by Jim Wallis 11-10-2011 | 6:16pm
President’s Obama’s delay in approving the Keystone XL Pipeline is a victory for the movement to stop it, for God’s earth, for the possibility of reversing climate change, and for saving the integrity of this administration.
Here is what the President just said:
Statement by the President on the State Department’s Keystone XL Pipeline Announcement
I support the State Department's announcement today regarding the need to seek additional information about the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal. Because this permit decision could affect the health and safety of the American people as well as the environment, and because a number of concerns have been raised through a public process, we should take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood. The final decision should be guided by an open, transparent process that is informed by the best available science and the voices of the American people. At the same time, my administration will build on the unprecedented progress we’ve made towards strengthening our nation’s energy security, from responsibly expanding domestic oil and gas production to nearly doubling the fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks, to continued progress in the development of a clean energy economy.
A “No” to pipeline approval wasn’t really politically likely, with the likelihood of attacks on Obama by the Republicans and the labor movement of sacrificing jobs during an election year — even though the pipeline offers temporary and bad jobs.
The environmental movement is part of the Democratic President’s base, but so is labor and they are both more numerous and more effectively organized to help in presidential races.
So this delay is a victory for the possible future of a clean energy economy, which would produce many more and better jobs, while making a cleaner and more sustainable economy possible.
Kudos to the thousands of you who did principled civil disobedience at the White House in August, and the 12,000 who circled the White House on Sunday.
Thank you, President Obama, for making a decision that reflects your best judgment and best values.
And for people of faith, Thanks be to God!
Washington State has refineries. So does Montana. Why do we need to build a pipeline to ship crude to refineries in Texas when there are refineries much closer to the tar sands?
Perhaps they don't have the capacity. It does seem like it would be more cost effective to build some new refineries. Money better spent, speaking strictly from a practical standpoint.
The tar sands themselves are an environmental disaster. This is a perfect example of how oil companies could evaluate their choices and instead of investing in dirty fossil fuels, invest in clean renewables. Either way, they have to spend more money and develop new technology. Tar sands are not easy oil, and they require tremendous amounts of energy to extract. So instead of putting the money and brain power in that, why not put it into greener forms of energy? It makes good business sense, since that is the direction we are going. A forward thinking energy company would think to the future rather than trying to squeeze every dirty, increasingly costly drop of oil from the earth.
It's like listening to 8-tracks when you have an i-pod.
Different refineries are designed to handle different types of oil. And there are already pipelines sending tar sands oil to Texas. Texas already has the infrastructure and connections to the existing fuel transportation network.
If you think building a new refinery would be more practical, then you don't understand the regulatory nightmare of building anything in this country that involves an environmental impact statement. About the only thing more difficult to build than an oil pipeline is a nuclear power plant or oil refinery. This administration has already drug its heels for three years on the XL project and will continue the red tape for a couple more. How long do you think a new refinery would take to approve?
Over half of our oil use is for purposes other than energy and transportation. Even if you required every car, truck, boat, plane, train, scooter, and lawnmower in the country to run on something other than fossil fuels by next week, there would still be a need for the oil from the tar sands.
Well, I guess I was suggesting an environmental compromise with my crazy idea of building a refinery nearer the source of the oil.
"Even if you required every car, truck, boat, plane, train, scooter, and lawnmower in the country to run on something other than fossil fuels by next week, there would still be a need for the oil from the tar sands."
Not really--cut out half of our oil needs, and we wouldn't need the tar sands, and probably not even Saudi Arabia's oil. Half of the oil we use is from foreign countries.
Bottom line, tar sands or no tar sands, oil is more difficult to obtain, more expensive, requires more technology, more polluting, and in smaller, more remote, and more scattered deposits than it ever has been. It will not get cheaper in the long run. It will only get more expensive the scarcer it gets.
We have a choice where to invest our energy dollars.
so Jim, now God is on YOUR side? you who has yakked both voluminously and dizzyingly about the political 'right' claiming they speak for God now purport that God and her earth is unquestionably on your side on this one? I'm truly disappointed, friend; thought you were a bit more intelligent than to stoop so low!
Really??? It seems Wallis is already getting political. It is the official start of the "silly season.". What if we had McCain as President and he delayed the decision. Would have Wallis written the same article? I doubt it. We would be reading an article about his entirely political decision to get votes from the middle. Imagine if a GOP president had just hired a XL pipeline Lobbyist as his chief political consultant, as Obama just did. We would not hear the end of it.
And what about the price and availability of energy for poor people? Rich people will always be able to afford oil, etc.; projects like this are for the benefit of ordinary people. It also would involve buying oil from our friends, not our enemies. This has obvious implications for saving money on foreign wars. As for alternate energy making "good business sense": have you heard of Solyndra? It's just private business seeking public subsidies. A bad idea. A better idea is smaller government so the stakes for either side,whoever wins,are smaller--much smaller.
"And what about the price and availability of energy for poor people?"
The irony, of course, is that I rarely hear such protests about the plight of the impoverished when it comes to cutting services for them or suggestions for raising the minimum wage. What I do hear a lot is that the church or individuals should care for the poor.
Well, here's what we all can do, if your energy concerns are truly about how it affects the impoverished. On most energy bills I have seen, we have the opportunity to donate money to help those who can't pay their heat or electricity. So while we are building a cleaner energy economy and waiting for those technologies to come down in price, we can still help those who can't pay their energy bills. It only effects the poor because those of us who can afford to help them don't.
If you are concerned about the poor, btw, I do hope that you are protesting mountaintop mining, as that is having profoundly negative affects on some of the most impoverished communities in our nation. Also, how many coal fired power plants have you seen in wealthy neighborhoods? Fossil fuels affect the impoverished far more than they affect the rich. Given that, and given that those who say alternative fuels will hurt the poor don't fight to end the disproportionate environmental and health effects fossil fuels have on them, I don't buy into the "it will hurt the poor" argument at all.
A whole grab bag of ideas and accusations. . . .I actually agree with a lot of what Squeaky brought up. Supporting this pipeline doesn’t make me or anyone else an opponent of environmental stewardship
1. Subsidies for heating costs as part of a bill or approval of a project. Probably a good idea. The question is how much and for how long, and how it fits in with the large government burden of taxes and regulations. These cut jobs in the U.S. for poor people, of course.
2. Mountaintop mining. Sounds like a horrible idea. West Virginia’s high-profile, un-glaciated mountains are beautiful, and it’s sad to think of them being destroyed. Still,it is a lot safer than underground mining, so we need to balance both concerns
3. I like the big picture approach, seeing how things affect one another, and also trading off costs and benefits. Two questionable “one size fits all” rules that come to mind are low flush toilets and outlawing incandescent bulbs. Both of them were a boon to interested parties like plumbers, and the fluorescent bulb manufactures that lobbied for the ban.
4. So a really “big picture” question for you is: how much of this good ought to be done by the government, and how much by individuals? Unfortunately, Jim has decided to devote his energies to insisting that the government do it. I disagree with that, not in every case, but as an overall philosophy. The government is already too big, and the bigger it is, the stronger special interests will be. It’s impossible to get away from that. One special interest group is the govt employees themselves: one SIXTH make six figure salaries! Making gov’t bigger helps them more than the poor. And it’s no fair saying it’s expensive to live in DC, because that’s the fault of the size of the government! What about the destruction of northern Virginia by suburban sprawl? Historic sites are surrounded by ugliness, or simply paved over.
5. Another disastrous trend for the environment, scarcely noticed by the left, is the decline in the no. of people per household, and increase in the size of residences. Jim rarely talks about either of these. To a certain extent, that’s a problem with the whole notion of “God’s politics”: we try to tease out ideas about the government from the Bible, do a lot of speculation(left wingers and right wingers alike), while ignoring the things God has stated in an unmistakable manner, like “I hate divorce.” If our society was honoring that admonition, household size would be a lot closer to what it used to be, and, guess what, the environment would benefit a lot, too! God’s laws are for our blessing: both the natural ones that govern sunsets and mountain climbing, and the moral ones that guard us from stupid & destructive behaviors. Sadly, it’s the least of these that always suffer: children and the poor. We do, indeed, need repentance.
by: pooch