When President Obama makes his February decision on the Keystone XL pipeline deal, which Republicans forced as part of the last hostage crisis, he might want to note that a similar pipeline is getting some bad press up in America’s Hat:
Environmentalists accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government of taking the side of big oil over ordinary citizens after the Conservatives said foreign-funded “radicals” were distorting a pipeline approval process.
Blaming “outside agitators” is usually a sign of weakness, so I wonder if the Harper government is going to have trouble pushing through a pipeline that goes across the Rockies and the BC coast to transport crude oil to supertankers. Canadians can tolerate abominations like dollar coins and socialist medicine, so if they can’t put up with a pipeline, why should God-fearing real Americans?
(Thanks to beaver-tail-eating reader Bob for the link.)
burnspbesq
Maybe all the images of the post-Apocalyptic landscape in Alberta are finally having an impact.
Mino
Resource extration is so third world. Is that the pipeline the Chinese bought an interest in? Or was it Keystone? Love it. The Chinese are beginning to fuss about pollution in their country so now the Chinese outsource it to North America. Sublime.
Punchy
The last Keystone “pipeline” deal I’ve been a part of involved a large beer bong and lots of drunkedness.
Svensker
The “foreign radicals” are a) Americans and b) the indigenous people. I shit you not. The Harper Govt calls the First Nations “foreign radicals” when it suits them. Unbelievable.
Yevgraf
Keystone always made me fart a burnt rubber smell, so I haven’t had any in over 20 years.
Wonder if it still sucks ass?
Zifnab
But the jerbs! Think of the jerbs! If Obama really loved jerbs he’d do whatever the Republicans told him to, on account of their history as strong jerb creators.
Scott Shepherd
I wonder if the Harper government is going to have trouble pushing through a pipeline
Highly doubtful. We have a Parliamentary government up here in America’s hat, and unfortunately, the Cons have an absolute majority. Harper can pretty much do whatever the hell he wants, and will. If he gets to thumb his nose at environmentalists and the opposition in the bargain, so much the better.
Kola Noscopy
So what’s with the game playing aspect of this? Why is the Obama white house pretending they need all this time to make a decision they could have announced long ago?
Surely they already know which way they are going to rule?
double nickel
Apparently 19 of the over 4000 people who have signed up to express their opinion at the public hearings on this pipline are based outside of Canada. That gives you some idea as to the influence the “radicals” have. Consider also, that all 6 of the major proponents of this deal are foreign (non-Canadian)oil companies. So who’s shitting who here?
PIGL
It doesn’t matter…Harper, our Prime Minister, is acting like a Rovian Republican. He is talking to this base, our version of your 27%, which he has fiendishly coalesced around his party. It makes him almost impossible to defeat electorally.
GregB
Harper sounds like he’s hired Bashar Assad’s press flack. I’m glad to see that chowder head is getting some shit, finally.
I keep telling all of my wingnut friends that the pipeline they are salivating over is one that will be used to ship Canadian oil to China.
Joseph Nobles
Canada is America’s Hat? So Alaska is America’s Pointy Head sticking out of the top of the Hat?
burnspbesq
@Kola Noscopy:
It’s not a game. It’s about building a record for the inevitable litigation. Go study up on the Administrative Procedure Act. Then if you still have a problem with the Administration doing what is necessary in order for its decision to stand up in court, we can talk.
Someguy
America’s oil dependence is just as bad at $4/gallon as it was at $1.50/gallon. We don’t need more oil, we need less. I sincerely hope that Obama takes that pipeline and shoves it right up Harper’s ass. We need $8/gallon (or higher) gas prices before people will finally start to wise up and change.
Judas Escargot
As the resources get more scarce, expect the governments of the newest generation of ‘resource extraction states’ like Canada and Australia to move rightward.
Peter
It probably won’t matter that nobody in their right mind wants the fucking oil pipeline. Harper doesn’t give a shit about actually serving the people, and he doesn’t have to worry about relection for five years.
Villago Delenda Est
@Someguy:
The transition from our idiotic, wasteful transportation system to something sustainable will be painful. Our cities west of the Mississippi are all predicated on the automobile, and unless alternative energy to propel them becomes available, we’ll have major problems just moving people around. Sprawl, in a word, sucks.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Svensker: I think the real foreign radicals are all the US oil companies funding the ‘Ethical Oil’ astroturf campaign.
Not that it seems to be working on the people of Canada, or anywhere else, mind you.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Judas Escargot: That’s a well-documented feature of petro-economies. The more of an economy’s money comes from petroleum, the more repressive the regime running it is.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Someguy: I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re not going to get $8 gasoline for a long while. We’ll hover around $3 and $4, the shortages will shut down one or another branch of the economy, the jobs will disappear, and 100,000s of former employees won’t be buying gas. Then the price will come back down for those few of us who can still afford to drive.
Rinse, repeat. Welcome to the downslope.
catclub
@Someguy: I agree. I am always dumbstruck when some prosperous person talks about the high price of gasoline. Huh? I am not exactly a gazillionaire, but the difference between $2.50 and $5.00 gas is not really a large part of my budget.
Consider the cost of eating out twice in a month. Probably larger than the change in gas costs.
fubar
Who said Amuricans fear god? I always assumed he was their best bud, according to all the sundays shows I’ve seen. And Tebow seems to have a direct pipeline for miracles on demand.
canuckistani
Don’t be fooled. We’re getting that pipeline no matter how much “foreign radicals” complain. The Conservative Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Oil.
Judas Escargot
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Yep.
Works on the state level, too: Most of our resource extraction states (eg Texas, Alaska, etc) are Red. That’s not a coincidence.
lacp
@burnspbesq: There appears to be a bit of an unusual political aspect as well, since some of the state-level Republicans out there in the heartland are expressing concerns about the project. If I were the administration, I certainly wouldn’t be in a hurry to announce a decision. Adding the support of some local Red State Republican politicos to a decision to nix the pipeline would be worth waiting for.
El Cid
I keep confusing those who begin speaking to me about gas being expensive so we need more drilling & pipelines with the fact that our oil and processed gasoline companies have dealt with our changing market (we’re driving less, partly due to higher gas prices) by exporting gasoline, selling gasoline from the US abroad for the first time in many, many years — they’re not going to keep that here, increase supply, and lower price just to be nice to us.
For some reason it offends a lot of peoples’ sensibilities that oil and processing companies would do that, that they wouldn’t keep ‘our gas’ here and so forth.
It’s all well and good to talk about how you support businesses running for the market and let them compete and so forth until you grasp that this doesn’t mean they favor you.
Luthe
@catclub:
For *you*. For those of us living below the edge (grad school = negative net income in any given year), gas is a huge part of our budget. Especially when getting to school/work/wherever requires us to drive. If gas taxes are regressive, gas prices are even more so.
I’m studying urban planning. I’m all for public transit and sustainability and compact development. But infrastructure doesn’t spring up overnight and the spatial mismatch between where poor people live and where jobs are being created (slowly) isn’t going away anytime soon. So while gas prices going up doesn’t affect those with money (and jobs), it’s a real burden for the poor.
Gust Avrakotos
Lol, If you think for one second that any of these pipelines will not happen because of environmentalists/protesters you are dillusional.
I can guarantee you Keystone XL will be built. GUARANTEE! The announcement next month doesn’t mean anything. State department already said they will change the wording of the announcement they already made to deny from delay to satisfy GOPers political bullshit amendment. Doesn’t mean anything because they can still approve it next year.
It will happen. You have a choice, do you want bloody oil or dirty oil. If you are trying to pretend there is ANY other choice you are a hypocrit because I guarantee you that even if you have never driven a vehicle, you rely on oil to survive one way or another. Even if it’s just getting groceries at the supermarket delivered by diesel trucks.
And you pipeline whiners are probably the same people who whine when the price of gas goes up by even a penny. Where do you think that gas comes from? The gas fairy?
dollared
@Gust Avrakotos: Yes. Better Keystone XL than the canadian pipeline.
Oh, and probably both will be built.
wrb
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
That’s my conclusion. Carbon-based energy will be kept just cheap enough to prevent alternatives from competing. With alternatives getting cheaper, carbon carbon energy prices will drop, consumption will increase, and the earth will cook.
Peak oil is an brilliant industry rat-fucking astroturf attempt designed to make us think all things good flow from oil, alternatives are “unrealistic”, there should be no barriers to extraction if we don’t want awful poverty, and oil- being so precious and all- should be as expensive as is possible without bringing on competetion.
Gust Avrakotos
@wrb: Probably the most naive thing I have ever read on BJ and that’s saying a lot given all the naivete spewed by Cole on a daily basis.
Get out your tin foil hat’s folks, it’s conspiracy theory day.
The Moar You Know
@Gust Avrakotos: Had a hard time making any sense out of your comment, the misspellings and made-up words made it difficult.
The objection that most informed Americans and Canadians have to this project is that it’s going to be shipping Canadian oil to China, not here.
The Republic of Stupidity
As they say in the adult entertainment business, then we get to –
– The Money Shot…
And if that doesn’t work, Canada can pass its own version of the Patriot Act and just declare ’em all terraists…
The Moar You Know
Harper’s a real piece of work. Canadian Liberals/NDP/Greens need to stop the circular firing squad and get their shit together to run him out of office.
Tonybrown74
@Joseph Nobles:
More like America’s pony tail.
burnspbesq
@Gust Avrakotos:
I think you’re wrong. Willing to put a Benjamin on that?
Maude
@The Moar You Know:
Like we ran GW Bush out of office in 2004?
The prophet Nostradumbass
So, this Gust clown is the newest incarnation of Derf, right?
Triassic Sands
Wow, now there’s a real surprise. Who could have ever imagined that Harper would take the side of big oil? Shocking!
Mike G
@Tonybrown74:
So our northern cousins don’t think we’re being imperialistic, under this same meme America is Canada’s Pants —
tinyurl.com/6p9n2r8
Guest Rob
LOL, so I read this part:
And the first thing I think is, “Hey, I LIKE having dollar coins!” I guess I forgot about the advantages of socialized medicine for a bit, I kinda like that part better.
Keystone XL this, Keystone XL that… what I don’t understand is why a pipeline is worse than shipping oil overseas? How many more oceanic oil spills are necessary to prove this point? Yeah, yeah, perhaps it needs to not be routed through such sensitive land, but that’s changing the project, not stopping it.
I actually wish we were refinining Canadian oil in Canada, and creating jobs here, but maybe (hah!) the anti-pollution laws are stronger in Alberta than they are in TX and LA…
Gust Avrakotos
@The Moar You Know: Always fun when the spelling nazis come out to play.
Gust Avrakotos
@burnspbesq: Does it matter? You internet clowns have the attention span of a house fly. You and your ADD will forget all about this next week. Never mind a year from now when the decision is actually made.