On Dec. 23, the House and Senate passed a bill that ensures a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits for millions of Americans. The legislation was a sigh of relief after weeks of malicious partisan debate over extending tax relief worth about $1,000 a year for the typical working family. Many saw the success of the bill as a small victory for the Obama administration, an important fact as the 2012 election cycle approaches.
Yet the extension of the payroll tax cut came with a substantial caveat; President Obama now has until Feb. 21, a sixty-day window from the passage of the payroll tax cut legislation, to decide whether or not to construct the contentious interstate Keystone XL Pipeline.
Among all of the egregiously contrived and manipulated actions taken by our ineffectual legislative body in recent history, nothing is as offensive as the Keystone XL.
Ignore the fact that the pipeline threatens ecosystem health and water quality throughout America’s heartland. Forget the Keystone XL emissions and their irreparable effect on Earth’s climate. Discount that every independent study on the pipeline’s economic impact say that 6,500 temporary jobs at most will emerge (and while you’re at it, never mind that a Cornell University study concludes that more jobs would be killed than created).
These issues are pressing, but not as much as the fact that Obama now has a limited amount of time to make an extremely important decision. It is clear that Senate and House Republicans are attempting to embarrass the president by forcing him to make a rash decision with an arbitrary deadline on an issue of paramount concern.
Right now, Obama is contemplating a choice that will profoundly affect those at home, as well as the entire global community. The contribution to climate change from the proposed Keystone XL makes the pipeline an issue for everyone, not just American citizens. I just hope that our leader is able to base his rational on the common good, rather than the results of the next election.
A few quick Keystone XL facts: TransCanada, a Canadian pipeline company initially proposed the Keystone XL pipeline in 2008. When it is completed the pipeline is slated to carry up to 900,000 barrels per day of tar sands oil and will extend for over 2,000 miles from Alberta, Canada to refineries on the United States Gulf Coast.
The Keystone XL pipeline is an extension of the Keystone pipeline and will cut through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
Experts believe that the pipeline will triple our reliance on tar sands oil upon its completion. President Obama has postponed the decision as to whether Keystone XL is in the national interest until 2013.
Loading ...
Unemployment numbers are comprised of those that are in the job market for the past 30 days. It does not include those that have not been in the job market in the last 30 days: people who have given up looking; those that have gone off unemployment because it has run out. One solution to unemployment is High Speed Universities check it out
You have no idea what you are talking about. Why don’t you finish school and get a job – preferably NOT in journalism – in a field where you might actually create something that is of value to other people. I’m going to ignore the silly idea that the Keystone XL pipeline would make a damn bit of difference in carbon dioxide emissions, and the fact that AGW is being debunked by the day. What I want to point out is that you are fighting against jobs – real jobs – that will end up in the worst polluting nation int he world right now – China – instead of the U.S., if Keystone is indeed killed.
So when you and your classmates graduate and are begging for bread in the street (or when you are on welfare, which eventually will run out), I hope you are happy with the havoc you and the rest of your empty-headed Green ilk have wrought. And by the way, you have a lot of nerve using the phrase “egregiously contrived and manipulated” to describe Keystone – it’s a more apt description of your writing style! DO you have an original thought in your head, or do you plan to make a living regurgitating Sierra Club talking points?
You should read the Cornell report before you pretend to be up on this issue. All the “data” you claim that supports the pipeline would create jobs was created by the oil industry which stands to make billions of dollars from this. Cornell has no incentive to lie and they actually support their findings- I know, a novel concept for republicans.
Chris wrote a great comment. What are the climate change religious zealots going to do with their lives in 2020 when the world doesn’t end. Check out some history the Vikings are buried in permafrost! The world has been warmer and cooler through out history – its a cycle.
Seattle, there must come a point where overwhelming evidence from the vast majority of the scientific community piles up and we accept out of pragmatic imperative a belief that we would otherwise, for whatever reason, be disinclined to hold. Certainly it is possible that the climate is changing for natural reasons – you may be naturally inclined toward this belief. It is also within reason to imagine the possibility that the climate, in this instance, is changing in some ways at least in part due to human activity. When the evidence starts piling up, we evaluate its relation to both hypotheses. Usually, if the evidence more strongly supports one hypothesis, we should be inclined to support that one. This has been the case in regards to the climate change debate. The scientific community has overwhelmingly tended towards anthropogensis. However, there is another route we could take, and that is the one deniers have chosen, and that is to attack the integrity of the institution of science itself. We have seen this in the politically motivated targeting of climate science, as in the ‘climategate scandal’. The merits of particular cases I won’t discuss here, but what I propose is this: in defending a particular thesis, namely the denial of anthropogensis, climate change deniers resort to maligning the institution of science as a co-opted, inherently political (i.e. ‘liberal’ or what have you) institution. This is a dangerous path – one that reinforces anti-intellectualism, anti-reason, and general distrust of one of the last institutions our society has that is charged with the general welfare. I hope that climate change deniers realize these facts and understand the choice they must make between ideology and pragmatism. Lastly, I believe that over time the evidence will become so overwhelming that people will come to their senses. I only hope it soon. I leave you with an article by the centrist publication CS Monitor on the funding by the conservative Koch Industries of research that further justifies accepting the anthropogenic thesis for climate change.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2011/1021/Climate-study-funded-in-part-by-conservative-group-confirms-global-warming
I wouldn’t worry about where Union grads will wind up, especially the ones that care about the world. They will do fine and make this a better country. I urge those of you like Chris and Seattle to open your eyes and look further than Fox news. I’m most curious, however, how you think that the oil from the oil sand will be piped through China. I really don’t think we’d lose these jobs if we kill the Keystone.