deal For Keystone XL?
Just read this and am concerned this could be what happens. The EPA will propose new rules for existing coal power plants then Obama will approve the Keystone XL pipeline (the decision was already pushed back to June I believe) in an attempt to please both environmentalists and the fossil fuel industry in a clear political move. They will then quantify it by stating the emissions saved from the mew EPA rules will more than offset anything emitted from the pipeline and push the job creation angle of it.
Personally, I see this as very possible because neither Obama nor many politicians in general seem to truly understand the moral imperative of keeping the carbon in the ground. This is about pleasing enough demographics to keep winning elections and securing campaign donations. There are elections coming up next year. Hopefully, I am wrong, but even Obama stated in the SOTU that we won't get 100% of what we want which already showed me those in DC in the majority do not have a clue as to the moral consequences of this crisis.
Also see:
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/191468781.html
Expect Betrayal From Obama On Keystone
Hard not to agree with this article based on what we've seen, or that is, not seen so far. Political doublespeak seems to be what this is all about.
By Bonnie Blodgett
A huge climate rally is raging in D.C. as you read this, sparked by a decision the president will make -- any day now -- to either approve or reject the oil industry's request to complete the Keystone XL pipeline, which is slated to carry the filthiest crude oil on the planet from Canadian tar sands down through the American breadbasket to ports in Texas for passage not to customers in the United States, as we've been falsely promised, but the Far East.
Tar-sands oil requires massive amounts of energy to procure and refine. That's before it's burned. A leak in the pipeline could further degrade the already polluted (with fossil-fuel-based fertilizer runoff) groundwater in our country's agricultural heartland. Keystone will create scant American jobs while adding billions to the balance sheets of American multinationals whose targeted growth markets in the Third World will increasingly supply their most valued workers as well.
This decision is pivotal. It will either establish the United States as the leader in slowing fossil-fuel dependence, or it will demonstrate with breathtaking clarity that, contrary to our own socially responsible self-image, we are at our core a rogue nation, quite possibly the most irresponsible in world history.
This decision is important also because it represents a rare opportunity for this president to leapfrog the whole messy bargaining process that has been his scapegoat for the continued existence of banks "too big to jail," as one pundit put it, to Guantanamo, to guns. For once he has a golden opportunity to not just preach about right and wrong, but to stand up to those same adversaries who keep derailing his dreams for a better America and to throw a sizable wrench in their plans.
On the fate of Keystone, the president has the final say. No horse-trading required. It's open field running to "meaningful progress" (Obama's term) not through market-based solutions but by confronting the problem head-on.
By "problem," I mean both warming and that other menace: corporate manipulation and greed. Obama's oil-lobby-sponsored opponents in Congress can't block his Keystone decision with a never-ending filibuster. If he says no on Keystone, that's it. Done. And in that one gesture he can silence the doubters who think his awakenings on gay rights and immigration reform (for example) were inspired more by political expediency than conviction.
"He's gonna cave," I e-mailed a friend as the president wrapped up his spirited energy spiel with one more pie-in-the-sky solution -- a government-sponsored research think tank that would speed those market-based solutions. (Wonder if Exxon Mobil's rumored geo-engineering research to redirect solar rays might qualify for a grant.) I knew that Keystone was a go when Obama let it slip that "naturally" he'd be granting a whole slew of new oil and gas permits as part of the energy independence effort.
Kicking the can down the road is something this president has gotten pretty good at, and politically speaking it has served him well. I guess it should come as no surprise that he's willing to bet our planet's future on the hope that we can have it both ways on this one, too.
end of excerpt.
Bonnie Blodgett is a St. Paul writer.
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JanforGore
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