Boehner is apparently on an incentive scheme from Canadian Oil sands companies -- 'cause he doesn't give a dam about Americans or their Health

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner will make a new attempt to force approval of the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline as part of legislation for another 90-day extension of federal road, bridge and transit construction funding, Republican aides said on Friday.

By seeking a second short-term funding extension, the plan aims to put the Canada-to-Texas pipeline and expanded drilling rights back at the top of the House agenda without the struggles that the House has endured in trying to pass a longer-term, more expensive transport bill.

Intelligent Design or Natural Selection you decide on Keystone XL (New & Improved)

TransCanada Corp said on Monday it will build the southern leg of its $7 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline first.

Building the portion of the contentious pipeline that would run to Texas refineries from the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub before the northern section would help remove a pinch-point that has led to deep price discounts for U.S. and Canadian crude and forced refiners to rely more heavily on imports.

TransCanada said it wants the $2.3 billion southern leg in service by mid- to late 2013. It said construction would create 4,000 U.S. jobs.

The company also wrote to the U.S. State Department on Monday detailing plans to refile an application shortly for the remainder of line running to Steele City, Nebraska, from the Canada-U.S. border.

Keystone XL: the drunk guest at the party that just won't leave.....

Uncertain Gains and Certain Losses

Should the pipeline move forward, the only certain winners would be the Canadian and American oil companies that build and maintain it. The number of jobs that would be produced is the subject of great debate. And the income from future oil revenue is so uncertain, the pipeline is even opposed by some fiscal conservatives.

The losses, however, are clear:

• The process begins with a massive strip-mining operation in Alberta that turns wildlife-rich boreal forest into a barren petro-landscape. Undisturbed, this forest absorbs and stores massive quantities of carbon. Destroy the forest, and that carbon stays airborne.
• The mined tar sands must then be cooked, using natural gas, to separate the petroleum from the sand. This leads to dramatic new sources of greenhouse gas emissions compared with conventional oil refining.
• The pipeline will cross 70 rivers and streams, including the Missouri, Platte, Yellowstone, and Arkansas. It crosses aquifers on which millions of Americans rely for drinking water and agricultural irrigation. The likelihood of pipeline leaks and spills is near certain.

Money Talks in Washington

So why is there this much pressure to keep the pipeline alive? It’s about money. It’s about the $145 million that the oil industry poured into Washington lobbying firms in 2011 alone. It’s about the $22,500,000 in campaign contributions made to Congressional candidates in 2010-11.

H.R. 7 the Worst Environmental Bill = tries to push thru Keystone XL, open the Artic Wildlife Refuge, cut public transportation, safe biking and walking programs = this is Congress for the Corporation not We the PEOPLE!!!

In less than 24 hours, dozens of environmental and progressive groups came together to send 500,000 emails to the Senate against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. It worked -- Congress heard from nearly 800,000 Americans, from all 50 states.

This is huge. After feeling that grassroots pressure, the Senate has postponed the Keystone XL vote for the second time this month. But there's an even worse bill in the House of Representatives up for a vote this month -- and it's up to you to make sure the House feels the same pressure the Senate did.

H.R. 7 could be the worst environmental bill we see all year. Call your Representative today and let them know: Valentine's Day is over. No more sweetheart deals for Big Oil.

House Republicans are using crucial transportation legislation to push through not just Keystone XL but also drilling in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, deep cuts to public transportation and safe biking and walking programs, and attacks on bedrock environmental protections.

Instead, this legislation should be about giving Americans clean transportation choices that move us beyond oil -- a dirty fuel that spills out of pipelines and wells, threatens our national security, and contributes more to climate change and smog than any other fossil fuel.

It's true that Big Oil has millions of dollars to spend lobbying the Hill. But we have 1.4 million supporters and members -- and as we've seen time and time again, when we stand together, voices can speak louder than money.

Keystone XL: Republicans want to bisect our country with a pipeline, bypass our laws and then bypass our citizens to send the oil abroad.

A Republican-backed bill giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission power to approve TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL pipeline would remove two federal agencies from oversight, officials of the Interior Department and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said.

The Interior Department is responsible for monitoring construction and maintenance of pipelines on U.S. land, and the legislation makes FERC the “sole federal agency responsible for the project,” Mike Pool, deputy director of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, said today at a House subcommittee hearing in Washington. The Corps would lose its permitting authority for the pipeline, an official said.

The bill strips the Corps of Engineers of its role in reviewing and approving pipelines, Margaret Gaffney-Smith, chief of the Corps’ regulatory program, said at the hearing. It also poses jurisdictional and legal issues, officials from the State Department and FERC told the House subcommittee Jan. 25. FERC doesn’t have the authority to site oil pipelines.

Keystone XL will endanger Nebraska’s water supplies, and lead to oil exports.

House Democrats led by Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts today introduced a measure that would prevent exports of the crude transported by the pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast.

“Other countries shouldn’t be allowed to bisect our country with a pipeline and then bypass our citizens to send the oil abroad,” Markey said in a statement.

The legislation “gives the pipeline an unprecedented regulatory earmark,” Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who has led opposition, said. It directs FERC to approve the pipeline “even though we don’t yet know what route it will take through the state of Nebraska.”

Koch Industries Inc. of Wichita, Kansas, may benefit from the pipeline’s construction, said Waxman, who criticized Republicans for not inviting company executives or officials from Calgary-based TransCanada to testify.

R.I.P. February 2012 Keystone Pipeline XL a bad idea that died a timely and early death….

Fresh off its win helping delay the Keystone XL oil pipeline in the United States, the Natural Resources Defense Council is directing its star-studded cast against the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline.
The U.S.-based environmental group, which raised $94 million in 2010, will bring its expertise and 1.3 million members to an already formidable array of largely B.C.-based environmental groups actively campaigning to stop the controversial project.

It will also bring a new element - celebrity power. The defence council counts among its directors the actors Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Its senior lawyer is Robert Kennedy Jr.

Redford has already written publicly about his concerns regarding the Northern Gateway pipeline.

And when the defence council wanted to educate its members about the Northern Gateway project, actor Kevin Bacon narrated a short video about it.

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) international program director Susan Casey-Lefkowitz said the group has entered the Northern Gateway campaign because delaying the Keystone XL project means there will be even more pressure on the Northern Gateway pipeline to proceed.

U.S. President Barack Obama postponed a decision on the $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline until 2013, pending further environmental review.

The Republicans have tried to force an earlier decision, but Obama has said there is not enough time for a review, which could cancel the project.

Environmental opponents wanted the 2,700-kilometre Keystone XL pipeline halted because it would deliver "dirty oil" from the Alberta oilsands to the U.S., and also over concerns a spill would harm a major water aquifer in Nebraska.

Casey-Lefkowitz said the Northern Gateway pipeline and tankers threaten a beautiful landscape, the spirit bear (rare white black bear) and the greatest fishing rivers in the world.

The 1,172-kilometre Northern Gateway pipeline is meant to open up new markets for Alberta oilsands' bitumen in Asia.

A second, smaller pipeline would transport condensate - a kerosene-like liquid used to thin bitumen for transport in pipelines - from the coast back to the Alberta oilsands.

"These are all things of global interest," said Casey-Lefkowitz, who is based in Washington, D.C. "We are bringing an international community that cares very much about the B.C. coast."

The NRDC is no stranger to environmental battles in B.C., having pushed to protect areas along the central and north coast now known as the Great Bear Rain Forest. In November, the NRDC partnered with the Calgary-based Pembina Institute and B.C.-based Living Oceans Society to release a report that argues bitumen from the oilsands is more corrosive and heavier than conventional oil, making a pipeline failure or tanker leak more likely. Calgary-based Enbridge has said it will build and operate the Northern Gateway pipeline to the highest safety standards.

The NRDC's members have also sent 60,000 emails opposing the project to B.C. Premier Christy Clark, and another 40,000 to Enbridge president and CEO Patrick Daniel.

The mostly B.C.-based environmental groups have been fighting the proposed Enbridge pipeline for years.

There are about a dozen such groups, including the Dogwood Initiative, ForestEthics (with offices in B.C. and the U.S.), West Coast Environmental Law, the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, the SkeenaWild Conservation Trust and the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation.

All have similar concerns: the risk and the potential catastrophic effects of a pipeline or tanker spill on the environment and communities; and the expansion of the Alberta oilsands and increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

The Victoria-based Dogwood Initiative has an active campaign to halt the project.

Recently it ran a campaign that helped sign up 1,600 people to testify at the National Energy Board's regulatory hearings that begin Jan. 10 in Kitimat.

Although the Dogwood group says the decision on Northern Gateway should be made by British Columbians, it has no problem with the addition of the American-based NRDC to the campaign. "The more attention that can be placed on this issue, the better," said Dogwood Initiative official Eric Swanson, who heads the group's no-tanker campaign.

"We all share the planet, and we share the Pacific coast with many others," he added.
And groups such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and the Pembina Institute have focused their opposition on the oilsands. The Pembina Institute, which advocates transitioning away from a fossil-fuel economy, has called for a halt in developing Northern Gateway until the upstream effects of the oilsands are addressed.

While Pembina is concerned about the risks of the Northern Gateway pipeline and tanker spills, its main concerns are over oilsands tailings seepage, industrial air emissions, greenhouse gas emissions and reclamation of wetlands.

"Our perspective is that oilsands development could proceed responsibly if it was being developed in accordance with science-based environmental limits," said Jennifer Grant, director of Pembina's oilsands program.

"[But] limits on oilsands development are not being addressed," she said.

The fight against the Northern Gateway project is also being carried out by a coterie of recently created, locally based groups in northern B.C.

Those include the Sea to Sands Conservation Alliance in Prince George, the Douglas Channel Watch in Kitimat, Lakes District Clean Waters Coalition in Burns Lake and the Fort St. James Sustainability Group.

Some of the homegrown groups, which operate on shoestring budgets, are using social media to get their message out.

The Sea to Sands Conservation Alliance has more than 900 members on its Facebook site.

The Douglas Channel Watch has more than 550 fans.

Margaret Stenson, a representative of the Douglas Channel Watch, said the group started after like-minded friends starting talking to each other.

Now, about a dozen to 20 people attend its meetings, which have increased in frequency to once or twice a week in preparation for the regulatory hearings.

"I think we have a lot of support, but there are a lot of people who haven't found out that much about [the Northern Gateway project]," Stenson said.

"You think they would. Our Douglas Channel is so important to us. And the Kitimat River is our drinking water, and this pipeline goes about 70 kilometres, I believe, along the river."

Battle Won but the War for America Continues......

Deserted by many of his fellow Republicans, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner surrendered to attacks from President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats and agreed to a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut that he derided hours earlier.




The decision kicks the fight over extending the tax cut for 160 million U.S. workers into early next year without resolving deep divides over how to cover the cost through 2012.

Democrats are focused on imposing a new tax on income exceeding $1 million while Republicans want to cut the federal work force and freeze pay for government workers. Republicans also want to attach policies to a payroll tax cut extension -- opposed by Democrats -- such as a rewrite of the unemployment system or weaker rules for industrial emissions.

Keystone XL = Dirty & Dangerous!!!

Please call your Congressman/Senator and urge them to stand strong against the dirty, dangerous Keystone XL pipeline:


•Oil pipelines have proven to be dangerous -- from the June 2nd spill of more than 42,000 gallons of oil into Montana's Yellowstone river, to last summer's 840,000 gallon tar sands pipeline spill into Michigan's Kalamazoo River, to the 12 spills along TransCanada's Keystone pipeline in its first 12 months of operation. Our current regulatory system has proven inadequate to protect communities from spills like these and must be updated before any more major pipelines are approved.

•Keystone XL will not increase energy security. It will allow Canadian oil companies to limit the supply of their crude to Midwest refineries and divert it to Gulf Coast deepwater port refineries where it can be exported overseas to markets like China.

•Keystone XL will raise gas prices. TransCanada's Canadian permit application for Keystone XL clearly stated that the pipeline could be used to add up to $4 billion to America's fuel bill. Prominent oil market economist Dr. Philip Verleger concluded that this would increase gas prices by 10-20 cents per gallon, especially in the Midwest, having the greatest impact on U.S. farmers.

•The pipeline would threaten the environment. Tar sands crude oil produces 82% more global warming pollution on a life cycle basis than conventional crude oil. This vote follows a weekend where record high temperatures threatened communities across the country.

Let your Congressmen/Senators know that you oppose this attempt to force the construction of a dangerous and unnecessary pipeline through America's land and waters.

Pipelines are only safe when well regulated: ASK the 21 dead, 105 hurt by the 230 gas pipeline accidents last year!!!

WAYNESBURG, Pa. - Through the hilly fields here in southwestern Pennsylvania, crews worked for months this year, cutting a trench through woods and past farms for a new natural gas pipeline.


Like many other lines crisscrossing the state's Marcellus Shale regions, this pipe was big - a high-pressure steel line, 20 inches in diameter, large enough to help move a buried ocean of natural gas out of this corner of the state. It was also plenty big enough to set off a sizable explosion if something went wrong.

There was trouble on the job. Far too many of the welds that tied the pipe sections together were failing inspection and had to be done over.

A veteran welder, now an organizer for a national pipeline union, happened upon the line and tried to blow the whistle on what he considered substandard work.

But there was no one to call.

Pennsylvania's regulators don't handle those pipelines, and acknowledge they don't even know where they are. And when he reported what he saw to a federal oversight agency, an inspector told him there was nothing he could do, either.

Because the line was in a rural area, no safety rules applied.

"It's crazy," said Terry Langley, the union official, worried that any problems would literally be buried. "It seems to me that everyone is turning a blind eye."

In Pennsylvania's shale fields, where the giant Marcellus strike has unleashed a furious surge of development, many natural gas pipelines today get less safety regulation than in any other state in America, an Inquirer review shows.

Hundreds of miles of high-pressure pipelines already have been installed in the shale fields with no government safety checks - no construction standards, no inspections, and no monitoring.

"No one - and absolutely no one - is looking," said Deborah Goldberg, a lawyer with Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm focusing on the environment.

Belatedly, the state's elected officials and regulators are trying to catch up. The legislature is poised to give the state Public Utility Commission authority to enforce federal safety rules in the shale regions, as in other gas-producing states.

Still, because of a long-standing gap in the federal rules - the same issue that affected the line near Waynesburg - the new law would leave many gas pipelines unregulated over vast swaths of rural Pennsylvania, especially in the very shale regions that are ground zero for pipeline construction.

These new Marcellus Shale "gathering" pipelines that connect to the wells are going unregulated, even though they are large-diameter, high-pressure pipes - as powerful and potentially dangerous as the transmission lines that cut across the continent.

Last year, 21 people died and 105 were hurt in 230 gas-line accidents in the United States, according to federal data, the highest death total in a decade.

This year, 16 people have died in gas explosions, including five people in Allentown and one in Philadelphia. The accidents in this region were all due to failures in old cast-iron pipelines, not the type of lines being installed in the shale regions.

Canadian Tar Sands summarized = TRULY NUTS!!!

For every barrel of oil they extract there, they have to use enough natural gas to heat a family's home for four days, and they have to tear up four tons of landscape, all for one barrel of oil. It is truly nuts.

Republicans kill Keystone Pipeline by handing knife to the Democrats.....

To try to break a stalemate in the payroll tax cut negotiations, Obama's fellow Democrats first dropped their proposal to pay for it with a surtax on millionaires. Then on Friday they abandoned what had appeared to be a non-negotiable demand -- for the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas to be kept separate from the payroll tax cut issue.


The measure would require Obama to make a decision on allowing construction of Keystone within 60 days or declare that "oil trade with Canada is not in the national interest of the United States," according to an aide to Republican Senator Richard Lugar.


Obama recently put off a decision on the pipeline until 2013 while the government studies alternative routes. Many interpreted that move as a way to appease his environmental base in his bid to win re-election in November 2012.


The deal immediately drew fire from environmentalists, who said it was an example of House Republicans holding the federal government hostage on behalf of the oil industry.


"We're disappointed that the president seemingly signed off on this deal, but we expect that he's going to live up to his promise ... that he will turn down the permit for the pipeline," said Daniel Kessler, spokesman for Tar Sands Action, a group that opposes the project.


Kessler said he expected members from his group would reprise their protests about the project at Obama's campaign offices across the country.


In a defense of what appeared to be a major concession to Republicans, an Obama administration official said the deal would effectively mean the Keystone project would not go ahead.


The official noted that the State Department has said it could not make a decision on the project within 60 days and any attempt to force its hand would likely result in a decision to deny a permit for the project.

Republicans kill Keystone Pipeline by handing the knife to the Democrats....

To try to break a stalemate in the payroll tax cut negotiations, Obama's fellow Democrats first dropped their proposal to pay for it with a surtax on millionaires. Then on Friday they abandoned what had appeared to be a non-negotiable demand -- for the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas to be kept separate from the payroll tax cut issue.



The measure would require Obama to make a decision on allowing construction of Keystone within 60 days or declare that "oil trade with Canada is not in the national interest of the United States," according to an aide to Republican Senator Richard Lugar.


Obama recently put off a decision on the pipeline until 2013 while the government studies alternative routes. Many interpreted that move as a way to appease his environmental base in his bid to win re-election in November 2012.


The deal immediately drew fire from environmentalists, who said it was an example of House Republicans holding the federal government hostage on behalf of the oil industry.


"We're disappointed that the president seemingly signed off on this deal, but we expect that he's going to live up to his promise ... that he will turn down the permit for the pipeline," said Daniel Kessler, spokesman for Tar Sands Action, a group that opposes the project.


Kessler said he expected members from his group would reprise their protests about the project at Obama's campaign offices across the country.


In a defense of what appeared to be a major concession to Republicans, an Obama administration official said the deal would effectively mean the Keystone project would not go ahead.


The official noted that the State Department has said it could not make a decision on the project within 60 days and any attempt to force its hand would likely result in a decision to deny a permit for the project.

All those poor millionaires just couldn't endure giving up 1.9% for the rest of the 99%...now get to work slave!!!

President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats are considering dropping a surtax on millionaires to pay for a payroll tax cut for U.S. workers, a move that would remove a major stumbling block to a compromise deal with Republicans.

Obama discussed the possibility of abandoning the millionaire tax, which Republicans strongly oppose, at a White House meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and fellow Democrats, a Senate Democratic leadership aide told Reuters.

If Democrats drop the plan to impose a 1.9 percent surtax on income above $1 million a year, it would clear the way for negotiations with Republicans on a deal before the payroll tax cut, which affects 160 million Americans, expires on December 31.


The tax proposal was seen by some congressional aides as the Democrats' main bargaining chip, one they might be willing to give up if Republicans abandoned an effort to speed up a decision by Obama on the environmentally unsound Keystone XL oil pipeline project between the United States and Canada.

Republicans sneak bad legislation into your Christmas Stocking!!!! Ho Ho Ho....

Here's just a small sampling of what we're facing in the next two weeks and why we MUST speak up immediately:



Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner is pushing to attach a rider that would force approval of the highly controversial Keystone XL pipeline with almost no review of its effect on water supplies and other public resources to the payroll tax bill. If it goes through, this would circumvent the State Department's authority and expose America's heartland to the risk of spills and contamination from the 2,000+ mile pipeline.


Another rider would block new limits on mercury and other hazardous emissions. If it passes, this rider will cause up to 28,350 premature deaths, 150,000 asthma attacks, and nearly 19,000 hospital visits over the next 3 ½ years.


Republican Senator Barrasso of Wyoming is also pushing for a rider that would hamper efforts to preserve critical waterways, including wetlands and small streams that filter pollutants, prevent flooding, and replenish our drinking water.

Canada says to the WORLD: Damn the environment; let's get on with polluting in a really big way!!!!

Canada on Monday became the first country to announce it would withdraw from the Kyoto protocol on climate change.


Environment Minister Peter Kent broke the news on his return from talks in Durban, where countries agreed to extend Kyoto for five years and hammer out a new deal forcing all big polluters for the first time to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Canada, a major energy producer which critics complain is becoming a climate renegade.

The right-of-center Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which has close ties to the energy sector.

"It's a national disgrace. Prime Minister Harper just spat in the faces of people around the world for whom climate change is increasingly a life and death issue," said Graham Saul of Climate Action Network Canada.

"Our government is abdicating its international responsibilities. It's like where the kid in school who knows he's going to fail the class, so he drops it before that happens," said Megan Leslie of the opposition New Democrats.

Canada's former Liberal government signed up to Kyoto, which dictated a cut in emissions to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. By 2009 emissions were 17 percent above the 1990 levels, because of the expanding tar sands development.

Republicans : We get to screw up the environment if you want your payroll tax cut extension...."It's a wonderful LIFE!"

The Republican House bill containing the payroll tax cut would also push through a decision by the administration on TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline without further needed environmental studies, which would connect Canada’s oil sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Environmental groups are opposing the project that will contaminate aquifers and put citizens lives and the lives of their children at risk.



The State Department, which has jurisdiction because the pipeline crosses an international border, has said it will rule on plan in 2013 to allow time to study a new route that avoids the environmentally sensitive Sandhills region in Nebraska.

President Barack Obama has said he’ll reject legislation to extend the payroll tax if the pipeline language is attached.


While he Labor Department last week said the unemployment rate fell to 8.6 percent in November, the lowest since March 2009, Obama administration officials such as Alan Kreuger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the global economy remains “in a fragile state.”

The Republican legislation would also require the Environmental Protection Agency to delay new pollution rules for industrial boilers.
Obama advisers have said they would recommend the president veto a delay on the boiler rule.

Republicans we only care for the poor and middle class if we can make the rich richer!!!

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are poised for a collision next week of their bids to extend or expand a payroll tax cut for workers.


House Republicans rallied yesterday behind a plan Boehner is preparing that would pair an extension of the current payroll tax cut with eased restrictions on some industrial emissions and expedited approval of an oil pipeline from Canada. Reid is focused on expanding cuts to the worker payroll tax and using a surtax on annual income exceeding $1 million to pay for it.

The biggest fights likely will center on a Republican demand that the bill include language that would expedite the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline in Canada. The proposed TransCanada Corp. (TRP) pipeline would carry oil from Canada to the U.S. The Obama administration has put off a decision on the pipeline until 2013. An independent study concluded that the pipeline would create no meaningful new jobs and pose an unacceptable risk to the USA’s environment as well as contributing to Canada becoming the largest GHG emitter per capita due to the extraction and processing methods used in the oil sands.

“House Republicans’ bill is a partisan joke that has no chance of passing the Senate,” the Nevada Democrat said in a press release. “Instead of playing political games, Congress should work to find common ground.”

Republican gifts for the Xmas Holiday: No Consumer Protection, No Payroll Tax Cut and a Drive to Dump on the Environment... HO HO HO!!!

President Barack Obama said the Senate’s failure to confirm Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “makes no sense” and will leave middle-income Americas without protection from “unscrupulous” lenders.

“There is no reason why Mister Cordray should not be nominated and should not be confirmed by the Senate,” Obama said at a White House news conference, less than an hour after Republicans in the Senate blocked a motion to end debate on the nomination. He vowed to keep pushing for confirmation.


“We’re not giving up on this,” he said.


Asked whether he would consider using his authority to make a recess appointment of Cordray, bypassing the Senate, Obama said, “We’re going to look at all our options.”


The motion to end debate on the nomination failed with a vote of 53 in favor and 45 opposed. Sixty votes were needed to proceed.

Obama also pressed Congress to pass an extension of the temporary payroll tax cut before leaving for the holidays and without adding provisions that don’t directly apply.

House Republicans are proposing to add a provision to the tax legislation that would expedite approval of TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline that is under review by the State Department. A decision has been put off until early 2013 to address environmental concerns about the route.

Republicans don't care how sick they make your children, how polluted our country becomes, nor how poor they make the 99%

House Republicans said Friday that they are planning to push a bill to force a decision on the pipeline and strip the President's authority to make that decision. Worse, they will attach this poison pill to the President's payroll-tax and unemployment benefit extension package -- considered a must-pass piece of legislation that contains crucial help for our long-term unemployed.



Tell Leaders Reid and Pelosi: No back room deals on Keystone XL


It's one of the Republicans' most brazen moves to shill for oil companies at the expense of the rest of us. And Senate Majority Leader Reid and House Minority Leader Pelosi need to know that they can't throw the fight against Keystone XL under the bus as they work to find a way to pass the president's payroll-tax and unemployment benefit extension package.


According to Politico's reporting of the closed-door meeting of House Republicans:

Speaker John Boehner referred to the package he's putting forward as turning "chicken-sh-- into chicken salad," according to people who attended the meeting in the Capitol basement.

Translation: He's going to pass President Barack Obama's preferred tax cut, but he wants some skin from Democrats for it.

That skin is the Keystone XL pipeline. The House bill would take Keystone XL decision making authority away from the President and State Department and force the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to make a decision in 30 days, substantially restricting FERC's discretion to reject the project in the process.2


The current review process by the State Department has been restarted to evaluate a new route in Nebraska, and unlike FERC, will notably consider the climate change impacts of the project, an area that wasn't taken into account in the State Department's initial sham process.


Tell Leaders Reid and Pelosi: Don't compromise on the Republicans' Keystone XL end run.


The House's push comes on the heels of a similar, but less drastic, bill by Republicans in the Senate, which would force a decision though it doesn't remove the President's authority.


Republican hostage taking has become standard practice when it comes to legislation to provide assistance to the most needy among us. It doesn't always work, but the President considers the payroll-tax and unemployment benefits extension to be central to his jobs bill, so unless Leaders Reid and Pelosi take a stand and refuse to cut a deal that includes fast tracking Keystone XL, this could make it into bill and become law.

After everything we've fought for, we need to push back hard to make sure Democrats in Congress don't cave in and allow Republicans to force Keystone XL through the back door.

Canada is the only country in the world saying it won’t honor Kyoto!!!

Canada, the country furthest from meeting its commitment to cut carbon emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.


The country’s greenhouse-gas emissions are almost a third higher than 1990 levels, and it has a 6 percent CO2 reduction target for the end of 2012. If it couldn’t meet its goal, Canada would have to buy carbon credits, under the rules of the legally binding treaty.


Canada, which has the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves, would be the first of 191 signatories to the Kyoto Protocol to annul its emission-reduction obligations. While Environment Minister Peter Kent declined to confirm Nov. 28 that Canada is preparing to pull out of Kyoto, which may ease the burden for oil-sands producers and coal-burning utilities, he said the government wouldn’t make further commitments to it.

“Canada is the only country in the world saying it won’t honor Kyoto,” said Keith Stewart, an energy and climate policy analyst for Greenpeace in Toronto. Under a previous Liberal government, Canada was one of the first countries to sign Kyoto in 1998. The current Conservative government made a non-binding commitment at 2009 United Nations talks in Copenhagen to reduce emissions by 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels, in line with a pledge by the U.S., its biggest trading partner.