Try to act surprised. It seems that the report that claimed the Keystone XL Pipeline would have negligible environmental impact was authored in part by quasi-representatives of TransCanada – the firm who stands to benefit from its construction. The Bush Obama Administration even had the TransCanada connected consultants’ work histories redacted in hopes that no [...]

The State Department has downplayed the environmental impact of the Keystone XL pipeline Today, the U.S. Department of State released a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) in response to TransCanada’s May 2012 application for the Keystone XL pipeline that would run from Canada to Nebraska. The document is a draft technical review of potential [...]

A direct action group called Tar Sands Blockade has been harassing TransCanada and their efforts to build the lower half of the Keystone XL pipeline. That portion, from Cushing, Oklahoma to the port at the Gulf of Mexico in Texas, was approved by President Obama as a way to speed through to international markets what [...]

Mitt Romney released an energy plan yesterday that some outlets report sets a goal of energy independence by 2020. That’s not quite right. The goal expressed here is “North American energy independence” by 2020, and when you consider that one of our biggest if not our biggest energy trading partner is Canada, and that Mexico [...]

As we await the Supreme Court ruling on health care, two of the other major stories of the week have reached a conclusion. Congress has reached agreement on a compromise package that will avert three separate deadlines and deliver some of the more robust lawmaking of the entire year to date. The first bill averts [...]

I’ve been tracking the two deadlines for Congress coming up in just over a week. If no action is taken, new federal student loans will see an interest rate of 6.8%, double the current 3.4%. And there will be no surface transportation bill, meaning that highway projects with federal participation will grind to a halt [...]

Right now, talks are continuing on a House-Senate conference committee on the surface transportation bill, which provides federal funding, paid for mostly by the gas tax, to highway and mass transit projects across the country. Congress has kicked this bill down the road many times, and the House and Senate versions of the bill vary [...]

Warren Buffett, the third wealthiest man on the planet (net worth: $44 billion), often referred to as the “Oracle of Omaha,” is the target of a May 5 action called for by Stop Coal B.C. Well, not Buffett directly, but a rail company he owns through his massive holding company, Berkshire Hathaway: Burlington Northern Santa [...]

TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline permit hangs in the balance, up for a potential Senate vote this week, having already passed the House as part of the Transportation Bill last week. Other companies, meanwhile, are wasting no time pushing their own respective tar sands pipeline proposals while that drama unfolds. Last week, DeSmogBlog noted that for [...]

Yesterday, the House passed yet another extension of the federal surface transportation bill. This one also goes for 90 days and would take the highway trust fund from June 30 to September 30, 2012. As expected, House Republicans attached some riders to the bill, including one that drew a White House veto threat. The extension [...]

Republicans think they have a winning issue with the Keystone XL pipeline, even though President Obama has already approved the lower half of it. They think it plays into their depiction of Obama as unwilling to promote domestic energy to lower gas prices, even though domestic oil and gas production has exploded under Obama, and [...]