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In a 2-1 decision, the Court sided with Transcanada, and by extension, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Court ruled, "the threatened environmental injuries were outweighed by the financial harm that the injunction would cause Transcanada."
Commenting on the case brought by Sierra Club, et al, Judge Jerome A. Holmes and Judge Paul J. Kelly, Jr. - appointees of President George W. Bush and President George H.W. Bush, respectively - shot down the arguments sharply.
Holmes and Kelly ruled that Sierra Club, et al failed to show how the pipeline will have a significant environmental impact despite the fact it's been deemed a "fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet" by retired NASA climate scientist James Hansen.
tothetenthpower
reply to post by FyreByrd
This is just part of what we will see when the TPP rolls out next year.
Companies will now have protection of profits fall before protection of consumers and the environment. Not only that, but now foreign governments can sue yours if they interfere in their profits, even within you own country.
Neat.
~Tenth
WhiteAlice
Well, this is all pretty nauseating. You would think that a person's right to life would outweigh profit on any day. The TPP thing is truly disturbing, Tenth. Considering the global nature of the world's largest corporations, this effectively declaws and defangs the only checks that the people have to protect their lives and property from corporate abuse. Government is supposed to be the democratic check and regulator of business in order to protect its citizens. With rulings like these, however, then at what point is it that important and existing laws such as the Sherman Act, the entire UCC, the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1938, the Clean Air and Water Acts and more may soon become things in the past.
My rationale as to why is that once they are allowed to sue, these cases could very well end up before the Supreme Court and if the current judicial train of thought is that the right to profit is greater than the right to life, we're truly screwed.
Drunkenparrot
The reality is we live in a world driven by petroleum products and no amount of feigned indignation or naive wishes that the world change are going to happen until somebody figures out a viable alternative.
If the taps dried up tomorrow billions would die and that is an inarguable fact.
Once the Canadian tar sands are processed, the oil has to go somewhere and it is probably in the best economic interest of most North Americans, whether they understand why or not, for that oil to flow through the U.S. to the gulf coast refineries as opposed to across the Rockies to the Pacific to be loaded onto Chinese super tankers.
Would you rather have a transcontinental pipeline controlled and monitored by Canadian and American engineers working within their respective guidelines or long processions of Chinese manufactured and licensed supertankers off the coast of the Pacific Northwest? Remember Exxon Valdez?
The last time I checked the Alaskan pipeline system hadn't visited the environmental carnage forecast by its detractors in the 1970's and the technology has only matured.
If the more environmentally conscious want to be up in arms, why not take a look at how the tar sands in Alberta are extracted and the absolute ruin it visits upon the ecosystem there.
Only my opinion of course but I think I raise points worth considering.edit on 14-10-2013 by Drunkenparrot because: (no reason given)
The Keystone XL Pipeline project is estimated to bring in $20 billion of private sector investment into the American economy, create 20,000 direct jobs, spur the creation of 118,000 spin-off jobs and pay out $5 billion in taxes to local counties over the project's lifetime.
The U.S. has consumed approximately 18 million barrels per day of petroleum products per year over the last 10 years. North American oil sands are a vital source of energy for the U.S. It is imperative for the U.S. to diversify its energy sources by exploring alternatives such as the oil sands in Canada.
As the largest single exporter of oil to the U.S. and a stable energy partner, Canada has and will continue to help reduce our dependence on energy supplies from nations that are hostile to us, such as Venezuela and some countries in the Middle East.
1. Building the Keystone pipeline and opening up the Tar Sands will negatively impact national and local economies:
2. The same fossil fuel interests pushing the Keystone pipeline have been cutting, not creating, jobs:
3. Unemployment will rise: According to Mark Zandi, the Chief Economist of Moody’s Analytics: “Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the job market in November, slicing an estimated 86,000 jobs from payrolls.” In the wake of Hurricane Irene, the number of workers filing unemployment claims in Vermont went from 731 before Irene to 1,331 two weeks afterwards. Hurricane Katrina wiped out 129,000 jobs in the New Orleans region — nearly 20 percent. For the U.S. economy as a whole, 2011 cost US taxpayers $52 billion.
4. Poor and working people will be disproportionately affected: KXL and projects like it result in disproportionately negative impact on already struggling working families.
5. Building the sustainable economy, not the Keystone pipeline, will create far more jobs: Our nation is in desperate need of jobs. Approving the Keystone pipeline locks our nation into a trajectory of guaranteed job loss and threatens the stability of the US economy. Why keep the “job-killing” course, when the alternative-energy path is already out-performing other sectors of the economy. For example, the solar industry continues to be an engine of job growth — creating jobs six times faster than the overall job market. Research by the Solar Foundation shows a 13 percent growth in high-skilled solar jobs spanning installations, sales, marketing, manufacturing and software development — bringing total direct jobs to 119,000 in the sector. And according to the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, investment in a green infrastructure program would create nearly four times as many jobs as an equal investment in oil and gas.
xuenchen
reply to post by buster2010
Fail.
All that is just opinion.
They bring forth zero supporting facts.
A billionaire Democratic fundraiser continues to press the Canadian government over whether it is working with Republican lawmakers to exploit the U.S. budget crisis to get the Keystone XL pipeline project approved, wondering Wednesday if there wasn’t “some collusion” between the two sides.
xuenchen
reply to post by buster2010
Fail.
All that is just opinion.
They bring forth zero supporting facts.
There might be unintended economic consequences to the construction of Keystone XL. As an example, the additional north-south crude oil transport capacity brought by Keystone XL will increase the price the oil sands producers receive for their oil. These higher revenues will have a positive impact on the development of the industry in Alberta. In return, due to the Petrodollar nature of the Canadian currency these same additional revenues will strengthen the Canadian dollar versus the United States dollar. Based on historical trends, this stronger Canadian dollar will result in a reduction of the competitiveness of Canada's manufacturing industry and could lead to the loss of 50,000 to 100,000 jobs in Canada's manufacturing sector.Many of these jobs, such as the ones in the auto industry, would likely find their way south and have a positive impact on manufacturing employment in the US.
The refiners argue that construction overruns have raised the cost of shipping on the Canadian portion of Keystone by 145 per cent while the U.S. portion has run 92 per cent over budget. They accuse TransCanada of misleading them when they signed shipping contracts in the summer of 2007. TransCanada nearly doubled its construction estimates in October 2007, from $2.8-billion (U.S.) to $5.2-billion.
Due to an exemption the state of Kansas gave TransCanada, the local authorities would lose $50 million public revenue from property taxes for a decade.
mikell
reply to post by buster2010
UMMMM Really? that makes no sense what so ever. the pipeline is on a friend works on monitor and control systems for it and has been working 6-7 days a week for 3 years. It's going to happen and it will create lots more jobs
TransCanada said it would work with the state of Nebraska and the U.S. State Department to examine the path of the pipeline reroute despite the fact the State Department has already conducted a thorough environmental review and concluded that the pipeline poses minimal environmental risk to soil, wetlands, water resources, vegetation, fish, and wildlife, and creates few greenhouse-gas emissions. Keystone XL also met 57 specific pipeline safety standard requirements created by the State Department and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).
Environmental groups are also challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) conclusion that the Keystone XL pipeline is “not likely to adversely affect” endangered species. The State Department and the USFWS face litigation in U.S. courts brought by environmental groups on the grounds that the pipeline would harm the American burying beetle. Of course, State and the USFWS already studied the environmental effects on this species and 11 others. The agencies recognized that construction of the pipeline would directly impact the American burying beetle, so
conservation measures were developed that include Keystone providing funding for conservation efforts and monitoring of American burying beetle habitat restoration, and the establishment of a performance bond for supplemental habitat reclamation if initial reclamation efforts are unsuccessful.