Mar 22 2012
Obama Backs Partial Approval of Keystone Pipeline; Fracking for Oil in California Unregulated
President Obama is expected to announce his approval for partial construction of the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in Cushing, Oaklahoma today. Under a deadline imposed by Congress, Obama in January did not approve a permit for the 1,700 mile pipeline slated to run from Alberta, Canada to the US Gulf Coast. Environmentalists and a broad coalition of groups opposing the project celebrated that move, with caution. The administration remained open to future proposals and at that time the State Department announced, “[t]he …denial of the permit application does not preclude any subsequent permit application or applications for similar projects.” Since then the Canadian energy company Transcanada, continued their plans for the Keystone pipeline.
Today, as part of a tour to drum up enthusiasm for his energy policy, the President is expected to throw his support behind the construction of the southern half of Keystone, a 485-mile line that will carry domestic crude oil from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico. A White House official said on Tuesday that this leg of the project will, “[r]elieve a bottleneck of oil and [bring] domestic resources to market.” Republicans decried the rejection of Keystone in January and have used the recent jump in gas prices to call on the President to increase domestic oil and gas production. News of the scaled down project brought jeers from Republican GOP candidates. Rick Santorum called for drilling on federal land and Newt Gingrich dismissed the announcement as a campaign stunt.
Here in California, Governor Jerry Brown also faces pressure to increase energy supplies. The LA Times reported last week that Brown fired two regulators last year when permits for oil drilling in the state were delayed. Oil derricks have long dotted the California landscape, but for years now oil and gas have been inconspicuously drilled and extracted from beneath the ground through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Fracking for gas has gotten much attention in the Northeast and Rocky Mountain areas, where it has been blamed for causing earthquakes and contaminating drinking water with flammable chemicals, but studies on the prevalence, and negative effects, in the Golden state are just now being released.
GUEST: Bill Allayaud, director of government affairs for California at the Environmental Working Group; Jamie Henn, Communications Director at 350.Org
Find our more at www.ewg.org or www.350.org.
3 Responses to “Obama Backs Partial Approval of Keystone Pipeline; Fracking for Oil in California Unregulated”
I dont believe this?
i think it is us the consumers that are to blame, how can we become so oil dependent?
we should be asking for other means of energy,
oil companies greed are blinding us from the reallity that we should be asking for more fuel efficient vehicles i laugh at every car comercial that announces that their cars go up to 35 or so miles per gallon, its a shame, by this time we should have cars that can give us 200 miles per gallon, how come we dont have cars like that? we have the technology but it is us that we dont ask or demand it, we are just happy with all the gadgets that are not important and forget the real important issue.
Hi there, i just thought i would publish and now let you know your web sites style is truly smudged within the K-Melon browser. Anyhow sustain within the quite great work.
Hi there, You’ve done a fantastic job. I will definitely digg it and personally recommend to my friends. I am confident they will be benefited from this web site.