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I totally agree with you that Canadian government (not politics) can't be held at bay by American politics. And it isn't being held at bay. Canada and the Canadian government is doing as it pleases in its own best interests.
To be fair to President Obama one thing needs to be pointed out about Obama and the delay in the KeystoneXL pipeline. The delay in the pipeline has nothing to do with the impending American election and nothing to do with what Obama wants. He never suggested to anybody that the pipeline should be delayed until after the American election. He's not in a position to make such a suggestion.
It was not and still is not Obama's decision to make, or to say yea or nay to the pipeline. It was and still is the decision of the US State Department to say yea or nay. The State Department told the president that they won't approve it until TransCanada submits a new route for the pipeline around the Nebraska Sandhills and the Ogallala aquifer because the most recently proposed route was "not in the safe interests of the American people". Their words, not mine. The State Department told Obama no and Obama told America that the State Department said no and that he is following their recommendations. Obama has no choice in the matter.
TransCanada has already agreed to submit a new proposal with a route for the pipeline that will bypass the Sandhills and the Ogallala. The State Department has said that if the new route proposal is suitable then the State Department will approve it. If and when that happens then the State Department will tell the president their decision and then the president will announce the decision of the State Department.
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The State Department already did 3 years of environmental study as of late 2011 and found no major environmental problems with the line.
Sept. 19, 2008: The State Department receives an application from TransCanada to build the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline, and announces that it will conduct an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
And as late as August 2011, the State Department wholly recommended approving the pipeline
Aug. 26, 2011: State releases its final EIS (http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/clientsite/keystonexl.nsf/03_KXL_FEIS_Executive_Summary.pdf?OpenFileResource - broken link), which supports moving ahead with the pipeline. The department “does not regard the No Action Alternative to be preferable to the proposed Project,” it states.
And then in November 2011 (after Nov 6 as it so happens on Nov 11), the State Department chose to delay making a decision until 2013. Duh. Why 2013? It's after the election of course.
Now why the reverse course in November? Because of public lobbying by the California base in Sept/Oct. Methinks the election is what made the SD and Obama choose 2013...
PS, your information is out of date. I guess you missed all the recapitulating and announcements that happened in mid December 2011? Tomorrow if I have time I will try to find the links to all the news about that for you.
TransCanada already agreed to re-submit new proposed route by this spring and the State Department might approve it immediately afterwards.
Personally I think that will happen, TransCanada will get the go ahead this year before the election and then that will be a feather in Obama's cap and will help get him re-elected, make Obama look good to the American people who don't follow such news very closely.
And you know what is the most ironic thing of all about that KeystoneXL pipeline? The majority of Americans want to believe it will be transporting cheap crude oil that can be refined for domestic use. It isn't going to be crude oil, it's going to be for piping bitumen - ashphalt - and the only oil that can be refined out of that is synthetic oils that are not suitable for domestic use. No gasoline, no home heating oil. It's only suitable for heavy duty industrial purposes and will most likely be used to feed the military machine.
The stuff will be "processed", not refined, and the bulk of it will be sold overseas from what is a "free trade" zone. It is the heavier of "heavy crude" with very little cost advantage to creating anything OTHER than shampoos and such.
Last edited by sunshineleith; 02-13-2012 at 08:48 AM..
Reason: removed orphaned material
And you know what is the most ironic thing of all about that KeystoneXL pipeline? The majority of Americans want to believe it will be transporting cheap crude oil that can be refined for domestic use. It isn't going to be crude oil, it's going to be for piping bitumen - ashphalt - and the only oil that can be refined out of that is synthetic oils that are not suitable for domestic use. No gasoline, no home heating oil. It's only suitable for heavy duty industrial purposes and will most likely be used to feed the military machine.
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That's not true, actually. Bitumen can be refined in the same way as regular crude, with the exception that it has to be run through an upgrader first, to break it's overly long carbon chains into crude oil lengths, creating synthetic crude, which can then be run through a refinery the same as regular crude.
The Keystone system currently handles both diluted bitumen and synthetic crude. Given that they're claiming that the North Dakota oil shales will also be able to tie in, I'd assume it has at least some capacity to carry synthetic crude, though I don't know enough to make any specific claim.
There's been a bit of a debate out here recently, possibly ignited by the pipeline about whether Alberta should be upgrading more, rather than sending diluted bitumen.
PS, your information is out of date. I guess you missed all the recapitulating and announcements that happened in mid December 2011? Tomorrow if I have time I will try to find the links to all the news about that for you.
Sorry PostSecularist, I tried to find the December news links but couldn't track them down. The best I could do was this article from January 18, 2012 when Obama made his last announcement to the media about the State Department's decision on this. Read the full Forbes article at the link posted:
On the State Department’s recommendation, President Obama rejected TransCanada’s plans to extend the Keystone XL pipeline on Wednesday. In a move that many have called controversial, the State Department said the company could apply again with a route that avoids the “sensitive terrain” around Sand Hills, Nebraska.
"Today, the Department of State recommended to President Obama that the presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline be denied and, that at this time, the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline be determined not to serve the national interest. The President concurred with the Department’s recommendation, which was predicated on the fact that the Department does not have sufficient time to obtain the information necessary to assess whether the project, in its current state, is in the national interest."
Don't worry too much about Canada getting low grade lumber. We have all we need and we keep enough high grade lumber for our own selves. Plus we have the added bonus of it being a renewable resource that we can keep on growing as long as we continue to manage it responsibly. Canada has been and continues to manage our lumber responsibly.
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Lumber is NOT a renewable resource on a timescale of human generations. There are plenty of exhausted forest plantations in the South where no decent tree wants to grow. You take the lumber, you take all the nutrients and minerals with it, fertility of forest soils is trapped in lumber. In the Northern forests "non renewability" of lumber should be even more obvious.
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