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As White House confirms plan to veto Keystone XL, five facts about its status

 

Alexander Panetta / The Canadian Press, February 23, 2015 12:41 PM, Source – Yorkton This Week

 

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President Barack Obama speaks at AARP in Washington, Monday, Feb. 23, 2015. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

 

WASHINGTON - An attempt to force U.S. President Barack Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline is being rebuffed, with the White House confirming that the president will veto a pro-Keystone bill, the first legislation of its kind passed by Congress.

 

It may be a milestone in a long debate — but it's not the end of the years-long saga, which involves plans to build a new oil pipeline from Alberta and connect it to an already-functioning portion in the southern U.S. Here are five facts about the status of the Keystone XL project:

 

This was the undercard — now the main event. A veto comes as no surprise. The White House repeatedly said it would stop lawmakers if they tried forcing an outcome on Keystone XL.

 

The White House says it's the president who decides what pipelines cross the border, not Congress, and past court decisions bear that out. That responsibility was most recently laid out in Executive Order 13337, signed by George W. Bush in 2004.

 

So when is the main decision? Soon — maybe. The regulatory process is in its final phase. The State Department has finished collecting input and is now preparing a recommendation to the president. Obama must then decide whether the project is in the U.S. national interest.

 

When Obama talks about Keystone XL, he plays down its potential for jobs and lower U.S. gas prices. Instead, he says, the decision will be based on climate change. The latest State Department review says it won't increase emissions, but another U.S. federal agency has questioned that conclusion.

 

As for the timing? "I don't have any prediction of the timeline for you," a State Department spokesman said this month.

 

Try, try again. Congress will probably produce more Keystone XL bills. And they could be more tempting for the president to sign.

 

Lawmakers have already hinted at creative legislative strategies. One predicted that a pipeline clause would be added to a massive infrastructure bill — an issue on which the president is keen to make progress.

 

Some members will only approve new infrastructure spending if it doesn't drive up the deficit, so both parties are working on a solution: update the U.S. tax code, encourage companies to bring home profits currently sheltered overseas, have that cash pay for new roads and bridges in an infrastructure bill, and toss a certain Canadian oil pipeline into that legislative mix.

 

Meanwhile, in Nebraska ... Keystone's Waterloo — where the project first faced opposition, and then multiple court fights.

 

The latest legal battle has just begun. Some predict this development could delay construction in the state for another 18 months. In the face of legal pressure, the pipeline company, TransCanada Corp., has stopped trying to use eminent-domain power to force resistant landowners to allow the pipe on their property. It's now agreed to let courts settle the matter.

 

These kinds of delays and disputes have driven up the cost of the project by nearly half, to $8 billion.

 

Presidential vetoes — get used to them. Obama has only vetoed two bills throughout his presidency — fewer than any predecessor in more than 120 years. He had allies in Congress blocking bills for him.

 

That's now changed. Democrats have lost control in both chambers of Congress, so they can't run interference as easily. Obama has now signalled he'll use his veto power by scrapping Senate Bill No. 1 — the Keystone XL legislation, the first bill Republicans introduced in the new Congress.

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Obama vetoes Keystone XL pipeline, leaving it in limbo

By Jeff Mason and Timothy Gardner, WASHINGTON Tue Feb 24, 2015 6:05pm EST, Source - Reuters

 

A depot used to store pipes for Transcanada Corp's planned Keystone XL oil pipeline is seen in Gascoyne, North Dakota November 14, 2014. REUTERS/Andrew Cullen

A depot used to store pipes for Transcanada Corp's planned Keystone XL oil pipeline is seen in Gascoyne, North Dakota November 14, 2014. -- Credit: Reuters/Andrew Cullen

 

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday, as promised, swiftly vetoed a Republican bill approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline, leaving the long-debated project in limbo for another indefinite period.

 

The U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, after receiving Obama's veto message, immediately countered by announcing the Republican-led chamber would attempt to override it by March 3.

 

That is unlikely. Despite their majority, Republicans are four votes short of being able to overturn Obama's veto.

 

They have vowed to attach language approving the pipeline to a spending bill or other legislation later in the year that the president would find difficult to veto.

 

The TransCanada Corp pipeline would carry 830,000 barrels a day of mostly Canadian oil sands crude to Nebraska en route to refineries and ports along the U.S. Gulf. It has been pending for more than six years.

 

Obama, who rejected the bill hours after it was sent to the White House, said the measure unwisely bypassed a State Department process that will determine whether the project would be beneficial to the United States.

 

"Through this bill, the United States Congress attempts to circumvent longstanding and proven processes for determining whether or not building and operating a cross-border pipeline serves the national interest," he wrote in his veto message.

 

Republicans, who support the project because of its job-creation potential, made passing a bill a top priority after the November election, when they gained control of the U.S. Senate and strengthened their majority in the House of Representatives.

 

The bill passed by 270-152 in the House earlier this month and cleared the Senate in January.

 

Obama has played down Keystone XL's ability to create jobs and raised questions about its effects on climate change. Environmentalists, who made up part of the coalition that elected the president in 2008 and 2012, oppose the project because of carbon emissions involved in getting the oil it would carry out of Canadian tar sands.

 

TransCanada Chief Executive Russ Girling said in a statement the company was “fully committed” to Keystone XL despite Obama’s veto and would work with the State Department to answer any questions it has about the project.

 

Opponents of the pipeline praised Obama's move.

 

"This veto, along with the president’s increasing public skepticism about Keystone XL ... makes us more confident than ever that (the) president will reject the permit itself once and for all," said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, another pipeline opponent.

 

Republicans lambasted Obama.

 

“The president’s veto of the Keystone jobs bill is a national embarrassment," said Republican House Speaker John Boehner. "The president is just too close to environmental extremists to stand up for America’s workers. He’s too invested in left-fringe politics to do what presidents are called on to do, and that’s put the national interest first."

 

Obama will make a final decision on the project once the State Department finishes its review, expected in the coming weeks.

 

But the issue is likely to remain central in Washington's political back-and-forth for some time.

 

The chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Jason Chaffetz, sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday asking for all reports and documents received by the State Department from other government agencies about the project, according to an aide.

 

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

FM

Warren Buffett criticizes Keystone XL delay

Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press, Published Monday, March 2, 2015 3:13PM EST, Source

 

Warren Buffett

Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett gestures during an interview with Liz Claman on the Fox Business Network in Omaha, Neb., on May 5, 2014. (AP / Nati Harnik)

 

WASHINGTON -- The Keystone XL pipeline got an emphatic endorsement Monday from a powerful backer of President Barack Obama who questioned the handling of the file.

 

To billionaire investor Warren Buffett, the delay is a thumbing of the nose at Canada.

 

"I would have passed Keystone," Buffett said in an interview with CNBC.

 

"I think that we have an enormous interest in working with Canada, as they have in working with us. That oil is going to get sold. If we make it more difficult for them, who knows how they'll feel about making things more difficult for us someday."

 

Because Buffett owns interests in the rail industry, in addition to oilsands holdings, there had been some speculation that he might have stood to benefit from a Keystone rejection.

 

But he has expressed support for it in the past, and did so with particular force Monday: "That (oil) is a valuable resource of North America, and Canada has been a terrific partner over the decades, and for us to kind of thumb our nose at them, you know, (that's) not what I would do."

 

Buffett has been a donor and occasional political ally of the president, notably on the issue of increasing taxes for the wealthy. As for the pipeline, Obama has vetoed legislation on it and has made increasingly critical remarks about it, prompting widespread speculation that he's gearing up to reject it.

 

A prominent pipeline opponent in Nebraska said it should now be clear that the opposition movement isn't being bankrolled by the state's wealthiest resident, the so-called Oracle of Omaha.

 

"Well, (hope) this puts to bed all of those rumours from the right that Bold is funded by Buffett," said a tweet from Jane Kleeb, the founder of the group Bold Nebraska, which has organized landowners fighting the project.

 

It wasn't the only development welcomed Monday by pipeline supporters. The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" feature also tore into Obama's repeated claims that the pipeline would do nothing but export Canadian oil.

 

The Post pointed out that in addition to Canadian bitumen, the pipeline would also carry oil from North Dakota and Montana to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.

 

It gave the president the worst possible truth-telling score -- "Four Pinocchios." It said Obama's statements contradicted the findings of his own State Department's review.

 

"Clearly, the report remains unread," said the Post piece.

 

"If he disagrees with the State Department's findings, he should begin to make the case why it is wrong, rather than assert the opposite, without any factual basis."

FM

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