Is anyone surprised that this is what Kerry decided — had decided for him by Obama?

Obama will be reviled by coming generations, as will we all who are living through these times. However, most of our names will never be known. His, and some others, will be known. And despised, hated, and oft cited as examples of terrible leadership.

Should the human race continue with knowledge of this part of its civilizations.

Jesus God.

goose -> cooked

Read the not-so-fine print:

A 45-day public comment period will begin when EPA posts the Draft SEIS on its website, a process that generally takes about one week following today’s submission of the document to that agency. Specific instructions about how to submit comments will be provided via the Federal Register and on the State Department Keystone XL website.

After the end of the public comment period, the Department will consider comments received and prepare a Final SEIS. The National Interest Determination period will begin following the release of the Final SEIS, during which time the Department will obtain the views of other agencies about whether to grant or deny the permit.

So, there’s a 45-day comment period starting next week once the EPA gets its website set up accordingly, during which we can flood the EPA with comments.

Then, there’s the National Interest Determination.

This is by no means a done deal. It can be stopped.

Hilary left to avoid blame.

Game over for the planet.

I think the 45 day comment period is “going through the motions”

More civil disobedience is called for.

Preventing this pipeline was considered by many a must win as NASA climate scientist James Hansen said the Canadian tar sand exploitation was game over for the planet.

I’m baffled by the logic of electing Republican majorities to Congress, which the blocking of the XL Pipeline would help do, leading to a carbon tax to seriously change the direction of US energy policy.

Blocking the XL Pipeline would stop global warming how???

The global energy policy already dooms the planet as we know it with or without the XL Pipeline. And anyone with a brain can see that.

The protests are as effective as banning Call Of Duty would be in stopping the daily mass murder by guns in the US because that mass murder was ongoing before Call of Duty was written.

I read Hansen’s HuffPo piece last week. He wasn’t arguing against Keystone, he was arguing that CO2 from whatever source be taxed appropriately and in relation to amounts of CO2 emitted.

Knock me over with a (very oily) feather. O playing to his base.

*sigh* We knew Obama would do this, he was just cynically waiting until after the election.

Boxturtle (Rat Bastard)

Let’s remember what is really important, it’s that democrats do well in the next election, so we don’t get any really bad policy. If the democrats don’t destroy the planet then the republicans will just accuse them of killing american jobs.

They don’t FUCKING get it, do they?

I would love to see your comments that explain how blocking the XL Pipeline will stop global warming when it won’t even slow down the mining of the tar sands. Adding $10 to the cost per barrel by requiring hauling by truck or rail does not make the tar sands unprofitable.

A $50 a barrel tax on all oil and equivalent taxes on coal and methane – a carbon tax – would make not only tar sands oil unprofitable, but most coal mining, and lots of oil production as well.

But a carbon tax requires electing environmentalists to Congress. The XL Pipeline protests did nothing to further that objective.

More civil disobedience is called for.

Why not devote the effort to replacing Republicans in Congress with environmentalists who will get a carbon tax passed in Congress?

Blocking that would cause GOPers to be elected?!? What district/state that does not currently have a GOPer in the seat would switch because of this?

Carbon tax?!? What person has proposed that in the event the pipeline is blocked? And you think this will happen AFTER the GOP gets a majority?!?

Blocking XL will not stop global warming, no single act will. But it will make a difference. You are aware that it costs more energy to extract, transport and refine this oil than we get from it?

The protests worked last time, that’s why ObamaLLP waited until after the election.

Boxturtle (You’re right about global energy policy. That’s what really needs to change)

Obama is a fool.

“This is by no means a done deal. It can be stopped.”

I want whatever you are drinking.

Color me “not surprised”

mulp apparently has not yet processed the simple fact that the Dems lost the House in 2010 because they had stabbed their base in the back… not because the public was excepttonally fond of GOP policies.

This is tragic – and not surprising.

And to think that this dropped on National Sequestration Media Circus Day.
A Friday afternoon, to boot. It’s almost as if …

“Why not devote the effort to replacing Republicans in Congress?”

We did that… in 2008. The Dems then promptly shit all over their base and proceeded to do the bidding of the plutocrats better than the GOP ever could.

And they continue to this very day. The President, the leader of the Democratic Party, just held a press conference wherein he called needlessly cutting social security benefits the work of his “common sense caucus.”

… and now here you are saying that the solution to the problem is to elect even more Dems…

Here’s a low-investment action you can take. Go to the State Department web site and read as much of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement as you can take. Find that place to comment on the EPA web site, if that is the way that it is handled. And comment. Get as many other people to do the same; at least make them aware the issue exists.

I don’t buy the end-of-the-planet hyperbole. Tar sands exploitation is the end of the Canadian wilderness that overlies the deposit and a further theft from Canadian First Nations. The pipeline is an abuse of federal trust of tribal lands on US reservations. And the shady mineral rights and eminent domain laws that are being used to ruin private property have been opposed by some pretty conservative Texans and Oklahomans, who have gone to jail for protesting the coercion by the pipeline developers.

The comment route for those with the technical understanding force tighter environmental controls on the development if the EPA acknowledges the comment. This is the second go for this environmental impact statement. So it is opposable.

Don’t let your cynicism block you from doing a few small things that you can do. If done in large enough numbers, they might have an effect.

If you want to do more, there are folks on the site who have been arrested for obstructing the construction. Some of them could use a little help paying their lawyers. Tar Sands Blockade provides more information.

Maybe I’ve had some of that stuff too. I point out four key facts:

1) Obama is a spinless weaking, who retreats when forcibly confronted unless he can use drones.

2) This pipeline is money for trans canada. They’ll drop it if it becomes too costly.

3) Biden would like a crack at the WH and won’t want to have to deal with this if it turns ugly.

4) Hillary would like a crack at the WH too. And if she saw this as a good issue, she is political enough to sacrifice ObamaLLP for votes.

Boxturtle (The next occupant could change Obama’s decision)

Keep crying out for your tax and I’m sure you’ll get it. You’ll be taxed to death to the profit of the 1%. They’re going to party and continue on with business as usual as they shift all that burden to the wage slaves. They’ll have a grand ole time on the way out and corps won’t change a damn thing about their behavior. Taxes are for the little people even as the Navy spends $4 billion a year on fuel.

Well,OK…I guess you are assuming Hilliary works for us,ordinary Americans.

They all work for the Corporations.They all say X when running & do Y once in office.

The process is that at the end of the 45-day comment period, the State Department has to answer all comments (generally by grouping them into similar comments) and issue the Final Environmental Impact Statement. That is probably another 30 days. Then the State Department asks other agencies for input as part of a national interest review. What agencies might be for and what might be against. Opportunity exists between now and then to work the refs. A final decision on the permit to allow the pipeline to cross the US-Canada border (which is what is at stake for TransCanada is 90 days away at the earliest IMO.

Look for the official start of comments in a week.

So you’re telling me that John Kerry did not buck his boss in the White House, and his boss’s bosses in big business, by halting KXL, and he did go to Turkey to ask them to be nicer to Israel? Wha’?!? Next thing, someone will tell me the sun rose in the west today.

I’m sure this was just a coincidence:
http://freebeacon.com/duke-energy-loan-becomes-gift-to-dnc/
http://freebeacon.com/democratic-national-cronyism/

The protests worked last time, that’s why ObamaLLP waited until after the election.

Respectfully, no. Obama waited because in 2011 he signed legislation with a GOP poison pill that forced him either to agree to KXL on an accelerated schedule, without the procedural niceties we are seeing now, or to postpone it until after the election. Obama refused to get completely whipped on the issue, and went with the second option.

The Republicans got the campaigning point they wanted (“Kenyan communist would rather hug trees than allow energy project that will create 20 million jobs, plus free pie for all!”), and proceeded to sweep the 2012 elections, or however that worked out for them.

But the delay was courtesy of a partisan power play among Washington insiders, all of whom are friendly to the oil industry, not a result of successful protest by environmentalists.

I’m sure it’s nothing now please close the door behind you;) I’m not why anyone is suprised and if you think a million people in the streets will stop this dream on thats what mother land security is for. Stop buy the product if you can or less of it.

http://denmark.dk/en/green-living/wind-energy/

As the rest of the world moves on to the real future. In fact Germany car manufacures and Ford have join together to have a common format for future of hydrongen cars.

http://gas2.org/2013/01/29/ford-mercedes-and-nissan-ally-on-hydrogen-cars/

I fogot one thing this 0 gift to the koch brothers for scaring progressives to vote for him. Worked like a charm.

Yes! thank you,they can flood comment lines at the WH or STATE all they want.I think where their signals are getting twinkled,is that most think we have a Democracy.We don’t.

We don’t,We live in a Corporatocracy.Someday,it will finally become apparent.

Hello,is anyone there ? We are not as free as you think we are.

Lets see,someone said Hilliary would stop it.Anyone has anymore names of good Democrats,those who really care about ordinary Americans,who will do good for us ordinary “scabs”.Anyone ? ,Put down whatever you are drinking & get back to reality for chrissakes!

Kerry’s first big move at State to destroy America from within. He likes a foreign oil company putting pipes through America and harming our environment? Why doesn’t the Canadian oil company put pipes to the Pacific and harm Canada’s environment? What if Russia wanted to put down oil pipelines in America? Is this why Kerry took off on a tour to visit other nations recently?

This is great! fucking surreal. Literally billions of high-paying American Jobs A few half-assed McJobs to help us achieve energy independence to support the transporting of very dirty oil through a pipeline that crosses one of the largest aquifers in the world, so it can then be loaded onto tankers and shipped right out of the country. And remember: If we don’t do this, the terrorists win.

So this is good news, right? Your Corporate State at work.

Why is anyone surprised by this? Obama is the President who signed the treaty making Keystone possible. He has always stated his energy policy was going to be “all of the above”, that certainly means keeping legacy energy intact and profitable, including tar sands. How many posts did you see before the election that pointed out voting LOTE would have no practical effect due to bi-partisan support? The only thing that stopped his approval on the last go around was his fear of it alienating the base he never has given a damn about staying home in November. Tarheel Dem @25 has some pretty good suggestions for now. As for 2014, do the math yourself.

More time for public comments ,it isn’t over yet ? The dems need to elect more environmentalists ? There was a time when I would ascribe such comments to the low-down stupid .However ,with age ,I realize these comments reflect mental illness in need of clinical intervention .We in Berkeley lived through Jonestown ,and although many were ignorant and gullible ,many were brilliant and advantaged yet needed to believe in and conform to a cult of personality who represented fraudulent authority .

The people have no power ,they know power resides with a psychopathic global kleptocracy ,they know Rubin and the kleptos for whom he speaks own the dem party ,yet the fight to save the planet depends on punking Rubin and having the party machine speak for real change after seizing the psychos instruments of power to creating a new system with a vision regarding which not a whit of thought has been given .

Being a crisis reactionary is a sign of a perpetual loser ,being a progressive is ,win or lose ,about replacing a traitorous system with an envisioned system .Nothing will stop the kleptocrats pipeline vision ,which speaks to the benefits of austerity as a public beef tenderizer.

Obama’s no fool. He does exactly what he wants for intended results. He seems without caring-conscience or regard of “negative” reaction from his Democratic base because his base is much like George Bush’s; “The haves, and the have-mores”, who approve of his policies. Obama is a well-oiled corporate TOOL. An arrogant emperor with no clothes, splayed for his masters reaming, eager for the face-creaming.

The only thing surprising about this is that anyone is surprised.

That’s for sure.
Why did you think Obummer had the meeting on the sequestration today?
It was a done deal!
Friday afternoon dump of CRAP. Per usual.
This guy is something else.

I’ll bet my home that it won’t be stopped.

Yep. No hearings! Back in the old days, they had field hearings on proposals this hot and the powers that be had to sit and listen to us hippies, whether they wanted to or not. Now, it’s an ‘open house’ with no records kept, or nothin. We get the nothin. Of course, we can submit comments which will be duly ignored.

Comments at Meteor Blades’ Dailykos:

But stopping the pipeline (6+ / 0-)

itself is not realistic. It’s going to be built.

Just saying we should have a plan to move forward that doesn’t include giving up on the Obama Administration.

Maybe look at some of the things Obama has done right with regard to climate change. They’ve done more than any administration in history, so that’s not nothing.

It rubs the loofah on its skin or else it gets the falafel again.

by Fishgrease on Fri Mar 01, 2013 at 01:57:46 PM PST

Yes..and this was a tough one given who we… (1+ / 0-)

…stand to do business with. Canada is a friendly and is dying to pipe us this stuff. No matter how dedicated one is to environmental protection, when the logistics are set up to proceed like they are, stopping the freight train is nearly impossible.

I don’t blame Obama or the State Department for this project proceeding.

Adequate health care should be a LEGAL RIGHT in the U.S without begging or bankruptcy. Until it is, we should not dare call our society civilized.

by Love Me Slender on Fri Mar 01, 2013 at 02:03:36 PM PST

Of course you don’t … you never do.