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Tim Kaine: Obama should block the Keystone pipeline
Obama should block the Keystone pipeline
By Tim Kaine, Published: June 20
Tim Kaine, a Democrat, represents Virginia in the Senate.
President Obama is expected to make a decision in the next few months on the Keystone XL project. As the debate heats up, I worry that the shorthand used in talking about the issue obscures the real point.
I’m a pro-pipeline senator. As a former mayor of Richmond, a city with a gas utility, I think it makes no sense to be anti-pipeline. But I oppose the Keystone XL project. Although the president’s decision is technically over whether to allow a pipeline to deliver oil from Alberta to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the real issue isn’t the pipeline. It’s the wisdom of using tar sands oil.
By most accounts, oil from tar sands is 15 to 20 percent dirtier than conventional petroleum, and the process of extracting and refining it is more difficult and resource-intensive. With so many cleaner alternatives, there is no reason to embrace the use of a dirtier fuel source.Approving the pipeline would send a clear signal to the markets to expand the development of tar sands oil. Such an expansion would hurt our nation’s work to reduce carbon emissions. We have to make energy cleaner tomorrow than it is today. That’s why the president should block Keystone.
Being cleaner doesn’t mean we have to abandon carbon-based energy. As governor of Virginia, I supported building a state-of-the art coal plant in exchange for converting a plant that predated the Clean Air Act from coal to natural gas. I support development of offshore energy (gas, oil, wind and tidal) in the Atlantic. I support new hydro-fracturing techniques that expand the production of natural gas. And I believe that recent upgrades in national fuel economy standards are a major environmental achievement for Obama. We just need to take a phased approach to reducing carbon emissions.
more...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/tim-kaine-keystone-xl-pipeline-should-be-stopped/2013/06/20/5c160bb4-d852-11e2-a9f2-42ee3912ae0e_story.html
By Tim Kaine, Published: June 20
Tim Kaine, a Democrat, represents Virginia in the Senate.
President Obama is expected to make a decision in the next few months on the Keystone XL project. As the debate heats up, I worry that the shorthand used in talking about the issue obscures the real point.
I’m a pro-pipeline senator. As a former mayor of Richmond, a city with a gas utility, I think it makes no sense to be anti-pipeline. But I oppose the Keystone XL project. Although the president’s decision is technically over whether to allow a pipeline to deliver oil from Alberta to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the real issue isn’t the pipeline. It’s the wisdom of using tar sands oil.
By most accounts, oil from tar sands is 15 to 20 percent dirtier than conventional petroleum, and the process of extracting and refining it is more difficult and resource-intensive. With so many cleaner alternatives, there is no reason to embrace the use of a dirtier fuel source.Approving the pipeline would send a clear signal to the markets to expand the development of tar sands oil. Such an expansion would hurt our nation’s work to reduce carbon emissions. We have to make energy cleaner tomorrow than it is today. That’s why the president should block Keystone.
Being cleaner doesn’t mean we have to abandon carbon-based energy. As governor of Virginia, I supported building a state-of-the art coal plant in exchange for converting a plant that predated the Clean Air Act from coal to natural gas. I support development of offshore energy (gas, oil, wind and tidal) in the Atlantic. I support new hydro-fracturing techniques that expand the production of natural gas. And I believe that recent upgrades in national fuel economy standards are a major environmental achievement for Obama. We just need to take a phased approach to reducing carbon emissions.
more...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/tim-kaine-keystone-xl-pipeline-should-be-stopped/2013/06/20/5c160bb4-d852-11e2-a9f2-42ee3912ae0e_story.html
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
On this needing to take a few months - other than that - in total agreement.
This issue has been out there long enough. We've seen the impact to the enviroment when things go wrong. And it's really only benefitting people like the Koch Brother's and their plastics industry. Why can't they just buy it from Venezuela - now that Chavez is not there to block them anymore? (Evidently - he hated them. 
)
How much more investigation is REALLY needed? None. Make a decision. Then move on. We need a jobs bill.