Barack Obama is refusing to give Ottawa the quick answer it wants on the Keystone XL pipeline in spite of a State Department report that dispels the U.S. President’s main climate-change fears.
The White House said Sunday it will wait at least another 90 days to make a final decision as it awaits vital input from other government departments and agencies, raising the possibility that the U.S. President may avoid a decision on the controversial project until after the November U.S. midterm elections for fear of alienating Democratic voters.
The company seeking to build the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has had a massive explosion on its decades-old natural gas pipeline in southern Manitoba. The rupture of the TransCanada PipeLines (TCPL) gas line occurred in the middle of the night on Saturday, January 25 near the village of Otterburne. A massive fireball erupted into the night sky and burned for many hours.
Shipments of crude oil by rail are steaming forward in B.C. even as investigators said Thursday the federal government has failed to eliminate "critical weaknesses" in the rail system in the six months since the deadly Lac-Mégantic train disaster. Officials from the Transportation Safety Board delivered this warning as they jointly issued "critical" safety recommendations in partnership with the United States’ National Transportation Safety Board.
Republican leaders in Congress are planning a legislative offensive to force the White House’s hand on the Keystone XL pipeline decision if the Obama administration does not declare its support for the project in the coming weeks. Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, said Republicans are considering attaching a Keystone decision to a new law to raise the debt ceiling, which may be needed by the end of February for the U.S. to avoid another financial crisis.
Vancouver - U.S. scientists are warning that there are environmental risks, regulatory holes and serious unknowns regarding the shipment of Alberta oilsands products by pipeline, rail and tanker. The findings are in a 153-page report from last September by the emergency response division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The unit has expertise in preparing for, evaluating and responding to oil and chemical spills in coastal environments.
Former Conservative MP Chuck Strahl is stepping down as chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee following an uproar over revelations that he recently registered as a lobbyist for the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project. In a statement released to media late Friday afternoon, Strahl said that although he has complied with “all relevant rules and regulations” for ex-MPs, he does “not wish to be in the centre of the political fray. “Nor do I want to be a distraction from the important work SIRC does every day in ensuring the security of Canadians.
The construction of the Keystone XL, a pipeline intended to bring hundreds of thousands of barrels a day of oil from Canada’s controversial oil sands to the United States, has been mired in delays as regulators assess its environmental impact, and activists and landowners protest what they see as one of the nation’s largest environmental thre
. . . the recent spate of rail accidents and pipeline leaks and spills doesn't provide arguments for one or the other; instead, it indicates that rapidly increasing oil and gas development and shipping ever greater amounts, by any method, will mean more accidents, spills, environmental damage — even death. The answer is to step back from this reckless plunder and consider ways to reduce our fossil fuel use.
Back in the olden days of 2011, when America was young and LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” was a song that not everyone had gotten sick of yet, one of the most compelling criticisms leveled against the Keystone XL pipeline protesters went like this: There is oil in the Alberta tar sands. Pretty cheap stuff – about $30 less a barrel than what you can buy overseas.
My community is largely based in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, 200 km downstream from current tar sands development. It's a place of great beauty and history, but we are now at risk from irreversible impacts that will permanently change our lands and our lives forever. In July of 2010, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) Elders Council issued a declaration on our rights under agreements made over a century ago.
