Big Oil is determined to get its way when it comes to the Keystone XL oil tar sands pipeline, especially if our own State Department and president decide to support this potentially catastrophic project, which is a real possibility. Republicans couldn’t be more giddy.
… This message should be taken much more seriously:
“Your legacy as 44th President of the United States rests firmly on your leadership on climate disruption. Only the president has the power to lead an effort on the scale and with the urgency we need to phase out fossil fuels and lead America, and the world, in a clean energy revolution.“
In a new messaging campaign, the committee’s GOP members have plastered a “Keystone Clock” on its website that shows 1,606 days have passed since TransCanada Corp. filed its September 2008 application for the oil sands pipeline with the State Department.
Actors Alec Baldwin and Morgan Freeman are among the stars warning President Obama that his legacy will rest on what he does to stop climate change.
In an advertisement that ran Monday in Beltway publications, the stars call on Obama to exercise “the strongest resolve in fighting the climate crisis on every front.” [...]
The ad is signed by 30 people, including actors Edward Norton, Woody Harrelson and Susan Sarandon and musicians Adam Levine, Bonnie Raitt and Jason Mraz in addition to Baldwin and Freeman. [...]
The White House has the final say on Keystone’s fate, as it crosses national boundaries.
All the profits in the world are meaningless if 1) nobody is around to enjoy them, and 2) they’re spent on health care that will become increasingly necessary to treat symptoms and diseases resulting from a toxic environment.
A Texas judge has temporarily stopped oil company TransCanada from building a pipeline designed to carry tar sands oil from Canada through eastern portions of the state to the Gulf Coast.
The decision came after Michael Bishop, 64, a retired paramedic and chemist in East Texas, filed a lawsuit arguing that TransCanada lied to him and other landowners, promising that the Keystone XL pipeline would transport crude oil, not tar sands oil.
If only one person could prevent the Tar Sands pipeline from being built. But it seems nothing will stop Big Oil from getting its way, especially if our own State Department decides to support this potentially catastrophic project, which is a real possibility.
Are you getting it yet, Drill-Baby-Drillers? Catastrophe after disaster after catastrophe continue to occur even as we expand our drilling into even more threatening venues, such as the Chukchi Sea, off Alaska’s north shore. And because of the freezing temperature and icy landscape, a cleanup response there would be nearly impossible to perform.
Another accident waiting to happen. More human life, wildlife, and environments waiting to be destroyed.
Yet, here we go again. There was an oil and gas rig off the Louisiana coast that was hit by an explosion and fire today. At least there was no ice.
According to a breaking news alert:
“Local officials: 2 dead, 2 missing in Gulf oil rig fire; no spill immediately sighted, Coast Guard says… per @NBCnews
According to officials, the oil and gas platform is located 20 miles south of Grand Isle, owned by Houston-based Black Elk Energy… Coast Guard Captain Peter Gautier says 28 people were believed to be aboard the facility at the time. Gautier says the platform was not in active production.
Via an L.A. Times email alert, this isn’t enough to compensate for the loss of human life, sea life, and environmental damage:
Energy giant BP has accepted criminal liability and will pay at least $4 billion in connection with the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters.
In an announcement today from its London headquarters, BP confirmed an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve all federal criminal charges and all claims by the Securities and Exchange Commission against the company stemming from the events that began with the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
As part of the agreement, BP said it has agreed to plead guilty to 11 felony counts of misconduct or neglect in connection with the 11 deaths caused by the rig’s explosion. It also agreed to plead guilty to other charges, including one felony count of obstruction of Congress. The agreement is subject to U.S. federal court approval.
BP has gone out of their way to let us know how much they care. Why, when you think about it, they cared so much that they were reckless as hell, killed eleven people, destroyed wildlife, poisoned and/or killed our oceans, and put countless lives in danger.
Hurricane Isaac managed to redistribute some of BP’s care in the form of tar balls, a fact that can no longer be disputed:
NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Laboratory tests show that globs of oil found on two Louisiana beaches after Hurricane Isaac came from the 2010 BP spill.
Tests run by Louisiana State University for state wildlife officials confirmed that oil found on Elmer’s Island and Grand Isle matched the biological fingerprint of the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that spewed from BP’s Macondo well.
On Wednesday, BP PLC said oil from its spill had been exposed by Isaac’s waves and that the company would work to clean it up.
But Louisiana isn’t the only place that oil has been discovered:
About 100 pounds of tar balls collected on the Alabama coast after Isaac are being tested at Auburn University, which has a contract with local government to assess the material.
Researcher Joel Hayworth is calling this “the new normal for the Gulf Coast.” Way to go, BP!
BP has been running TV ads touting Gulf Coast tourism and urging people to “come on down.”
Today’s Quickie comes from Greg Palast, a wonderful investigative reporter:
A Book Review by Greg Palast, for FireDogLake.com on Poisoned Legacy: the Human Cost of BP’s Rise to Power (St. Martin’s Press) by Mike Magner.
Here’s my bead on Magner’s book….
I almost fell off the barstool when I read that it was Bain Capital (Mitt Romney, former CEO), that told oil giant BP it was a good idea to cut costs. The cuts would lead to death, mayhem and the destruction of the Gulf Coast (not to mention BP’s poisoning of Alaska, Africa, Central Asia and Colombia).
Remember the 2010 Kalamazoo oil disaster? If not, the above video will help. So will this via WaPo:
The National Transportation Safety Board blamed multiple corrosion cracks and “pervasive organizational failures” at the Calgary-based Enbridge pipeline company for a more-than-20,000-barrel oil spill two years ago near Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. [...]
The NTSB also blamed “weak federal regulations” by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration for the accident, which spilled at least 843,444 gallons of oil into a tributary of the Kalamazoo in Marshall, Mich. The oil spread into a 40-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo and a nearby wetlands area.
Then Enbridge gave us their next little environmentally disastrous gift. Via The L.A. Times:
Enbridge, a beleaguered Canadian oil pipeline company, has spilled more than 50,000 gallons of light crude oil in rural Wisconsin — shortly after the company said it had implemented safety reforms after a massive 2010 spill in Michigan. [...]
“Enbridge is fast becoming to the Midwest what BP was to the Gulf of Mexico, posing troubling risks to the environment,” [U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)] said in a statement. [...]
According to Enbridge company data collected by the Polaris Institute, a Canadian think tank, Enbridge pipelines have spilled 804 times since 1999 and leaked 6.8 million gallons of oil. In response to a U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigation blasting the company for its actions during the Michigan spill, the company said it had made “numerous enhancements” to safety procedures. [...]
National Response Center data shows that the new Enbridge spill in Wisconsin is the company’s worst in that state.
That’s some safety record, huh?
Yesterday, this was posted by the Canadian Press: National Energy Board wants Enbridge’s internal report on Michigan spill. They want “documentation of improvements” by Enbridge along with “a copy of Enbridge’s internal investigation into the pipeline rupture and documentation of the corrective actions it has taken.”
Good luck with that.
And that brings us to today’s article from the L.A. Times that informs us of how Enbridge has managed to avoid scrutiny and continue to spill, baby, spill. You see, they already have their permits from awhile ago, and they can proceed because all that dirty work will take place in the U.S. of A:
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A major rival to the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline project is vastly boosting its U.S. pipeline system, but it’s avoiding the same scrutiny that federal regulators, environmentalists and landowners are giving Keystone owner TransCanada Corp. [...]
The task of determining the safety or wisdom of Enbridge pipeline routes falls on a patchwork of local, county and state jurisdictions through the Midwest and East, most of which lack intensive pipeline expertise. [...] The responsibility for determining what can and can’t be done now falls on often highly constrained or inexperienced local authorities.
Yes, the same company that U.S. pipeline regulators have “long-standing concerns” about the “pattern of failures” has avoided federal oversight and is permitted to continue their “pattern of failures.” Inspires confidence, doesn’t it?
The company said its plans to boost the Michigan line’s capacity — the same line that spilled into the Kalamazoo River — from the current 240,000 barrels a day to 500,000 barrels a day doesn’t require a new presidential permit even though the line sends oil into Ontario. [...]
Nearly all of Enbridge’s projects would thread through rivers, creeks, fields and wildlife habitats, and Enbridge needs to negotiate with landowners even though the new pipelines and expansion projects would stick closely to existing pipeline pathways.
Would you like to donate to The Political Carnival monthly? You can on our Support TPC page.
The Political Carnival is a fast paced Progressive political site that combines humor with dead serious, dementia with politics (synonymous?), and sprinkles in idiosyncratic posts with breaking news.
Lt. Col Barry Wingard is the lawyer for Gitmo detainee Fayiz Al-Kandari. For their ongoing story + related topics, please click on the link below: Kuwaiti Citizen Detained at Guantanamo since 2002
You can read the complete story here or on Wikipedia.
Subscribe to The Political Carnival Newsfeed via Wikio
The Political Carnival is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
Photographs on The Political Carnival site (please read):
Photographs from other sources sometimes appear on TPC for humorous or illustrative purposes. As it is not our intention to use these images in any inappropriate manner or to infringe upon any rights held by others, anyone holding legal rights in the use of these images who wishes to have them taken down please contact us immediately requesting such removal, with which we will comply promptly.
TPC RSS Posts Feed
TPC Comments Feed
