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 [...]

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 [...]

The President held his event in Cushing, Oklahoma, this morning, announcing an expedited review of the southern half of the Keystone XL pipeline, which will move oil from Cushing to refineries at Port Arthur, Texas (in all likelihood raising gas prices in parts of the Midwest). And as Oklahomans listened and Native American protesters demonstrated [...]

TransCanada, the company trying to build the Keystone XL pipeline, has split off a domestic pipeline from the one that crosses a national border, moving to begin work on a pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas. The segment from Canada down to Cushing, however, will need a separate permit application and could take [...]

The Republican theory on the Keystone XL pipeline is that the President is holding back the immediate creation of eleventy billion jobs by refusing to give approval to a permit for construction. Under their various pieces of legislation, TransCanada, the pipeline operator, would be able to immediately begin construction and create jobs hauling tar sands [...]

The official rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline from the President has some interesting framing: “As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment,” [...]

Before Congress even passed its two-month stopgap payroll tax/UI legislation, the State Department had a warning. The bill included a mandate that the Administration give an up-or-down approval or rejection on a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline within 60 days.  The State Department said flatly that this would force them to reject the permit, [...]

The oil industry, which has previously worked behind the scenes on urging a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, is now openly threatening the President, who must decide by February 21 to accept or deny a permit for the project. The oil industry’s top lobbyist warned the Obama administration Wednesday to approve the [...]

The Keystone XL pipeline will now either receive or be denied its construction permit by February 21, according to the schedule worked out in the two-month stopgap deal to extend the payroll tax, unemployment insurance and the doctor’s fix. The State Department has said repeatedly that they would not be able to properly review Keystone [...]

Enbridge, a competitor to TransCanada, announced plans to purchase a controlling interest in an existing pipeline that runs from the Gulf of Mexico to Cushing, Oklahoma, and to reverse it, in an effort to transport tar sands oil to Gulf Coast refineries. The plan would do part of what the controversial Keystone XL pipeline would [...]