If you love the environment, Teapublican Texas Senator Ted Cruz says you should love the Keystone XL pipeline too, during a speech that likely set records for the most lies per second from a United States senator, including this whopper:
"We are seeing the environment improve in unprecedented levels based on the expansion of natural gas." (16:10 into the video)
“If you’re a Birkenstock-wearing, tree-hugging Greenpeace activist, you should love the Keystone pipeline,” said Cruz while speaking at the Heritage Action for America’s Conservative Policy Summit in D.C.
Cruz continued this faux concern for the environment, adding a dash of fear-mongering:
“The Canadians are not going to leave the tar sands unmolested. They’ll send it to China to be refined there and it will be refined in a much, much dirtier way.
If your concern is the environment, the last thing you want to do is send that oil to China to be refined there, which will be far more damage to the environment than refining it in the U.S., where it would generate good, high paying jobs."
You can't tell that among his top supporters are the oil and gas industry, now can you?
Among the deadly agenda Cruz outlined during his diatribe that will be incorporated into a bill called the "American Energy Renaissance Act" that he intends to introduce in the senate are:
1) Prevent Federal Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing.
Leave regulation of hydraulic fracturing in state hands
2) Improve Domestic Refining Capacity.
Streamline the permitting process for upgrading and building new refineries
Repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard
3) Improve Process to Develop Energy Infrastructure.
Approve and allow private sector to build the Keystone pipeline
Remove barriers to developing and approving additional national pipelines and cross-border energy infrastructure
4) Stop EPA Overreach and the War on Coal.
Exclude greenhouse gases from regulation by EPA and other federal agencies
Stop certain EPA regulations that will adversely impact coal and electric power plants
5) Force Congress and the President to Vote on EPA Regulations that Kill Jobs.
Require both Congress and the President to approve any EPA regulation that has a negative job impact
Support passage of the REINS Act, separate piece of legislation not included in this bill, which would require congressional approval of all major rules and regulations.
6) Broaden Energy Development on Federal Land.
Increase energy development on federal land
Provide states the option of leasing, permitting and regulating energy resources on federal lands within their borders; or
If states do not wish to manage energy development on federal lands within their borders, the federal leasing, permitting and regulating will be reformed to increase energy development by:
Streamlining permitting for development on federal lands
Improving certainty in the leasing and development process
Expanding development of energy on federal lands
Expand energy development in National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska
Expand energy development on Indian lands
Open up the Coastal Plain of Alaska (ANWR) for development
7) Open Offshore Exploration.
Expand the offshore areas of the Outer Continental Shelf available for development
Streamline the permitting process for additional offshore exploration
8) Expand U.S. Energy Exports.
Expand LNG exports by facilitating permits
End the crude oil export ban
Prevent excessively broad environmental review of coal export terminals
9) Dedicate Additional Revenues to a Trust Fund for Debt Reduction
Direct all additional revenues generated by exploration and drilling on federal lands (excluding the share allocated to the states) exclusively to national debt reduction—‘Debt Freedom Fund.’”
The Ted Cruz energy policy makes me think of the "Door To Hell", in Derweze, Turkmenistan. While drilling in 1971, geologists accidentally found an underground cavern filled with natural gas. The ground beneath the drilling rig collapsed, leaving a large hole with a diameter of about 50-100 meters. To avoid poisonous gas discharge, it was decided to burn the gas. It was hoped that the fire would go out in a few days... but it has been burning ever since:
Let's not allow the U.S. to become another portal to Hell.