Daily Kos is running a campaign to urge President Obama to "keep his promise and reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline." Naturally, I signed the DK campaign letter, which is based on what President Obama said in June.
However, President Obama provided more specific statements in July that relate to the upcoming national interest determination that is the standard President Obama will use to determine whether to reject or approve the pipeline. This campaign letter to President Obama could be much stronger and more persuasive if DK staff update the letter with key points presented by Meteor Blades about President Obama rejecting GOP arguments used to support the XL based on bogus claims about job creation, energy security and lowered gas prices – issues that might be included under the umbrella of claimed economic benefits evaluated under the national interest determination.
This is the DK letter to President Obama (and if you have not signed yet, please do):
Dear President Obama:
We take seriously your recent promise to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline if it will drive significantly more global warming pollution and create more climate chaos.
Your State Department wants us to believe that the climate impacts of Keystone XL don’t matter, but that dubious claim has now been thoroughly debunked.
We already know that Keystone XL is the linchpin for tar sands expansion and greatly increased global warming pollution. It is the fuse that will light the tar sands carbon bomb, triggering more climate upheaval.
The Keystone XL gets a failing grade on your climate test. Please keep your promise by rejecting this climate-destroying pipeline.
This letter is based on President Obama's climate change
speech, which was reported at DK by
Meteor Blades in June:
President Obama's climate change speech may hint at possible Keystone XL pipeline rejection.
The key for the DK campaign is that President Obama's remarks are directed toward the national interest standard (set forth in Executive Order 13337) that is used to determine whether the XL pipeline should be approved or rejected. President Obama stated in his climate change speech that:
But I do want to be clear: Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward. It’s relevant.
Evaluation of the national interest is conducted during the
national interest determination period, which is usually 90 days, and
commences after the final EIS is issued. "The Department intends to provide an additional opportunity for the public to comment during the National Interest Determination (NID) period that will begin with the release the Final SEIS."
While the President has broad discretion in determining our national interest, the Department of State has identified key factors it has considered in previous national interest determinations for oil pipeline permit applications, which included "economic benefits to the United States of constructing and operating proposed projects."
TransCanada and its GOP allies have promoted the XL pipeline based on bogus job claims, as noted in my diary from 2011. One of the headlines back then from an energy institute opinion piece was "Approving Keystone XL Pipeline Would Create Jobs and Lower Gas Prices." Pipeline supporters focus on jobs because economic benefits are a key factor in the national interest determination, and the U.S. needs more jobs. However, the XL job creation is a pipe dream where TC and the GOP have significantly overestimated the number of jobs to be created from the XL Pipeline. Last year, House Speaker Boehner used the padded jobs figures provided by industry, telling ABC News that "Keystone would create 'over 100,000 indirect jobs,' adding: This is the epitome of a shovel-ready job project that the president ought to be approving. And if he won’t, then let’s let the Congress approve it." The press release last March for Senate Passes Bipartisan Amendment in Support of Keystone XL Project is focused on the jobs, jobs, jobs created by the XL Pipeline are in our national interest:
“Passing this Keystone XL amendment demonstrates with the clarity and firmness of a formal vote that the U.S. Senate supports the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and finds it in the national interest of the American people,” Hoeven said. “The amendment recognizes that the country will benefit from the pipeline by adding tens of thousands of jobs for Americans, billions of dollars to our economy and new tax revenue for our local, state and federal governments.”
“Budgets are about priorities and right now our number one priority needs to be creating jobs,” Baucus said. “Approving the Keystone Pipeline is the perfect opportunity to put Americans to work right now. American workers cannot afford to wait any longer for Keystone jobs, and there is absolutely no excuse for further delay.”
The impact on the public of continuous and widespread disinformation of jobs, jobs, jobs can be seen with 45% of the public siding with the GOP claim that delay in approval is "costing 20,000 jobs" and
polling showing 66% of Americans support the pipeline.
The issue of jobs should be included in the DK campaign to persuade President Obama to reject the XL pipeline. Nine days ago, Meteor Blades reported for DK that President Obama is not buying the jobs BS: Nothing certain, of course, but President Obama again hints Keystone XL pipeline could be rejected based on an interview:
NYT: A couple other quick subjects that are economic-related. Keystone pipeline -- Republicans especially talk about that as a big job creator. …
MR. OBAMA: Well, first of all, Michael, Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator. There is no evidence that that’s true. And my hope would be that any reporter who is looking at the facts would take the time to confirm that the most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline -- which might take a year or two -- and then after that we’re talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 [chuckles] jobs in a economy of 150 million working people.
NYT: Yet there are a number of unions who want you to approve this.
MR. OBAMA: Well, look, they might like to see 2,000 jobs initially. But that is a blip relative to the need.
Meteor Blades also reported on two other key GOP economic arguments that are bogus and recognized as such by President Obama: Energy security and decreased gas prices. The GOP has argued that the XL Pipeline will bring energy security to America.
David Turnbull,
Campaigns Director for Oil Change International, addressed this argument in one of our
XL Pipeline blogathons, pointing out that
the Keystone XL: [is] a pipeline THROUGH the US, not to it.
[T]he truth is that the US won’t be getting this oil. We at Oil Change International recently looked into the refineries that would receive the tar sands oil that would flow through Keystone XL, and what we found is what we’ve actually been saying for years: Keystone XL is a pipeline THROUGH the US, not to it.
Research has shown that the pipeline’s major purpose is not to provide oil for the U.S., but to serve as an export pipeline fueling international markets. New data reveals that a full 60 percent of gasoline produced in 2012 at Texas Gulf Coast refineries was exported. These are the refineries that would process the majority of the tar sands bitumen flowing through the Keystone XL pipeline, if it were built.
Meteor Blades pointed out that President Obama agrees the XL oil will be piped through the U.S. for sale in world oil markets and will not decrease gas prices here either. President Obama stated:
So what we also know is, is that that oil is going to be piped down to the Gulf to be sold on the world oil markets, so it does not bring down gas prices here in the United States. In fact, it might actually cause some gas prices in the Midwest to go up where currently they can’t ship some of that oil to world markets.
The upshot is that President Obama acknowledges that the GOP's economic arguments used to support the XL Pipeline are bogus on jobs, energy security, and gas prices. President Obama acknowledged that the U.S. is merely functioning as an oil bridge from Canada to world markets. This means that the U.S. will also get stuck with irreparable damage to our natural resources and wildlife and all the other harms flowing to people and earth when the XL leaks or spills.
The DK campaign letter to President Obama would be far more effective and stronger if it were updated to include President Obama's statements regarding jobs, energy security and gas prices that may all be considered in the upcoming national interest determination on whether this pipeline should be rejected. President Obama presented a clear case to knock down the TC and GOP BS, and we should let him know that we support his words and expect him to do the same.