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Monday, January 30, 2012

GOP Determined on Koch's Keystone Pipeline

Senate GOP floats bill to bypass Obama and approve Keystone

 Senate GOP leaders are flexing their constitutional muscles with a new push for approval of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.

Citing Congress's powers under the Commerce Clause, Senate Republicans floated legislation Monday that would bypass the Obama administration and approve TransCanada Corp.’s pipeline to carry oil sands crude from Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries.

The bill goes further than the GOP provision in December’s payroll tax cut deal, which simply imposed a deadline for a decision on the Obama administration — one that President Obama met early when he rejected the project on Jan. 18.

 “This new bill is a lot like the old one, but it makes it definitive that Congress has the authority to push the Keystone XL pipeline forward,” said Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who sponsored the measure along with Sens. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.).
I wonder what the commission payments from Koch to their offshore accounts will look like?


And then – just in case that doesn’t work you have this

GOP wants Sen. Baucus to go rogue on Keystone XL oil sands pipeline
Republicans are pressing Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to buck his leadership and use his authority in the payroll tax conference to green-light the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.

Baucus has told business leaders in Montana that winning authorization for the transnational pipeline is one of his highest priorities for 2012.

Republicans say Baucus, as co-chairman of the payroll tax conference, has the power to include Keystone language in must-pass legislation and will pressure him to act.
It's amazing to me that they would go to all this bother to ruin the US environment to transport oil that will be shipped from Texas to other countries.


(Side note - makes me sick that The Hill has a topic section named Energy and the Environment.  That's where this post was and in this case the two are diametrically opposed.)

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