ALSO SEE: Nebraska Supreme Court Clears Way for Keystone XL Pipeline

This Fix Is (Almost) In on the Keystone XL Pipeline

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

09 January 15

n Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court torched one of the fig-leafs concealing the president's real position on our old friend, the Keystone XL pipeline, the continent spanning death-funnel designed to bring the world's dirtiest fossil fuel down through our country's most arable farmlands from the environmental hell spout of northern Alberta to the refineries on the Gulf Coast, and thence to the world. It reversed a lower court ruling regarding the law that was used to re-route the death funnel. The decision, it should be said, was subject to a procedural rule of the Nebraska courts, the majority of the justices having lined up behind the people fighting the death funnel.

In a 4-3 split ruling, the high court vacated the lower court ruling and upheld the constitutionality of the law used to route the oil pipeline in Nebraska. Four of the judges sided with landowners who brought the lawsuit, but a super-majority of five judges is required to declare a law unconstitutional.

The only thing left is the State Department review, which can now resume after having been suspended pending a ruling by the Nebraska court. If the State Department recommends the project, which I think it will, the president then will have the final decision on the pipeline, one way or the other. (Pay no attention to the kabuki bill that's going to come out of the new Congress.) It's getting very close to nut-cutting time on this issue. The way you know that is that people in support of the project are scaling the heights of dudgeon, and it is not only Republicans who are making the ascent. Senator Joe Manchin (D-Bituminous) fit himself with a lovely hissy yesterday on the topic of the president's possible veto of the Death Funnel Appreciation Act of 2015 that will be sent to his desk.

"I would have thought the president would say, ‘Listen, being a former legislator, I'm going to wait until this process unfolds. And at the end of the day, I'll tell you, do I like what they came up with, or do I not like what they came out with, and this is my reason for veto,' " Manchin said. "[He] never even gave it a chance, never even gave it a chance. Now, that's just not the way you do legislation. It's not the way a democracy works. And it's not the way the ... three branches of government should work."

Here with a response is Mr. J. Madison of Orange, Virginia.

Article I; Section 7: All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law. Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

And then there's Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, bestower of Pinocchios, whose job it is to make sure that political debate doesn't wake the nation from its nappy-nap. He is willing to admit that the "42,000 jobs" argument is something of a barefaced non-fact, but he also points out that, because Both Sides Do It, the opposition to the pipeline likely is overstating its environmental damage. Two Pinocchios apiece! Journalism!

Except that his assessment of what constitutes environmental damage is incredibly limited, not to say almost completely fanciful.

Oil sands extraction certainly has higher levels of greenhouse emissions than other sources of crude, but the State Department concluded the impact of building the pipeline would be minimal; the material is going to be extracted anyway. Critics of the project say the State Department report is already outdated, given the decrease in oil prices, but the impact on production remains unclear. While the pipeline might offer some cost advantage over rail, if the price of oil keeps dropping, the incentive to mine oil sands will diminish as well.

Let Kessler go up to the hell spout on northern Alberta if he wants to see the environmental damage done by the excavation of tar-sands even before they get sent down the death funnel. The first leak in the death funnel -- and it will leak, because pipelines leak and because the people who build them generally don't give a damn if they do -- will be catastrophic. The very fact of tar-sands production is an environmental disaster. Kessler also glibly ignores the very real opposition in Canada to the other pipelines he mentions, one to British Columbia and the other one to the east, an opposition that is strong enough that the Keystone project has become the priority that it has become. Nevertheless, the decision is going to come down to whether or not the president approves this project. He has kept his options open, but the Nebraska Supreme Court sank one of his lifeboats today.