“Among the lies…is that the environmental impact studies and securing the permits necessary for the pipeline were “rushed.” In truth, it took three years, four months, and five days…”
Canada Leads the Way on the Pipeline No-Brainer
By Alan Caruba
“Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No Mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.”
That was Canada’s Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver, speaking on January 9, 2012 and he might have been saying the same thing about special interests and the Obama administration in America. With refreshingly plain speech, Oliver criticized environmental organizations, both in Canada and in the U.S., saying they “threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.”
Canada is bringing common sense back into style. A June 3rd Washington Post article reported that “The government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is rewriting the nation’s environmental laws to speed the extraction and export of oil, minerals and other materials to a global market clamoring for Canada’s natural resources.” Moreover, it has “added provisions to an omnibus budget bill that would revamp the way the government reviews the environmental impact of major projects, regulates threats to fisheries, and scrutinizes the political activities of nonprofit groups.”
What is instructive is the way Canada is now leading the way against the obstacles that the environmental organizations on both sides of the border have imposed on the development of energy and other sectors of the nation’s economy. The centerpiece of this development for the moment is the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
The Harper government has also proposed the repeal of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, part of the global warming hoax that would require huge reductions in so-called greenhouse gas emissions. It is seeking changes to other federal laws such as the Fisheries Act, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and Species at Risk Act.
Also under scrutiny is the proper role of non-profit organizations and “charities” that engage in blatant political activities. In typical fashion, the Sierra Club website on Monday claimed that Harper is trying to “steal tax-exempt status from charities that stand up to Big Oil.” Another environmental organization, Friends of the Earth, devotes its website to efforts to block the construction of “the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline from Oklahoma through Texas to the Gulf Coast.”
Every effort in the United States to ensure the provision of energy, whether from coal, oil, natural gas or nuclear power, continues to be assaulted by the huge environmental propaganda machine that currently sees the defeat of the pipeline as crucial to its anti-energy agenda.
On January 18, Americans were astonished to learn that President Obama had formally rejected a bid by Canadian energy company, TransCanada, to build a $7 billion oil pipeline that would link the tar sands of Alberta to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. In a time when the U.S. economy is suffering loss of jobs, the project would normally be a no-brainer.
However, opponents of the pipeline are a virtual who’s who of environmental organizations and a torrent of lies has poured forth from them regarding the project. The American Petroleum Institute estimates it will create 10,000 U.S. jobs next year with an anticipated 45,000 jobs by 2015 and close to 85,000 by 2020.
Among the lies put forth by militant environmentalists is that the environmental impact studies and securing the permits necessary for the pipeline were “rushed.” In truth, it took three years, four months, and five days up to the day TransCanada first filed the permit request to begin construction.
Obama repeated this lie, blaming Republicans for preventing “a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment.” The Obama administration had, in fact, reviewed more than 10,000 pages of environmental studies and the State Department had twice concluded that all requirements had been met!
By contrast, in 1974, the TransAlaskan Pipeline was approved by Congress in just about a year and it was built in less than three years despite being more environmentally and technically challenging.
Congressional Democrats and Republicans have been so angered by the president’s decision against the pipeline that in mid-April the House passed a short-term transportation bill that would facilitate the next stage of the oil pipeline. The bill passed 293 to 127, with 69 Democrats supporting it. It was the fourth time the House had passed a measure to expedite the stalled project, one of which failed in the Senate by a narrow vote when the president personally lobbied some Democrats to vote against it.
Let’s tip our hat to the Canadians who have concluded that environmental lobbies, think tanks, and charities are doing more to harm Canada’s interests by means of the environmental treaties and laws they have worked so hard to impose on that nation and ours. We Americans could learn a valuable lesson from our neighbors to the north.
© Alan Caruba, 2012
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2012/06/canada-leads-way-on-pipeline-no-brainer.html
Alan Caruba’s commentaries are posted daily at “Warning Signs” and shared on dozens of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than one million page views. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place
6 Responses to Canada Leads the Way on the Pipeline No-Brainer
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It’s all a puppet show, as the Canadian corporations want to export their product for better profits abroad than they get at home, though one could ask why they don’t process it first in Canada to create more jobs there, perhaps they want to export jobs to the USA? Isn’t that friendly of them? Or just a better return on investment to ship it to the already established port in Texas.
Either way, where is the ‘eco’ outcry on the continued problem in the BP oil spill in the Gulf with the destruction of the species there? Or about the Fukushima radiation problem that continues to have a similar affect? Interesting in how these puppet fights are fought as a distraction to the real stories, be it another approaching ice age, brown dwarf, comet cluster et al.
Meanwhile, all that NWO legislation seems to sail so easily through Congress and the White House in near complete ‘biapartisan’ fashion. Isn’t that a ‘no-brainer’ as well?
Let’s just hope that ‘President Romney’ learns some lessons from Canada. He seems a little weak on ‘global warming’ science. I consider myself an environmentalist, however; whenever I hear green this & green that, smart growth, sustainability and even now “for the sake of the environment” it makes my hair stand on end!
This is one of the better pieces Alan has written for quite some time. It IS nice to know that at least some government, somewhere (other than in Russia or China) has finally faced the reality that we either have civilization, or we go back to aboriginal ways of life. To sustain civilization requires energy, and in our current state of technology, it can’t be nuclear, wind, or solar in origin if we are going to sustain a manufacturing economy of any kind. The only other truly available sources are the carbon twins, natural gas and petroleum.
I would, however, point out one small fact. Obomney and Robama are two peas in a pod. Neither will buck the money system since it is campaign money pouring in from sources unknown that support their respective runs for the presidency. You can bet that funding doesn’t come without strings, and those strings have nothing to do with a better life for Joe and Joan Public. The best hope would be from a candidate with limited funding, all from the people, thus that candidate would, hopefully, carry no baggage owed to those backroom players that are currently in control.
Of course, without a similar thinking Congress, no President can make a meaningful change, so if you are American and you can vote, really look at your candidates at every level of office and pray for guidance, then choice the ones that have the least, and express the same ideas you do. If there are differences between you and that candidate, vote for the one that fits the most of your beliefs. No person is perfect, not me, not any candidate, and not you. Let’s just do the best we can to get the best we can. Not only does your future require it, but so does the future of the older generations that are still alive, the younger generations that are not ready to vote, and those that are yet to come.
If Obamnuts wins, I think I’ll move to Canada. I’ll get a job as an ice trucker. Perfect occupation for the ice age!
Then biggest crime is that 6% of USA farmland could grow enough bio-diesel to run every vehicle in the USA. No USD 200 billion+ a year in imports for the last 70 years.
The suppression of non drug Indian hemp for industrial uses in pre WW@ stop this. If it had not happened I don’t think we would have petrol engines.
Given hemp has is the best protein for making, with the highest levels of EFA’s and can feed the masses.
Plus its better for paper than wood, better than cotton for cloth, limestone and hemp make a building panel much stronger than concrete (a 1300 year large French bridge proves its longevity). Fantastic for car panels too, extremely hard to dent.
About 10,000 + uses.
To be conservative the USA had lost 20-30 trillion by its suppression in the last 70 years. Yeah its trillions.
What a stupid world. This is something the greenies should be on about, plus our legislators.
So much less deforestation.
Oh yeah, I the oil from hemp is also a cancer cure. Search the web on hemp oil, rick Simpson etc.
If you don’t believe this then realise the good old corporate colluding FDA is allowing companies to patent individual cabannoids in the hemp plant, so in the long term they can screw over low cost use of hemp in health use and it must go through its corporate buddies.
It’s a multi use crop for farmers who could get at least $2500 per acre and be very rich, as the components of the plants get uses for the various above uses.
Add the health benefits to the20-30 trillion above
You should be only being voting in people into congress who want to allow its cultivation again and the economic kick would be better than any Obama or Romney could think up. I think people in the USA have poor choices on both sides to vote for in 2012, no vision, no quality, no emerging great like FDR, Lincoln or Kennedy ( he wanted to repeal the the federal reserve act, oh Ron Paul also wants to do that too, maybe that’s why he panned).
I know Ron Paul is all for hemp cultivation, but that’s right he and some interesting democrats as well get ignored by your media.
If this travesty can be carried out in front of your eyes how many extra con’s can happen or are happening
To all proud Canadians here:
Next year Canada will get the wake up call as its dollar plunges to @0.50… yes, you see it right, that is only 50 cents!
You see, the cold starts from north.
The first countries to be affected by Ice Age will be the northern countries and Canada is a cold country to start with.