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Hillary Clinton Opposes the Keystone Pipeline

by MildredUnwin Posted on September 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton has long declined to take a position on whether or not the Obama administration should approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline. That just changed. At a campaign event Tuesday in Des Moines, Iowa, Clinton came out against the controversial project.

Here’s her statement, via NBC:

“I think it is imperative that we look at the Keystone XL pipeline as what I believe it is: A distraction from the important work we have to do to combat climate change, and, unfortunately from my perspective, one that interferes with our ability to move forward and deal with other issues,” she said during a campaign event in Iowa Tuesday.

“Therefore, I oppose it. I oppose it because I don’t think it’s in the best interest of what we need to do to combat climate change.”

Clinton now joins the ranks of two of her opponents in the Democratic presidential primary, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, who have both opposed the pipeline. Democrat Jim Webb, however, supports the project, along with all of the Republican candidates. A final decision, which has been years in the making, is expected from the Obama administration by the end of this year.

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Hillary Clinton Opposes the Keystone Pipeline

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Hillary Clinton Just Came Out Against Obama’s Arctic Drilling Plan

by JerrellSunderlan Posted on August 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published by the Huffington Post and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has agreed with the vast majority of President Barack Obama’s policies, but in a Tweet on Tuesday she expressed her disapproval with one: letting Shell drill for oil in the Arctic.

Clinton had previously said she was “skeptical” and had “doubts” as to whether the Obama administration should have given Shell the go-ahead for exploratory drilling. The oil company’s permit from the US Department of the Interior allows it to drill in the Chukchi Sea off the northwest coast of Alaska. Shell halted its drilling program in the region after it lost control of a massive rig in 2012.

Environmental advocates say drilling in the Arctic will deepen the United States’ reliance on oil, harm local wildlife and upset the region’s fragile ecosystem. They have called Obama’s planned visit to the region later this month—the first to the Arctic by a sitting US president—hypocritical, given the president’s focus on combating climate change since he took office.

Clinton’s willingness to come out against Arctic drilling is at odds with her non-answer on whether she supports construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. When pressed on the issue, she said that it would be inappropriate for her to express an opinion, since she was head of the Department of State when the pipeline review process began.

Clinton outlined her own climate change plan in July, which focuses on incentivizing renewable energy sources.

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Hillary Clinton Just Came Out Against Obama’s Arctic Drilling Plan

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Spy agencies are snooping on enviros around the globe

by LachlanKreitmay Posted on February 26, 2015

Spy agencies are snooping on enviros around the globe

By on 26 Feb 2015commentsShare

Another week, another instance comes to light of governments targeting peaceful environmental activists. This latest document leak finds that South Korea asked for an assessment from South Africa of whether Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo constituted a “security threat against the president of South Africa during the G20 summit to be held in South Korea.”

The cables are part of a leaked cache from South Africa’s spy agency that shows efforts by a number of countries to keep close tabs on dissenters. The request was made in the run-up to the 2010 summit, and listed Naidoo alongside two other “dangerous persons” who were later arrested during a terrorist raid in Pakistan. In an otherwise unamusing document, Naidoo’s first name is amusingly misspelled “Kimi.”

Another document in the cache alluded to some sort of cooperative effort between the CIA and intelligence agencies in the U.K., Australia, and South Africa “to provide the CIA with a deeper understanding of the potential for ramping up renewable and clean energy in key parts of the world and a better understanding of the collection capabilities and interests on renewables in the UK, South Africa and Australia.” From The Guardian:

The reasons for the CIA’s interest are not clear. It may see climate change as a potential source of conflict and want to explore possible consequences. Some see a potentially more sinister motivation.

A senior US climate scientist, Alan Robock, based at Rutgers University in New Jersey, expressed concern this month that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were funding climate change research to learn if new technologies could be used as potential weapons.

The document casting Naidoo as a potential terroristic threat puts South Korea among a host of governments recently discovered to be targeting Greenpeace. The Indian government cracked down on the group, as well as other international environmental NGOs, ahead of Obama’s recent visit to the country, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, irked by the group’s anti-Keystone activism, named Greenpeace alongside the Sierra Club and Tides Canada in a leaked document outlining potentially violent threats to Canadian infrastructure.

Environmental activists have also faced some heat in the States recently. Grist’s own Heather Smith wrote last month that FBI agents have been paying visits to anti-Keystone activists, asking for information while also saying that there’s no investigation underway. Bloomberg reported this week that the intelligence behind those FBI visits could be coming from TransCanada, the company that wants to build the Keystone XL pipeline. Reporter Isaac Arnsdorf writes that local authorities along the pipeline’s route had been warned that homegrown extremists were targeting the project:

That risk assessment, laid out in documents obtained through open-records requests, wasn’t provided by law enforcement. It was provided by TransCanada Corp., the Calgary-based company that has waged a long campaign to sell America on Keystone XL and the Canadian crude it would carry. President Barack Obama vetoed Congress’s approval of extending the pipeline, but the fight is far from over.

Few understand the threats facing corporations better than corporations, and few could argue with putting safety first. Yet the alarms TransCanada raised in Nebraska … were part of a broad campaign for Keystone XL, the documents suggest. Time and again, in private e-mails and closed-door meetings with federal, state and local law enforcement, the Canadian company characterized peaceful opponents engaged in constitutionally protected protest as dangerous radicals or worse. …

TransCanada representatives have met with law-enforcement officers in at least two states. Hundreds of pages of meeting logs, police e-mails and other documents obtained by Bloomberg suggest TransCanada provided intelligence on protesters’ activities and, at times, helped guide law enforcement’s response.

Kumi “Kimi” Naidoo, for his part, said he wasn’t particularly surprised that spy agencies were keeping tabs on him. “Sadly, the assumption that we make, especially after the Edward Snowden leaks and the Wikileaks information came out, is that we are heavily monitored and under constant surveillance,” he told Al Jazeera. “But it’s one thing assuming that it’s happening; it’s a little numbing and chilling to have it confirmed.”

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Fossil fuel interests donated millions to Clinton charities. Is this a problem?

by YTVBrianna Posted on February 26, 2015

Fossil fuel interests donated millions to Clinton charities. Is this a problem?

By on 26 Feb 2015commentsShare

At the same time that Hillary Clinton was pushing to make it easier for major corporations — including oil and gas companies — to do business abroad, many of those same companies were donating to the Clinton Foundation, which she administers with her family. At least 60 companies that lobbied the State Department during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state also donated a combined total of more than $26 million to the foundation, and played a role in philanthropic projects through the Clinton Global Initiative.

ExxonMobil and Chevron were among the donors to give to various Clinton groups and initiatives. So was Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, and Canada’s Foreign Affairs Department, which is tasked with promoting the Keystone XL pipeline.

From The Wall Street Journal:

As Mrs. Clinton prepares to embark on a race for the presidency, she has a web of connections to big corporations unique in American politics — ties forged both as secretary of state and by her family’s charitable interests. Those relationships are emerging as an issue for Mrs. Clinton’s expected presidential campaign as income disparity and other populist themes gain early attention. …

In some cases, donations came after Mrs. Clinton took action that helped a company. In other cases, the donation came first. In some instances, donations came both before and after. All of the companies mentioned in this article said their charitable donations had nothing to do with their lobbying agendas with Mrs. Clinton’s State Department.

Is this a big enough conflict of interest to concern environmentalists? Green groups disagree … or are silent on the topic. From Reuters:

“It’s hard to believe that [companies] don’t think they are getting something for their contributions,” said Ben Schreiber, head of climate and energy at Friends of the Earth, one of the largest environmental groups in the United States. …

Uncharacteristically, many green groups normally quick to attack politicians linked to oil and gas companies shied away from commenting on the Clinton Foundation’s relationship with these donors.

The Environmental Defense Action Fund had no comment because it does not have anyone with knowledge of the subject, a spokesman said. Another business-friendly green group, the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, also declined, saying it would discuss the issues “when we have declared candidates.” The World Wildlife Fund had no comment.

While secretary of state, Clinton championed oil and gas development in Eastern Europe as a check on Russia — she even went so far as to fly to Bulgaria in an attempt to convince the government there to lift its moratorium on fracking. Meanwhile, many U.S. environmental groups have been pushing for domestic bans on fracking.

But at least some environmentalists understand that the issue has different implications abroad than it does at home. “Introducing fracking to produce natural gas in Eastern Europe was an element of national security — the less dependence those nations have on Russian gas, the better off they are,” Daniel Weiss, the League of Conservation Voters’ senior vice president for campaigns, told Reuters.

Another environmental litmus test for politicians — the litmus test of late — is the Keystone XL pipeline. But even as Barack Obama is shutting down Republican attempts to fast-track Keystone, Clinton is pointedly saying nothing at all. “You won’t get me to talk about Keystone because I have steadily made clear that I’m not going to express an opinion,” she said during a recent speech in Canada. “It is in our process and that’s where it belongs.” Her last statement on the topic came back in 2010, when, as secretary of state, she said she was “inclined” to approve the pipeline.

Yet on this, too, many activists are reluctant to take a hard-line stand. “Of course I wish she would say something, but I don’t go to bed at night worrying that Hillary Clinton isn’t talking about Keystone,” Bill McKibben — whose group 350.org helped make Keystone a key political issue — told National Journal. (McKibben also serves on Grist’s board of directors.)

Greens recently did get one encouraging sign from the presumptive candidate’s presumptive campaign. Former Obama top advisor John Podesta, who played a key role in hardening the administration’s stance on climate change and who staunchly opposes Keystone, has signed on to advise Clinton. So even if she doesn’t have an opinion on the pipeline at the moment, she’s got a powerful player on her team who certainly does.

Is Podesta’s influence enough to firm up Clinton’s wishy-washy record on dirty energy, and to counterbalance the coziness with the fossil fuel industry that six- and seven-figure donations might imply? That’s anyone’s guess, and one that environmental groups — at least at this early point — seem reluctant to make.

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Fossil fuel interests donated millions to Clinton charities. Is this a problem?

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Obama Just Vetoed the GOP’s Keystone Bill, and This Democratic Presidential Hopeful Is Pissed

by pawel Posted on February 25, 2015

Mother Jones

Jim Webb is sounding increasingly serious about running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. Last week, National Journal‘s Bob Moser wrote a cover story wondering whether the former Virginia senator could “spark an anti-Hillary uprising,” in which Webb explained that his absence from the campaign trail this winter was, in part, the result of major knee surgery to fix problems leftover from his days in the Vietnam War.

Webb struck his first blow against his fellow Democrats on Wednesday. But rather than targeting Clinton, his likely presidential opposition, he struck out against the party’s incumbent, President Barack Obama. In a series of tweets, Webb lashed out at the president for vetoing a bill that would have approved construction on the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Webb’s tweetstorm doesn’t tell the whole story. A letter from the EPA released earlier this month argued that, thanks to recent drops in oil prices, Keystone XL could prove disastrous for carbon emissions.

As I detailed in December, Jim Webb had an atrocious record on climate change and environmental issues while he served in the Senate. Standing up for Virginia’s roots as a coal state, Webb tried to thwart Obama’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gasses through EPA regulation, and he helped block Democratic attempts to pass a cap-and-trade law.

Clinton, for her part, has regularly sidestepped addressing whether she wants to see the pipeline constructed, though she has generally been supportive of other environmental efforts made by the Obama administration.

While Webb objected to Obama’s decision to veto this specific bill, it’s still unclear whether the two Democrats disagree on the underlying issue. Obama has strenuously rejected attempts by congressional Republicans to force immediate approval of the pipeline, but his administration has not yet said definitely if it intends to let the project go forward eventually.

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Obama Just Vetoed the GOP’s Keystone Bill, and This Democratic Presidential Hopeful Is Pissed

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EPA: Low Oil Prices Will Make Keystone XL A Climate Nightmare

by Benny Roye Posted on February 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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Earlier today the Environmental Protection Agency released a letter that one of its top officials sent yesterday to the State Department, weighing in on the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline. The letter is part of a last round of comments from federal agencies before the Obama administration makes a final decision about whether to approve the pipeline, and environmentalists had hoped that it would spell out the threat the project could pose to the climate.

They weren’t disappointed. The EPA letter argues that the recent drop in oil prices means that Keystone XL could come with a major carbon footprint. This is an argument environmentalists like Bill McKibben have been pushing for years. And it’s a big deal—President Barack Obama has said that the pipeline will be approved only if it won’t increase overall greenhouse gas emissions.

Here’s the logic: A pipeline is the cheapest way to move oil; trucks and trains are much more expensive. Canadian tar sands oil is especially expensive to produce. When the price of oil is high, it makes economic sense to export it with trucks and trains. This is the line of reasoning the State Dept. has used to argue that approving the pipeline won’t contribute to climate change: The oil is going to get burned with or without Keystone XL, because producers will just send it out some other way. Republicans in Congress have cited that same State Dept. analysis as evidence that Keystone XL isn’t the climate-killing monster environmentalists make it out to be.

But when the price of oil is so low, that calculus gets turned upside down. According to State’s own analysis, the economic rationale for using trucks and trains starts to erode once the price of oil dips much below $75 per barrel. Right now, oil is hovering around $50 a barrel. So if prices stay low and the if the pipeline isn’t built, that oil might actually stay buried—where many climate scientists have said it needs to stay if we’re to avoid disastrous levels of global warming.

Here’s the key line from the EPA letter:

“At sustained oil prices within this range, construction of the pipeline is projected to change the economics of oil sands development and result in increased oil sands production, and the accompanying greenhouse gas emissions, over what would otherwise occur.”

Some energy analysts disagree, arguing that oil prices would have to drop much further than current levels to have an impact on tar sands production. And even though there’s reason to think oil could be cheap for a while, energy companies don’t tend to make big expensive decisions about where and how to drill based on short-term market trends. So there’s still room for debate on the EPA’s take here.

The EPA letter is likely to become a centerpiece of the pipeline debate as Congress continues to wrangle over the issue. (A bill to approve the pipeline passed the Senate last week, and next week the House is expected to take it up once again. President Obama has promised to veto the bill.) But the more important thing to watch is whether it changes any minds in the Obama administration, which is nearing a final decision on whether the pipeline will be built.

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EPA: Low Oil Prices Will Make Keystone XL A Climate Nightmare

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72 Percent of Republican Senators Are Climate Deniers

by MartinMccarter Posted on January 10, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) offered a simple amendment to the controversial bill that would authorize construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Sanders’ measure, which he proposed to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, would have declared it the “sense of Congress” that climate change is real; that it is caused by humans; that it has already caused significant problems; and that the United States needs to shift its economy away from fossil fuels.

Sanders’ amendment went nowhere. But Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the chair of the committee, used the opportunity to take a shot at climate science. “I do believe that our climate is changing,” she said. “I don’t agree that all the changes are necessarily due solely to human activity.” Murkowski didn’t elaborate on her current thinking about the causes of global warming, but in the past she’s advanced a bizarre theory involving a volcano in Iceland.

Sanders will get another chance next week, when the full Senate debates the Keystone bill—but he’s likely to run into stiff resistance from GOP climate deniers. As Climate Progress revealed Thursday, more than half of the Republican members of the new Congress “deny or question” the overwhelming scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. If you just look at the Senate, the numbers are even more disturbing. Thirty-nine GOP Senators reject the science on climate change—that’s 72 percent of the Senate Republican caucus.

The list includes veteran lawmakers like James Inhofe (Okla.), who is the incoming chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) and has written a book titled, The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. And it includes new senators like Steve Daines (Mont.), who thinks climate change might be caused by solar cycles. (For a great interactive map showing exactly how many climate deniers represent your state in Congress, click here.)

What’s more, the Climate Progress analysis shows that many of the congressional committees that deal with climate and energy issues are loaded with global warming deniers:

…68 percent of the Republican leadership in both House and Senate deny human-caused climate change. On the committee level, 13 out of 21 Republican members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, or 62 percent, reject the science behind human-caused global warming, joined by 67 percent, or 21 out of 31 Republican members, of the House Energy and Commerce Committee…In addition to Inhofe, 10 out of 11, or 91 percent, of Republicans on EPW have said climate change is not happening or that humans do not cause it.

All this could have serious policy consequences: Republicans are threatening to use their majority to cut the EPA’s budget and derail the power plant regulations at the heart of President Barack Obama’s signature climate initiative.

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72 Percent of Republican Senators Are Climate Deniers

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BREAKING: President Obama Will Veto Congress’ Keystone XL Pipeline Bill

by VilmaHerrmann Posted on January 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama is planning to veto a bill that would force approval of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, according to the Associated Press:

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that the president’s position hasn’t changed since November, when pipeline supporters in Congress last attempted to push through its approval—an effort that fell just one vote shy of the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate. Obama was adamant then that approval for the pipeline come not from Congress, but from the State Department, which normally has jurisdiction over international infrastructure projects like this one. A final decision from State has been delayed pending the outcome of a Nebraska State Supreme Court case, expected sometime early this year, that could alter the pipeline’s route.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McDonnell and other Republicans have vowed to make passage of a new Keystone XL bill a top priority for the new year, and they seem prepared to move forward with a vote later this week. The bill is likely to pass. But the challenge for Republicans is to garner enough support from Democratic senators to achieve the 67 votes required to override a presidential veto. Yesterday, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) told reporters he had just 63 votes.

Even if Congress fails to override Obama’s veto, it still won’t be the end of what has become the flagship issue for US climate activists; the possibility remains that the State Department could still approve the project. But the Obama administration may be leaning against approval. In December, the president said the pipeline is “not even going to be a nominal benefit to US consumers.”

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BREAKING: President Obama Will Veto Congress’ Keystone XL Pipeline Bill

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Congress will soon approve Keystone, say Republicans

by DaltonHauslaib Posted on January 5, 2015

Congress will soon approve Keystone, say Republicans

By on 5 Jan 2015commentsShare

The new Republican Senate leadership seems to be holding true to its word: Approval for the Keystone XL pipeline will top the 2015 legislative agenda. The head of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), plans to hold a hearing on the pipeline on Wednesday and introduce a bill to approve it on Thursday.

A pro-Keystone bill came one vote short of passing in the Senate in November — and that was back when Democrats were still in control. This time, Republicans say, newly elected senators such as Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) will ensure that there are at least 60 votes, enough to overcome the threat of a filibuster and pass the legislation. But Senate leadership likely still won’t have the 67 votes they’d need to overcome a veto by President Obama, should he issue one.

So, assuming Keystone clears Congress in the next few weeks, how will Obama respond? The president has repeatedly put off making a call on the controversial pipeline, saying he’s waiting for the State Department to finish its assessment of the project. Toward the end of 2014, he was sounding like he wasn’t much a fan — when a Washington Post reporter asked Obama about Keystone last month, he responded that the project would have little positive effect in the U.S.:

“[S]ometimes the way this gets sold is, let’s get this oil and it’s going to come here and the implication is that’s gonna lower oil prices here in the U.S. It’s not. There’s a global oil market. It’s very good for Canadian oil companies and it’s good for the Canadian oil industry, but it’s not going to be a huge benefit to U.S. consumers. It’s not even going to be a nominal benefit to U.S. consumers.”

This would seem to suggest that when Republicans try to force Obama’s hand on the project, they can expect a veto — or at least that’s what climate hawks are hoping.

Keystone is also facing another challenge: Its path through Nebraska is held up by that state’s Supreme Court, which is currently deciding whether the governor wrongly cleared the way for the pipeline through a special legislative session in 2012, instead of letting the state’s Public Service Commission, which usually handles those decisions, make the call. The Nebraska court’s ruling is also expected very soon.

Source:
U.S. Senate panel to introduce Keystone XL bill Thursday

, Reuters.

In Keystone pipeline case, what might Nebraska court do?

, Reuters.

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Congress will soon approve Keystone, say Republicans

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The very first thing the new Republican Senate will do is try to push through Keystone

by KarolynThibodea Posted on December 17, 2014

The very first thing the new Republican Senate will do is try to push through Keystone

By on 17 Dec 2014commentsShare

Once Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) becomes Senate majority leader next month, his first order of business will be to hold a vote on authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline, he said on Tuesday. If it passes, that would force President Obama to either approve or veto the bill, and thus the pipeline, before he is ready to. From CNN:

The President has said he wants the decision left in the hands of the State Department, which is six years into a review of the project and currently holds final authority because the pipeline would cross international borders. …

The House has repeatedly approved a bill that would take the Keystone decision out of the Obama administration’s hands, end the review and give the project the green light.

For months, the Senate’s Democratic leaders ignored that House bill, but then last month they suddenly changed course and allowed a vote on it in a doomed bid to help Senate Energy Chair Mary Landrieu win her runoff election in oil-friendly Louisiana. Approval for Keystone came up one vote short, and Landrieu lost by 12 points.

Next year, when McConnell is in control of the Senate, newly elected Republican senators will give him the votes he needs to pass the Keystone bill. But if the president vetoes the legislation, McConnell probably won’t have enough votes to override him. Republicans will have 54 seats, and a number of Democrats could be expected to vote with them, but it would be a stretch to get to the 67 needed to overturn a veto.

Climate activists reacted to McConnell’s statement exactly the way you’d expect them to.

“This is just the climate denial agenda that the fossil fuel industry paid for,” Sara Shor, tar-sands campaign manager for 350.org, said in a statement. The group is planning more anti-Keystone protests for January. “The fossil fuel industry has all the money, but we’ve got the people. When it comes to politics, intensity often carries the day. We’re going to bring the heat.”

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The very first thing the new Republican Senate will do is try to push through Keystone

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