Posted on 06/22/2014 9:06:05 AM PDT by caveat emptor
Canada, were being played for a patsy on the oil sands.
It’s being orchestrated by an unholy alliance headed by U.S. President Barack Obama, aided and abetted by American Democratic billionaires, hypocritical Canadian and U.S. environmentalists and Canada’s opposition parties.
While Obama acts like Hamlet on approving the Keystone XL pipeline, and while the rest of the usual suspects rail against the Northern Gateway pipeline, or Keystone, or both — proxy fights for the real issue, which is the development of Canada’s oil sands — Obama is upping U.S. fossil fuel production like stink.
And no one among the usual suspects is calling him on it.
It’s not like Obama hasn’t given them ammunition.
Here’s Obama speaking in March, 2012 at the Cushing Pipe Yard in Cushing, Oklahoma:
“Under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years ... Over the last three years, I’ve directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We’re opening up more than 75% of our potential oil resources offshore. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We’ve added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then some.
“So we are drilling all over the place ... In fact, the problem ... is that we’re actually producing so much oil and gas ... that we don’t have enough pipeline capacity to transport all of it to where it needs to go — both to refineries, and then, eventually, all across the country and around the world. There’s a bottleneck ... because we can’t get enough of the oil to our refineries fast enough. And if we could, then we would be able to increase our oil supplies at a time when they’re needed as much as possible.
“Right now, a company called TransCanada has applied to build a new pipeline to speed more oil from Cushing to state-of-the-art refineries down on the Gulf Coast. And today, I’m directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done ...
“So, yes, we’re going to keep on drilling. Yes, we’re going to keep on emphasizing production. Yes, we’re going to make sure that we can get oil to where it’s needed.”
The pipeline Obama’s referring to is the southern half of the Keystone XL.
That’s right. While Obama won’t approve the northern half, even though his own state department has twice told him after exhaustive reviews it will not significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions, which he claims is his major concern — and in fact will reduce them compared to the alternatives — he pushed to get the southern half completed.
Bill McKibben is a U.S. environmentalist fiercely opposed to developing Canada’s oil sands. But unlike the usual suspects, he also attacks Obama, as he did in his recent article in Rolling Stone, Obama and Climate Change: The Real Story:
“By the time Obama leaves office, the U.S. will pass Saudi Arabia as the planet’s biggest oil producer and Russia as the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas combined. In the same years, even as we’ve begun to burn less coal at home, our coal exports have climbed to record highs.”
Obama’s green apologists point to his disastrous public investments in now-bankrupt solar companies like Solyndra and the fact U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are slowly decreasing as evidence of his environmental commitment.
Ditto his so-called plan to lower emissions from U.S. coal plants — which he announced as he’s entering the lame-duck period of his presidency and thus dumping the issue into the laps of future presidents.
The only reason U.S. emissions are down is that the U.S. has been fracking like crazy for natural gas, which the usual suspects in Canada also oppose, and using it to replace some U.S. coal-fired electricity. (Natural gas emits carbon dioxide at about half the rate of coal.)
But instead of keeping more coal in the ground, the U.S. has upped its coal exports to record levels. Obama isn’t reducing U.S. emissions. He’s exporting them.
Obama turning the U.S. into a fossil fuel superpower — while the Stephen Harper government struggles to get a pipeline or two approved — isn’t surprising. That’s his job.
What’s surprising is how many hypocritical Canadians are helping him do it, at the expense of our economy.
We strip mine coal in Indiana, which can’t be burned due to EPA regs, and barge it down the Mississippi, freighter it to Germany, and THEY burn it.
’ Obama is upping U.S. fossil fuel production like stink.’
This line from the article, a perfect example of government is your daddy. The Big O didn’t build any of that. What the oil business has done is in spite of O not because of him.
High oil price = increased production, this aint rocket science, this is the free enterprise system at work. Remember Clinton taking credit for high auto production? Same BS different Pres.
the “fossil fools” on the hill.
That’s the way some folks up north think about developing reserves...
Let me ask you this, if Obama allows drilling offshore on 75% of Federal claimed ocean bottom and doesn’t allow drilling where the oil actually is, then what good does it do anyone?
My understanding is that most of the fossil fuels being produced in the last few years are on private property and Obama has done everything he can thru the use of the EPA, and the other usual suspects to slow down or kill production. My point was that now he claims that he has aided fossil fuel production when in fact he has hindered them. People like the guy who wrote the article can not understand that the government produces nothing but problems. They think government is the solution when the fact is that people in the private sector are the producers. That was my point.
Remember when a big coal deposit was found in Utah and Clinton declared the area a national monument and stopped proposed production in its tracks? Just the same stuff different pres.
When I say this it never makes me friends but the wrong side won the Civil War. I am not talking about slavery, my family never owned any. In general I think Northern folks always look to the government as the solution, while folks where the rubber means the road know the government is the problem.
You know if you talk to fishermen in the North they would view it very differently. Just depends on whose ox is getting gored.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.