As promised by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the first item up for the incoming congress will be moving legislation on the Keystone XL pipeline. In Spite of market trends that are rendering the Keystone XL less profitable by the day and howls coming from the environmental sector, the Newly elected Koch Owned Congress appears determine to push through keystone legislation.
This should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to appease their Wall Street benefactors that put them in office through rulings such as Citizens United, who stand to make billions on the market investments if the XL wins approval. Past claims of permanent job creation, national security and US energy independence from foreign oil have all been debunked by the left. The industry it’s admitted that as few as 35 long term jobs would be created by Keystone after completion of the pipeline. The President pointed out that little, if any, of the transported Canadian tar sands product will be taxable under current US state and National tax codes.
“Many of the refineries that will be processing the tar sand are in Foreign Trade Zones where oil may be exported to international buyers without paying U.S. taxes. And that is exactly what Valero, one of the largest potential buyers of Keystone XL's oil, has told its investors it will do. The idea that Keystone XL will improve U.S. oil supply is a documented scam being played on the American people by Big Oil and the newly elected republicans they placed in Washington DC.”
For those of you that were dreaming that the Keystone might assist in lowing U.S. gas prices at the pump even lower that the current record setting low seen, keep dreaming..
“When Canadian regulators at the National Energy Board (NEB) considered the Keystone XL proposal in 2008, they asked TransCanada to justify another pipeline when there was already so much spare capacity. TransCanada conceded that Keystone XL would take oil from existing pipelines, increasing shipping costs. However, TransCanada argued that this cost would be more than offset as shifting Canadian oil from the Midwest to the Gulf would increase the price that Americans paid for Canadian oil by $3.9 billion.
In fact, TransCanada refused to support a requirement that oil on Keystone XL be used in the United States in a Congressional hearing. back in Dec of 2011, Representative Edward Markey asked TransCanada's President Alex Pourbaix to support a condition that would require the oil on Keystone XL to be used in the United States. Mr. Pourbaix refused, saying that a requirement to keep oil on Keystone XL in the United States would cause refineries to back out of their contracts. That very well may be the case as Valero, one of the largest prospective purchasers of Keystone XL's crude, has already told its investors the its future business is in international export
see short key-point video of hearing below:
Simply stated, Keystone XL is a way to get Canadian oil out of the United States, not into it.’
read more : switchboard.nrdc.org
In conclusion, One can only see this first GOP New Year’s legislation for what it really is..
Yet another "Big Government " boondoggle by the party that claims to “Hate Big Government” except when it will benefit their purse or the purse of Their Wall Street investors/donors
These are the so called friends of the 'GOP' who have proven time and time again that they are pre-disposed to protecting their profits through offshore banking or through tax inversion schemes that will most likely be using Canadian companies to avoid paying their fair share of the U.S.tax burden.
"Obviously, with this first act of the New Congress, the Republican leadership wants to set the record straight to emphasize that they no longer serve the American people or their environment, they serve only Wall Street.."
What the President said about the pipeline on the Colbert Report..
“I’m going to make sure that we look at this objectively,” the President responded. “We’ve got to make sure that it’s not adding to the problem of carbon and climate change. We have to examine that, and we have to weigh that against the amount of jobs that it’s actually going to create, which aren’t a lot. Essentially, this is Canadian oil passing through the United States to be sold on the world market. It’s not going to push down gas prices here in the United States. It’s good for Canada. It could create a couple of thousand jobs in the initial construction of the pipeline but we’ve got to measure it against whether or not it’s going to contribute to an overall warming of the planet—which could be disastrous.”
the Keystone comments start at 4:33
Obama Tells Colbert: Keystone XL Could Be ‘Disastrous’