Keystone XL pipeline bill rejected by U.S. Senate
Bill shot down by vote of 59-41
As the vote total was announced, protesters disrupted the Senate session with First Nations-style singing and chants. Earlier, protesters crashed the offices of senators who were set to vote on the issue.
Bill 2280 would have authorized Calgary-based TransCanada Corp., the company behind the project, "to construct, connect, operate, and maintain the pipeline and cross-border facilities" as specified in an application the company filed in 2012.
Prior to the vote, 59 senators had publicly voiced support and the hunt was on for the 60th vote needed to advance the measure.
Even if passed, the bill was not expected to pass muster with U.S. President Barack Obama, who had hinted strongly he would veto the bill, which is designed to short-circuit the White House's own environmental review process.
This is good news, but not the end of the story. It will come up again in 2015. It does slowdown extraction of tar sands bitumen and anything that does that is welcome. Investors were waiting with baited breath for the outcome of this vote. Anything that slows down this:
is welcome indeed.
From The Guardian:
Senate rejects Keystone XL pipeline bill
The most significant attempt yet to force US government approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline failed narrowly to clear the Senate on Tuesday night as a coalition of Republicans and moderate Democrats fell one vote short of the 60 votes needed for the legislation to pass.
Fourteen Democrats, led by Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu, joined all 45 Republicans in voting for the bill, which called for the controversial energy project to be given immediate go-ahead after years of delay due to environmental concerns.
[...]
During six hours of debate leading up to the vote, Landrieu insisted she was not oblivious to climate change risks but argued the largely Canadian tar sands would be exploited regardless of whether pipelines brought the oil to US refineries or not.
Landrieu is so wrong on that. Naomi Klein speaks about that
Naomi Klein: Reject Keystone XL Pipeline, We Need Radical Change to Prevent Catastrophic Warming
Now, when this debate really started heating up three years ago, the tar sands were booming, and the message was—and when we first saw the first environmental assessments out of the State Department, basically, what they were saying is Keystone doesn’t matter to climate because they’ll be able to get that expanded oil production, they’ll be able to get it out another way, whether through trains, whether through other pipelines built through British Columbia, for instance, or built eastward through eastern Canada. And what’s really shifted in three years is that that claim cannot be made now, because the tar sands are really surrounded by opposition. Everywhere they try to build a new pipeline or expand an existing pipeline, they’re facing fierce direct action as well as legal challenges by indigenous people and by other interests. So, the idea that if you don’t build Keystone, they’ll get it out anyway, is absurd. Keystone is—it’s not a drop in the bucket when it comes to tar sands. If Obama said no to Keystone now, it could really be the nail in the coffin for an industry that is in crisis on multiple fronts, because they have this huge problem of having a landlocked pool of carbon and no viable way to get that oil to the sea if they increase production at the levels they’d like to.
DKos diary by Steve Horn from DeSmogBlog
Gulf-Bound Tar Sands for Export? Follow the Oiltanking Trail
Though the bill failed, one of the key narratives that arose during the congressional debate was the topic of whether or not the tar sands product that may flow through it will ultimately be exported to the global market. President Barack Obama, when queried by the press about the latest Keystone congressional action, suggested tar sands exports are the KXL line’s raison d’etre.
Obama’s comments struck a nerve. Bill sponsor U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and supporter U.S. Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) both stood on the Senate floor and said Keystone XL is not an export pipeline in the minutes leading up to the bill’s failure.
“Contrary to the ranting of some people that this is for export…Keystone is not for export,” said Landrieu, with Hoeven making similar remarks.
But a DeSmog probe into a recent merger of two major oil and gas industry logistics and marketing companies, Oiltanking Partners and Enterprise Products Partners, has demonstrated key pieces of the puzzle are already being put together by Big Oil to make tar sands exports a reality.
Feels great to blog good news and that's what I am going to do from now on.