The report begins: "The head of the US's biggest oil and gas lobbying group said on Wednesday that the Obama administration will face serious political consequences if it rejects a Canada-to-Texas oil sands pipeline that has been opposed by environmental groups."
Demonstrators protest against the Keystone XL Pipeline, 11/6/11. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
XL Pipeline: Oil Chief Threatens Obama
06 January 12
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he head of the US's biggest oil and gas lobbying group said on Wednesday that the Obama administration will face serious political consequences if it rejects a Canada-to-Texas oil sands pipeline that has been opposed by environmental groups.
Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute, said TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline would definitely play a role in this year's national elections.
"This issue is very simple and straightforward, it's about jobs and national security," Gerard told reporters after giving a speech on the state of US energy.
"Anything less than approval or acquiescence in allowing the pipeline to go forward would be inconsistent with the vast majority of Americans," Gerard said.
The oil and gas industry says the country needs the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport 700,000 barrels per day or more of Canadian oil sands crude to US Gulf coast refineries.
But the decision on the pipeline is a difficult one for President Barack Obama. Approval would upset environmentalists � an important part of his voter base � while axing the project would upset some workers' unions, another part of his base.
With environmental groups concerned about carbon emissions from oil sands production, the administration had delayed a decision on a presidential permit for the project until 2013.
The administration says it needs more time to consider alternative routes for the pipeline, which was originally planned to traverse sensitive habitats and a crucial water source in Nebraska. Obama has until February 21 to make his decision on the project.
API is launching an advertising campaign aimed at getting Americans to consider candidates' stances on energy issues, including the Keystone project, before they cast their ballots in November.
While Gerard stressed that the advertising campaign is non-partisan, API has been a vocal critic of the Obama administration's energy policies.
In addition to the Keystone delays, the group has blasted the administration for not opening up more areas to offshore drilling and for its push to eliminate certain tax breaks for the oil and gas industry.
Republicans in Congress have also forcefully objected to the administration's delay of the Keystone pipeline, accusing the White House of placing politics over job creation.
Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce committee have placed a clock on their website counting the days since Obama agreed to make a decision on the project.
"After waiting more than three years for this pipeline while the country faces prolonged unemployment, the American people are fed up with the president's inaction on a project that can quickly create jobs," Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce committee, said in a statement.
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There is always a way around a safeguard, but unless guns are being used they should be secured. Perhaps legislation to make a gun safe part of gun purchase and penalities levied against owners that don't secure thier guns appropriate to the challenge of that environment, i.e., man living alone might be fine with a combo safe, whereas a family man with frequent vistors might need a gun safe with a lock and interior combination safeguard or a gun locker away from the home enviroment. There will always be accidents, but shall we take away every single privledge that has a dangerous component to it? What kind of freedom is that?
They are not called "scatter guns" for nothing.
There is much more going on here and he only paints a brief picture.
I have two personal stories. My first experience with a gun in the home was when my little brother decided he wanted to learn to hunt. He got a gun, took safety courses offered by NRA. The first family argument he took it out and pointed it at my brother. Guns represent a sense of power and as my law enforcement friend told me, that sense of power is seductive. Secondly, a friend's husband had brain cancer and the treatment made him violent. She and her children snuck his weapon collection out of the home and into a locked closet of an uncle in another town. Their patient never remembered his gun collection but continued to get more violent. When managing care,keeping firearms around is a chance should never be taken.
There's a disease of power in this country because guns have replaced personal wit and character. The NRA sells guns with the simple solution to personal power.
My little story is of being shot next to my eye with a bb gun by a cousin who was completely indifferent to what he had done. The play and the rowdy tempers that can flair can easily be a precursor to the next stage of real rage with a real gun.
Then there are the two little boys who found their father's pistol in the glove compartment of the car, and the little brother was killed. Jeb was his name. No words will describe the brother's lifelong guilt and the sorrow.
A small boy found a high-powered rifle abandoned in a Cinema seat in the city of Tillamook with the SAFETY OFF!
The kid had the sense to not touch the weapon but went and told his dad, who in turn called the police. But imagine how many kids might have messed with this lethal object planted with what looked like lethal intent by some deranged copycat in the immediate wake of the Connecticut massacre.
Gosh, is the equally deranged NRA goin' to arm not only teachers and have armed guards in schools but tool-up cinema employees too? It'd save people having to go to the movies to watch violence -they could just have shooting matches in the aisles and over the seats. The last one standing gets a free super-sized drink and popcorn!
Exactly!
And it's the same linked reactionary forces who want to destroy public education and make "learning" the realm of the privileged and keep the sacred market forces strong by passing it down through their fortunate spawn.
But there are always rebels and those who insist on looking beyond the box they are born into. They can't keep everybody down!
If a kid has legs long enough to reach the pedals, it is time to learn to drive and understand that vehicle and what makes it run. Those lessons also teach the responsibility of the privilege of driving. And so on in everything possible to teach them. As for schools, it could be there will be group home schooling as there was in communes of the past, should the elites running this country destroy all good things.