New York Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer (2/2/12) accurately reports how Republicans want to frame the disputed over the Keystone XL pipeline. But she does almost nothing to challenge that framing.
Under the headline, “For GOP, Pipeline Is Central to Agenda,” Steinhauer explains:
Republicans are framing Keystone as an urgent jobs and energy project at a time of high unemployment and creeping gasoline prices, and trying to portray Mr. Obama as giving in to hard-left environmentalists in an election year at the expense of addressing both.
Instead of challenging that narrative, the Times bolstered it, alluding to what Republican presidential candidates are saying about Keystone and quoting from Keystone-supporting Democrats.
“This week, Democrats moved to blunt the Keystone attacks,” the Times went on–which merely set up more quotes from potentially Keystone-friendly Democrats like Senator Harry Reid, who wants the project to keep the oil in the U.S.
The Times then went back to Republican PR:
For Republicans, the pipeline is a political trifecta. It unites most of their party and divides the Democrats. It is also fairly easy to explain to voters, and it hits on the key concerns of many Americans: jobs, energy independence and fear of economic competition with China, which Republicans have said will be the recipient of the Canadian oil without the Keystone plan.
You can challenge that “trifecta,” but the Times mostly passed on that option. The only hint of skepticism comes late in the article:
The number of jobs that could be created by the Keystone expansion–supporters say 20,000–is disputed. But many companies and labor unions around the country were counting on the expansion and had already made materials or hired workers to gear up.
The numbers are disputed. How so?
As we’ve talked about before, this is arguably the key issue here. An outside estimate from Cornell says 2,500-4,000 jobs. The State Department says 5 or 6 thousand.
It’s not difficult to cite these numbers, or to ask Keystone proponents to explain where they’re getting their much higher estimates (hint: from the company). This is especially important in a piece about how this issue will be an important part of the Republican presidential campaign strategy.
The Times notes near the end:
A wild card is whether workers invested in the project will serve as an echo chamber for the Republicans’ criticism.
Today the New York Times certainly served that function.
I think the “key issue” here is that even if all the lies about “energy independence” and “job creation” were true, this pipeline would still be a stake in the heart of whatever chance we have to continue living on this planet.
“Essentially game over”, as Hansen said.
That that doesn’t trump everything else tells you a great deal about just how we’ve come to this point, doesn’t it?
So just how much more money are the Koch brothers pouring into the malignant politicians to get this through no matter what the risks are (disclosure of inferior steel, the only 6,ooo temporary jobs and the hundreds of spills by this company already) ????????????
In 2011, the U.S. became a net fuel exporter–that’s exporter–of fuels like gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, lending support to the argument that the primary purpose of the 1700 mile-long Keystone XL pipeline is to divert the Earth’s dirtiest fuel (tar sands oil) from Canada to the Gulf Coast where it will then be exported to the highest bidder in a world market, thereby generating higher profits for oil companies.
The extraction of oil from tar sands requires vast amounts of water (like hydraulic fracking), with 90% of the eventually polluted water dumped into huge human-made pools called tailing ponds. The process releases many times more carbon dioxide emissions as regular oil production. Estimates of job creation from an independent Cornell University study are as low as 2,500 temporary jobs with the state department predicting 5,000 to 6,000 temporary jobs.
Follow the money trail to find out which Senators are getting the biggest campaign contributions from Big Oil to push this line as hard and fast as they can. The jobs these Senators worry most about are their own.
The Keystone Pipeline will not create permanent jobs. The product will be processed and shipped to foreign countries. Our country will be left with the damage to our land and environment. No permanent benefit to Americans will be realized, just as Nigeria receives no benefit to the poor whose land is defiled by oil spills.
One also has to wonder what the heck is going on with Canada, too. I used to think it was an environmentally friendly country. Then I read they dropped out of the Kyoto Accords—to dig in the Alberta tar sands???
The corporate reach is clearly global, folks.
The only way this project still has any legs is through massively distorted media coverage. If they had simply reported the facts and sources of all information for the various opinions, this project would have died a long time ago.
This is a no brainer.Obama has stated he is not putting a stop ,just a hold until studies are done.Three years worth.Am I wrong or haven’t we done this before once or twice?We need all conduits to energy production short of the middle east open.Period!This is national security.Environmentalists can tell you what they don’t want…what they do want is another thing.It is a mighty short list.Remember how the Alaskan pipeline would destroy Alaska?November can not come soon enough.
We need energy so badly that we’re exporting it out of the country. Let’s see….less supplies at home, the higher the energy prices for us.
Elaine the world market fluctuates.Sometimes coffers are full here and sometimes not.It takes years to set up the infrastructure.We can not afford not to have it in place.This is a fluid thing.
We can not afford not to have it in place? That depends on what’s being built and where. Building a Keystone XL pipeline is nothing more than a 1700 mile export pipeline of the Earth’s dirtiest fuel to emerging economies. A win for Canada and for exporters but not for the U.S. Let Canada build it in their own country and send it to China because that’s where it’s going.
The state of PA is considering a bill that will require local municipalities to allow natural gas wells in all zoning districts, including residential, with the only stipulation (as far as I know) of a 300 foot buffer between the house and well.Compressor stations and natural gas processing will be allowed in all agricultural and industrial districts, with a buffer of 750 feet from a building.
Wastewate and chemical impoundments as close as 300 feet to homes, schools, etc.
Local zoning laws are supposed to protect the public’s health, safety, and welfare but PA seeks to accomodate the gas industry, it would appear.
The Republican mantra of “small government” is to usurp all local zoning control that protects the health and property of local citizens in support of gas drillers.
Elaine I have a home in PA.Sullivan county has exploded with natural gas “diggers”Economy is booming.No accidents.Money is being made..reinvested… and lowering energy prices.Im sure sooner or later something will happen somewhere and libs will be ready.But till then….
You wrote that it is a “win for Canada and exporters but not the US”.Ok that is what you believe and welcome to it.But you do see there is another side right?
The problem with hard core “greenies” is that they look at everything from a zero sum gain.Nuclear reactors destroy the earth.Coal destroys the earth.Gas and oil destroy the earth.In the end WE destroy the earth.They never look to working on technology to fix the energy sources derived as much as simply eliminating them.I was recently reading an article on the emerging auto developments in 1914.The arguments sound silly but it is no different than today.”One in two people would be hit by a car in their life if Henry Fords vision is correct of every American owning a car”.”People working in the equine industry will loose jobs””Laws and regulations must be put in place to make sure a person walks in front with a lantern”Elaine I would of said then FIX THE TECHNOLOGY.Same today.Your concerns are fine.The knee jerk idea that we cant make any technology safe is old hat.
Fine. Build your house, with a private well, 300 feet from a wastewater and chemical impoundment. It’s safe. The industry tells us so.
If it were up to you, rivers would still be catching fire as they did before we had an E.P.A. The health of the planet and of the people in it just doesn’t figure into your scheme of things.
Elaine I have always been an outdoorsman .Im a hunter, a fisherman, a camper from Alaska to all places America ,and some European stops.I love every out door sport I can think of.I live in the country.Im an avid gardner.I am not some New york lawyer without a clue(nothing personal) as to environmentalism.I live it every day.If someone fucks up and burns down my house they should pay for it.But Im not taking everybody’s matches away.If my well goes to hell same thing.If a windmill falls over on me I hope they have insurance.Im all for monitoring things and holding anyone who does screw the pooch accountable.What gets me about todays new school of thought is that everything is taken to the last degree.It simply demands all new technologies stop.And I am telling you that if they had their druthers going back to 1900 I can think of little we could of accomplished.We built the empire state building in 18 months during the depression.Today the testing for zoning permits for ground zero is still going on 10 years after at ground zero.
Check the Alaskan pipeline.Then go back and search out articles on those who would of stopped it dead.It is so revealing.Carbon copy of today.T bone Pickens has been fracking for twenty years(this is not a new technology).Thousands of wells.Not one mistake.No insurance claims.If a shoe factory blows up killing a hundred people do we stop wearing shoes?We fix the problem.We prosecute those who are culpable.Things get better.When electricity came on line people said every household who suffer an electrocuted person.Planes flying over the country sent people into fits.The last golden stake in the trans rail line was bemoaned as”the filthy smoke belchers come to the great plains”.I could go on all day.
When i was a kid we said give a hoot and don’t pollute.If you do you should pay.It is as simple as that.I don’t blame you for not trusting anyone behind a technology for not keeping their hands on the wheel.It happens.Greed ,stupidity,incompetence.That needs to be fixed.And the EPA does some good work.But why does the left put the brakes on energy development across the board?
The brakes on energy development are not being applied across the board. As one example, if fracking is so safe, why was the Halliburton loophole put into the Safe Drinking Water Act to exempt fracking from that Act? As I recall, it was then that fracking really took off. There are too many unanswered questions which is one of the reasons that the Delaware River Basin Commission with the support of the states of Delaware and New York (in that basin) decided to do a comprehensive study of fracking before allowing it to proceed in this basin. Everyone–and I do mean everyone, including present and future users of water resources–has a just and equitable interest and right to this resource and we already have serious or threatened water shortages in too many parts of this country.
I can see you’ve never had occasion to go up against powerful companies. The first thing they usually say is that they did not cause, let’s say, the pollution of a well(s). Prove that they did. So that little homeowner, with limited funds, has to hire his own hydrogeologists and lawyers to prove that it was their fault. In the meantime, the big company, with unlimited amounts of money, hire their own people to prove it wasn’t. It is an extremely expensive, time-consuming, emotionally draining action which the vast majority of homeowners simply cannot pursue.
Being an outdoorsman is irrelevant. There is nothing–absolutely nothing—that can replace fresh, potable water. That is an irreplaceable resource that trumps the pursuit of hydraulic fracking or the Keystone XL pipeline until the impacts are understood and capable of being addressed. All of us, including entire industries, depend on this resource and can’t survive without it.
“We fix the problem.” How many superfund sites remain superfund sites with problems that can’t be fixed, no matter how much money is thrown at the problem?
It’s far better to prevent a problem from ever happening than to allow it to happen and then try to go back and correct it. As someone said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Here is a testimony from a Canadian who worked for one of the gas companies in Alberta, and who discovered that her town’s groundwater and land had become polluted by its fracking practices. Please watch and come to your own conclusions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xRQt3Q0xPc
I’m still wondering where we go from here,if there is a way.