Keystone Pipeline

The Trump Administration Is On An Environmental Losing Streak

Courts Continue to Strike Down Anti-Environmental Actions

While the Trump Administration’s assault on the environment  is alarming, courts are continuing to hand the administration  an impressive string of losses that mean that, at least in the short term, the assault is much less effective than the administration’s claims of deregulating the economy would lead us all to believe.    In just the …

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Keystone Nation: Mapping the Politics of the Pipeline

Keystone XL would run through a column of Red States and depopulating counties.

Looking at three maps sheds some interesting light on the the politics of the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline’s geography resonates in an interesting way with political and demographic geography.  We can start with two maps that show the proposed route (on the left) and the dates in which counties reached their peak populations. You …

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Alberta, Open Sewers and the Keystone Pipeline

Al Gore raised the hackles of the Canadian government this week when he criticized the country’s large scale extraction of oil from the Alberta tar sands.  The tar sand oil reserves are among the world’s largest but are particularly energy intensive to extract.  That means that extracting oil that will then be burned will emit significantly …

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Lisa Jackson Speech

Following up on Holly’s post, here is video of the speech.  (And no, contrary to a rumor in the blogosphere, she didn’t call conservative critics “jack-booted thugs.”  Instead, as you’ll see, she commented that they used this term about EPA.) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcNeR6-EEGc]

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Two weeks of protest against Keystone XL ends Saturday

Two weeks of civil disobedience and protest against the Keystone XL pipeline ends this Saturday (Sept. 3), with a rally and final sit-in. Over 1,000 people have been arrested, including my former professor , Gus Speth. The protestors want President Obama to deny a permit to construct a pipeline to bring oil from Canadian tar …

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As the Gulf Bleeds Crude Oil, Alberta’s Tar Sands Provide a Test

If you were President Obama, what would you do about the tar sands fields in Alberta?  He is being asked to approve or reject a pipeline extension that would carry 900,000 barrels per day of Canadian crude deep into the United States.  It has to be exceedingly tempting to just say “yes”.  After all, Canada …

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