U.S. to re-route Keystone XL due to environmental concerns

[L Gilbert]

I looked into this back in November Spade. This is what I found.

I think you missed the part where he said "adjusted for taxes". There's also the adjustments like the difference in wages in refining and other factors in between getting crude and shipping it for retail. And there are other reasons for the appearance of a difference. Once one collects and adjusts for all the differences associated with the characteristics between the countries, the prices are equitable.

 

[Spade]

I looked into this back in November Spade. This is what I found.

I do the math all the time. Taxation rates account for some of the difference. Compare Alberta with Montana.

Alberta: GST 5%
Alberta Excise Tax: $0.09/L
Federal Excise Tax: $0.10/L

Montana: Taxes were $0.462/US gal (please check for most recent figure)

Today, Jan 19, the average price /L of gasoline in Alberta was 104.209 cents (CDN)/L. The pre-tax price was 80.25 cents (CDN)/L.
In Montana, the average price/US gal was 301.9 cents (US)/gal (US). The pre-tax price was 68.36 cents (CDN)/L.
Albertans paid a premium of 17.4% for pre-tax gasoline.

 

[mikemac]

Well there you go right there, pre-tax price in Alberta 80.25 cents compared to pre-tax price in Montana 68.36 cents. If you adjust for shipping then it should be more expensive in the US. The difference in currencies shouldn't be a factor at all seeing the Canadian dollar has been real close to par with the US dollar for so long, sometimes with the Canadian dollar trading at more than the US dollar. When you consider that the most expensive gas prices in the US are still less expensive than the least expensive gas prices in Canada (Alberta) then there is clearly something wrong with the picture. Canadians are getting shafted to bolster a foreign country's economy, including Canadians in Alberta. I'll repeat, this is next to treasonous on Harper's part.

 

[EagleSmack]

3. Keystone XL Overstated Number of Jobs to be Created

In 2008, TransCanada’s original permit application to the State Department said the Keystone XL pipeline would create “a peak workforce of approximately 3,500 to 4,200 construction personnel” in temporary jobs building the pipeline.

By 2011, now facing growing opposition to the pipeline, TransCanada had inflated these numbers (using undisclosed formulas) to 20,000. Supporters of the proposal, backed by big oil, have since trumpeted these trumped up numbers.

​

All construction jobs could be considered temporary. When you build a building eventually it will be completed. It doesn't mean you don't build it.

6. Mining Tar Sands Would Worsen Global Warming

​

sigh

 

[mentalfloss]

Keystone activists to protest oil, Congress ties

(Reuters) - A coalition of environmental groups plans to stage a rally against "Big Oil's corruption" on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, hours before President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address to the U.S. Congress.

Days after the White House handed them a victory by halting the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline, environmental activists are stepping up attacks on U.S. lawmakers seen as too close to oil and gas companies.

A coalition of green groups promises hundreds of protesters dressed as referees who will "blow the whistle" on lawmakers who have received campaign contributions from oil companies. The coalition did not give names or party affiliation of the lawmakers they would target.

The rally is organized by groups including 350.org, which staged large protests against the Keystone pipeline, including one that encircled the White House late last year to protest the project that would sharply boost oil production from Canada's energy-intensive tar sands.

The Obama administration last week rejected TransCanada's pipeline after Congress inserted language in tax legislation requiring a decision on the project by the end of February. Obama had previously delayed making a decision until after the November 2012 elections.

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, said the groups hope to keep environmental issues at the forefront of national conversations leading up to the elections.

"Look, I'm a Patriots fan, but if Bill Belichick was caught paying off the refs for the Super Bowl I'd be outraged and so would everyone else," McKibben said, referring to the head coach of the National Football League team. The New England Patriots will play the New York Giants in the league championship next month.

"So why, really, is it okay that congressmen take huge sums from companies and then vote on their interests?" he said in an email.

Environmentalists oppose the Keystone project because of the high greenhouse gas emissions from processing Alberta's tar sands and because the pipeline could threaten a Nebraska aquifer that is a major source of drinking water.

Environmental groups threatened to sit out the election if Obama approved the pipeline, adding to pressure on the Democratic president who faces a tough election in a struggling economy.

Republicans, who say the project would create jobs, see Keystone as a major election issue and have vowed to take further legislative steps to force approval of the project. The House of Representatives

Jamie Henn, communications director for 350.org, said Keystone galvanized environmental activists. The groups, which also include the Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace and others, believe they can draw attention to other environmental issues during the campaign.

Protesting oil industry influence on Congress taps into election issues such as Occupy Wall Street protest movement's anger at perceived special treatment of corporations, concern about government subsidies and other spending, and controversy over "Super PACs" spending large amounts of money on electoral campaigns, Henn said.

"We've got some reports that people are buying referee outfits in districts too ... so I wouldn't be surprised to see some penalty flags get thrown at some members of Congress' offices," Henn said.

Keystone activists to protest oil, Congress ties | Reuters

 

[EagleSmack]

Republicans, who say the project would create jobs,

Are they wrong?

 

[mentalfloss]

Are they wrong?

In Rejection Letter, State Department Concludes Purported Keystone XL Benefits Are Myths

In a Congressionally mandated report on the reasons for rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, the Department of State concludes that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has little to do with energy security or the economy. The pipeline, of great interest to the foreign tar sands company TransCanada and its investors, would have little benefit for Americans and many risks. The Keystone XL pipeline just won’t change the economics of oil dependence in the United States:

Regarding economic, energy security, and trade factors, the economic analysis in the final EIS indicates that, over the remainder of this decade, even if no new cross-border pipelines were constructed, there is likely to be little difference in the amount of crude oil refined at U.S. refineries, the amount of crude oil and refined products such as gasoline imported to (or exported from) the United States, the cost of crude oil or refined products in the United States, or the amount of crude oil imported from Canada. . . .

The analysis from the final EIS, noted above, indicates that denying the permit at this time is unlikely to have a substantial impact on U.S. employment, economic activity, trade, energy security, or foreign policy over the longer term.
​

The State Department concludes that “it would not be reasonable to suggest the pipeline would cause an increase in employment or other economic activity by increasing crude oil imported into the United States.”

Instead of the 100,000 or more jobs that proponents like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Rep. John Boehner tout, there would only be the “approximately 5,000 to 6,000 direct construction jobs in the United States that would last for the two years that it would take to build the pipeline.”

Download the complete State Department document.


In Rejection Letter, State Department Concludes Purported Keystone XL Benefits Are Myths | ThinkProgress

 

[EagleSmack]

there would only be the “approximately 5,000 to 6,000 direct construction jobs in the United States that would last for the two years that it would take to build the pipeline.”

Back to the article in question... were the Republicans correct that this project would create jobs?

Who makes the pipe? Who ships the pipe? What about engineers? Concrete? Rebar?

Obama seems to like to pat his back on road and bridge work.

Republicans, who say the project would create jobs, see Keystone as a major election issue and have vowed to take further legislative steps to force approval of the project. The House of Representatives

They seem to be correct. I cannot see how the project wouldn't create jobs.

 

[mikemac]

Don't be fooled - the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not a jobs plan, but an oil export plan

Posted January 11, 2012


You’ll hear the GOP, the American Petroleum Institute, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce make wild claims about the job creation potential of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Don’t be fooled. The pipeline company itself admits only “a few hundred permanent jobs” are created by Keystone XL. The debate over whether Keystone XL creates jobs is a convenient diversion from something oil company backers don’t want you to know: this is an export pipeline to help them access foreign markets and bypass the United States. Oil companies will make bigger profits and oil prices for Americans will increase. That’s not a project that helps Americans. It’s a project that helps Big Oil.

Video: CNN posted this interview with a TransCanada executive who admits that permanent jobs would only number "in the hundreds, certainly not in the thousands" from Montana down to Houston. Thanks to Media Matters for the clip.


The oil industry is pulling a bait and switch scam with Keystone XL – offering it as a path to economic and national security when the pipeline is mostly meant for export. According to the State Department, only 20 permanent jobs will be created by the pipeline. Even the pipeline company acknowledged that only “a few hundred permanent jobs’ will be created. Claims the pipeline will created 100,000 jobs are false. The U.S. State Department estimates no more than 6,000 temporary construction jobs will be created over the two years. We need better from Republicans when it comes to a jobs plan than a single project with jobs that won’t last.
While the debate over job creation from Keystone XL has attracted a lot of attention, long-term real job creation on which Americans depend is occurring in the clean energy industry. In just a six week period in September and October 2011, Environmental Entreprenuers, a national community of over 850 individual business leaders, identified the creation of 32,000 clean energy jobs by 100 companies including manufacturing plants, power generation project, renewable energy, and energy-efficiency retrofits. More than 2.7 million people are working in the U.S. clean energy economy right now – more than the entire fossil fuel industry put together. Every month new clean energy jobs are announced that are shovel-ready and lead to long-lasting permanent job growth in America. Clean car manufacturers have created over 151,000 quality long term jobs in the United States while saving consumers billions of dollars at the pump. Between 2003 and 2010, the clean energy sector grew nearly twice as fast as the overall economy.
If we are going to truly debate national job creation, we should be working on measures that will create jobs on a national scale while achieving true energy independence for our country. And we’ve already made tremendous strides on that front.
Steven M. Anderson, retired Army brigadier general, argues the Keystone XL pipeline will not help America cut its petro-addition and will detract from building a clean energy economy:

This pipeline would move dirty oil from Canada to refineries in Texas and would set back our renewable energy efforts for at least two decades, much to our enemies’ delight. It would ensure we maintain our oil addiction and delay making the tough decisions regarding energy production, management and conservation that we need to start making today.
​

The laser-focus emphasis on Keystone XL by House Republicans, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others is nothing short of politics. They are conveniently avoiding a more important point about how the Keystone XL pipeline that provides tar sands oil companies a platform to export oil while making billions of dollars in profit. Instead, the pipeline will take the dirtiest oil on the planet, put America’s heartland at risk, and then send that oil to the highest bidder around the world.
Building pipelines to the Gulf Coast, in addition to providing oil companies an avenue to export, also increases oil prices. There is concrete evidence (pp. 27-28 ) that building Keystone XL will increase oil prices in the Gulf Coast Market and the Midwest.
In the end, real job creation won’t come from approving a foreign pipeline. The evidence shows the future of job creation is in global clean energy markets. And that the real purpose of this pipeline is to give tar sands producers access to international markets.

Source
Don't be fooled - the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not a jobs plan, but an oil export plan | Danielle Droitsch's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

 

[EagleSmack]

Wow... the Democrats are working the Spinning Machine on overtime!

I think they know this is going to bite them down the line.

 

[ironsides]

Date: January 24, 2012

To: Valero Employees

From: Bill Klesse

Subject: Keystone XL Pipeline Statement


As you know, the Obama administration decided last week to deny TransCanada’s application to ship crude oil via the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Valero has planned to be a shipper and purchaser of that oil since 2008, and obviously we were disappointed in the decision. We issued a statement in response to questions from the media, and I wanted to share it with you in case you get questions from friends or business partners, and so that you would know why Valero supports the Keystone XL pipeline. This is the statement:

Despite the uncertainty and political fighting over the Keystone XL pipeline, Valero has continued to invest in its U.S. refining operation. In 2011 we spent nearly $3 billion on projects, and for 2012 our capital expenditure budget is over $3 billion. These expenditures are keeping our employees on the job and putting additional people to work. To reference two of our refineries, at Port Arthur, Texas, we have 1,600 contractors working on an expansion project, and at St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, we have another 1,000 contractors working on a separate project. We need this kind of economic activity to accelerate to help all Americans.

This illustrates why the federal government’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline is so absurd. There are pipelines in every neighborhood all across America. The administration’s decision was not about pipelines, it was about the misguided beliefs that Canadian oil sands development should be stopped and that fossil fuel prices should increase to make alternative energy more attractive. Instead, we should be impressed with how well the oil sands engineering and recovery technology has advanced, and the economic benefits this development brings. Having more oil available in the marketplace has the potential to lower prices for consumers. As an independent refiner, Valero buys all of the oil we process. Due to the administration’s misguided policies, refiners like Valero will have to buy more oil from other sources outside the U.S. and Canada. Consumers will bear the additional shipping cost, not to mention the additional greenhouse gas emissions and political risks.

With all the issues facing our country, it is absolutely unbelievable our federal government says no to a company like TransCanada that is willing to spend over $7 billion and put Americans to work on a pipeline. The administration’s decision throws dirt into the face of our closest ally and largest trading partner.

The point above is that it is not about pipelines as many pipelines cross the Ogallala Aquifer, in the Great Plains region, and, in fact, there is already significant oil and gas production in the area covered by the aquifer. This is politics at its worst.

Thanks for your support.

 

[mentalfloss]

Keystone Foes Urge Obama to Repeal Tax Breaks for Oil

Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Bill McKibben, leader of a group that pushed President Barack Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline, urged the administration to seek repeal of tax breaks for U.S. oil companies in the State of the Union speech.

“We want Obama today to come out against these subsidies for fossil fuels,” McKibben said in an interview in Washington. “They get billions of dollars in subsidies, taxpayer money, every single year.”

McKibben and environmentalists from 350.org and Greenpeace protested outside the U.S. Capitol over what he said is the fossil-fuel “corruption” in Congress. Oil companies get $320 in U.S. subsidies for every $1 they give in political contributions, McKibben said.

Obama denied a permit for TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline on Jan. 18 after environmental groups demonstrated for weeks outside the White House, opposing the project because they said it would add to U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions and endanger drinking-water supplies in Nebraska.

The president is scheduled to deliver his annual speech to a joint session of Congress at 9 p.m. Washington time. Repealing oil and gas industry tax breaks was mentioned in Obama’s 2010 and 2011 speeches. “I’m asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies” to help develop innovations in energy,’’ Obama said a year ago.

Democrats in Congress failed to get enough support last year to repeal $21 billion in tax breaks over 10 years for Exxon Mobil Corp. of Irving, Texas, London’s BP Plc, Houston’s ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corp. of San Ramon, California, and The Hague’s Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

“Our deductions are standard business deductions that help recover costs,” Reid Porter, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, said in an e-mail today. “The oil and natural gas companies still pay more in taxes than virtually every other industry.”
The American Petroleum Institute is the largest energy trade organization, based in Washington.

Keystone Foes Urge Obama to Repeal Tax Breaks for Oil - Businessweek

 

[ironsides]

Cut the tax breaks, create a unfavorable atmosphere for further oil exploration, increase the price of oil, destroy the economy even further. What a unique concept to build jobs and get people working again. This whole thing will also raise the cost of food and other items consumers need. Destroy the middle class and poor even farther. Obama and others would just love to destroy this country.

 

[DaSleeper]

Cut the tax breaks, create a unfavorable atmosphere for further oil exploration, increase the price of oil, destroy the economy even further. What a unique concept to build jobs and get people working again. This whole thing will also raise the cost of food and other items consumers need. Destroy the middle class and poor even farther. Obama and others would just love to destroy this country.

The socialist view that you must burn the house down to rebuild it their way....:roll:

 

[captain morgan]

This whole thing will also raise the cost of food and other items consumers need. Destroy the middle class and poor even farther. Obama and others would just love to destroy this country.

I believe that the 'average Joe' in the USA will be impacted by the 'unusual' logic that the present admin is employing during these tough economic times.

Sadly, I also believe that your last statement may be truer than you think.

The socialist view that you must burn the house down to rebuild it their way....:roll:

In this case, it's even worse, it's a case of the Dems cannibalizing the US economy for the puny reason of political posturing for the next election... It's gone way beyond the premise of bribing the people with their own money.

I'm finding it tough to imagine how low the IQ of the average Democrat supporter must be in order to support this kind of insanity.

 

[L Gilbert]

I'll repeat, this is next to treasonous on Harper's part.

I don't think you quite understand what treason is.

The socialist view that you must burn the house down to rebuild it their way....:roll:

I don't know about socialist but that seems to be the tendency of the presidency in the past decade or so.

 

[ironsides]

Unfortunately there seems to be no hero to come along anytime soon and make thing right.

 

[captain morgan]

No doubt... It's a game of hurry-up and wait

 

[EagleSmack]

I bet all the ones who are so concerned about environmental issues with this pipeline have an Oil tank in their basement, garage, or by the side of their house and/or have a gas line going into their house. In addition to a gas tank or two in their driveway with spilled oil patches beneath them. Also gas stations conveniently located near by with underground fuel tanks.

Where is the uproar?

 

[mentalfloss]

I bet all the ones who are so concerned about environmental issues with this pipeline have an Oil tank in their basement, garage, or by the side of their house and/or have a gas line going into their house. In addition to a gas tank or two in their driveway with spilled oil patches beneath them. Also gas stations conveniently located near by with underground fuel tanks.

Where is the uproar?

With what exactly?

Neb. Lawmaker Explains Why He Joined the Keystone XL Fight, and Why It Isn't Over

When the Obama administration rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline last week, it cited concerns over the project's route through Nebraska as one reason for its decision. That segment of the pipeline is now being rerouted, in response to Nebraskans who spent years persuading lawmakers to move the tar sands pipeline—intended to carry crude oil from Alberta, Canada to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast—out of the Nebraska Sandhills, a fragile ecosystem that overlies the Ogallala aquifer.

Nebraska state Sen. Ken Haar, a 68-year-old Democrat who is nearing the end of his first term, played a key role in the movement's success. Haar has worked as a science teacher, business owner and inventor, and is a former executive director of the state's Democratic Party. He helped found the Save Our Sandhills coalition, a non-partisan group that includes organizations as diverse as the Sierra Club and the Independent Cattlemen of Nebraska. Haar was also the first public official to call for a special session of the legislature to discuss a pipeline reroute.

In November, that special session was finally held, and an agreement was reached with TransCanada to move the pipeline out of the Sandhills. One of the bills passed during the session gave the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) authority to study alternative pipeline routes.

In an interview with InsideClimate News, Haar talked about his plans for the future, why he chose to get involved in the Keystone XL controversy and the importance of citizen activism. He also warned that the public must remain vigilant, because the pipeline will likely be built.

How do you feel about President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL?

There's a political game going on in Washington. We did what we needed to do for Nebraska, and we can't control what's going on in Washington. Now, other forces are going to have to go after it.

When did you first hear about the pipeline, and what was your initial reaction?

It was probably three years ago, and [at first] I wasn't disturbed about it. A lot of things have happened in the meantime—the oil spill in the Gulf, the Kalamazoo River spill, the Yellowstone River spill. All of those have caught our attention to the fact that there can be spills that are very damaging to the environment.

So how did you get involved?

About a year ago, I was at a conference put on by the Center for Rural Affairs, and a young man gave a presentation on Keystone XL and where it was going to go and where it came from. I left that meeting just feeling like we've got to do something. There were some groups—Bold Nebraska and the Sierra Club—already working, but they were working to get a ballot initiative that would have gone on the 2012 ballot, which is just too late. We figured that the pipeline would be approved before Jan. 1st of this year.

So as I talked with my wife on the way home, we just said, 'This is my role.' That's when it started.

In August 2011 I wrote an op-ed in the Omaha World-Herald asking for a special session in the legislature. The citizen groups had also realized this pipeline would probably go through if you worked through a ballot initiative. So when I suggested the special session, they jumped on board. It was three or four intensive months of work. And the amazing thing is there were two things Nebraskans were talking about this fall. One of them was Cornhusker football, and the other was Keystone pipeline. Everybody seemed to know about both and have strong feelings about both.

Have you ever been to the Sandhills?

We've gone canoeing a number of times on the Niobrara River, which is a pristine river up there. A year ago and a half ago, I got invited up to one of the Sandhills ranches to watch cattle branding, which was quite an experience. And I got my car stuck very badly...To get to the place I was supposed to be, you turn off the state highway onto the rancher's road, and from the ranch house there was another road that was just sand. And I thought, because I had a van, that would take care of it. I dug that [car] in right up to the axles. And I realized how fragile that environment is.

Your constituents live in and near the city of Lincoln, more than 100 miles outside the Sandhills region. How did they react to your stance on the pipeline?

We depend on agriculture and we depend on water. And if there were a major spill in some of those rivers in the Sandhills, we would be drinking that water in Lincoln.

We had sent out a survey [to my constituents], and overwhelmingly, people are in favor of two things: one is protecting our water, and the other is giving Nebraska a place at the table. That sentiment is high in Nebraska—that the federal government should stay out unless they're needed. So this whole thing with TransCanada and the State Department being able to make a decision that affects all of us didn't sit well with many people.

How do you feel about the pipeline bills that were passed during the special session?

I expressed this to the Omaha World-Herald when they were doing a wrap-up: I said "this has really een a f***ing miracle," and they said "well, we can't print that, but we'll use the word 'Christmas.'"

This is not something that could have been planned precisely to begin with. It was just rolling with the punches. I put together the Save our Sandhills coalition, and all of those groups that are listed there got involved with their members. This was really kind of a unique experience for the legislature to hear big-time from their constituents.

Can you think of another issue that's prompted so much citizen activism?

No. It happened this way with huge citizen involvement and I just can't think of anything like that. One of the things it's taught me, and the people involved, is that as citizens we have to get involved and stay involved. We haven't solved any [of the] problems that may come up in the future, so we've got to keep our eyes open.

Has this changed your political career?

Well, I'm 68 years old. This is my fourth year in the legislature and I'm running for re-election, and we have two-term limits. So this will be the last public office for me. But I've always thought [about] the interests of the people, and this looked like a great opportunity.

Will you follow future pipeline developments at the Nebraska DEQ?

Yes. The DEQ already issued a map of the Sandhills saying you have to avoid [this region]. They've started to set up a Q&A section on their website. But TransCanada still has not proposed a route.
What's really interesting is that I had a bill that didn't get passed in the special session, which is patterned after North Dakota where they have exclusion zones [for pipelines]. The map I used of the Sandhills is the same that Nebraska DEQ is using. So I think that's very good.

Some landowners say the DEQ map is flawed, and that the edges of the Sandhills should be extended to cover more of Nebraska. How would you respond to their concerns?

When you talk about land and land rights in Nebraska, there's always some winners and losers when it comes to eminent domain. There will always be some people who are not happy about the outcome. And of course there are people who just want to stop the pipeline, period. I don't think that's going to happen.

So you think TransCanada will do what it has said and re-apply for another permit?

Oh yeah. I think they will because there's money to be made. And there's no reason that they can't use much of the study they've already done. They're not going to have to start from scratch. We talked at one point to the EPA person who sort of had some authority over this, working with the State Department, and she said changes in routes happen all the time, and you don't have to start way at the beginning at the Canadian border all the way down to Texas. You see what needs to be changed and you go from there.

One of the very interesting points is, the Keystone I through eastern Nebraska [the Keystone I is an existing TransCanada oil pipeline that began operating in 2010] is only at 55 percent of capacity right now. So the bottleneck is at Cushing, Oklahoma. And I think that's going to be another proposal that's going to be explored: they can just build the pipeline from Cushing to the Gulf [and avoid passing through Nebraska].

Are you working on anything related to the DEQ reroute?

One of the things I'm attempting to do is to get some Nebraska water scientists involved in the issue: John Stansbury, John Gates, Wayne Woldt and Dave Wedin. I'm talking with those scientists right now to see if they'd like to be involved, and then with DEQ about how they could be involved. Again, this is Nebraska and their expertise is in Nebraska. Even though these scientists...had one meeting with TransCanada [about the original route], now I hope they can play a more central role.

And I'm introducing another bill. The essence of it is that pipeline safety is a federal responsibility, but if the state wishes to participate in the inspection of pipelines, then [the federal agency] will work with the state on an 80/20 basis, with a federal requirement of 80 percent and 20 for the state, to increase the number of inspections and make pipelines of all kinds more safe.

Do you think Keystone XL is in the national interest?

I think that there is so much change in our future, the way we use and generate electricity and all those kinds of issues, that I would be hard-pressed, if I were making the decision, to say it's in the national interest.

Do you have any advice for politicians in the other states the Keystone XL would pass through?

I think states have a definite role to play, and I hope other states won't be afraid of that.

What would you say to the Nebraskans who worked so hard to reroute the pipeline?

I would say: be vigilant. Stay involved as citizens. This isn't over. You've got to stick with this forever. That's what citizenship means.

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/2...lls-transcanada-state-department-obama?page=3