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The point of the Keystone fight
Posted by Grist: None Given on January 8th, 2015
Grist: Josh Green is a smart guy and a great writer, but I think he`s being uncharacteristically dense in his latest column - he`s got the same blind spot on this issue that his friend Jonathan Chait has.
The column argues that, whichever side wins or loses, the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline has become almost entirely pointless. It`s pointless for the right because, contrary to their rhetoric, it won`t create all that many jobs, reduce the price of gasoline, or boost the economy in any measurable...
Stop what you’re doing & watch Elizabeth Warren rip apart Keystone
Posted by Grist: None Given on January 8th, 2015
Grist: Every time Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) opens her mouth, I want to stand up and slow clap. She didn`t let me down at the first Energy Committee hearing of the year, at which Warren cranked open a can of her secret-recipe whoop-ass on the new Republican Congress. This time, it was to announce a snarky yet eloquent "HELL NO" on the subject of the Keystone XL pipeline. Here are a few highlights from her spiel.
Warren starts with some real talk on why Republicans want to pass the bill:
It`s...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Stop what you’re doing & watch Elizabeth Warren rip apart KeystoneTexas city in fracking area rocked by 11 earthquakes in 24 hours
Posted by Grist: None Given on January 8th, 2015
Grist: On the heels of a report linking 77 earthquakes in Ohio to fracking, a Texas city in an area rife with drilling operations was hit with a wave of 11 earthquakes in 24 hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. The most intense registered 3.6 on the Richter scale, well over the level at which people would feel it -- the local 911 service received more than 300 calls from residents trying to figure out what was going on.
These recent quakes bring the total number to 26 since October in Irving, Texas, a suburb...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Texas city in fracking area rocked by 11 earthquakes in 24 hoursCongress will soon approve Keystone, say Republicans
Posted by Grist: None Given on January 5th, 2015
Grist: The new Republican Senate leadership seems to be holding true to its word: Approval for the Keystone XL pipeline will top the 2015 legislative agenda. The head of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), plans to hold a hearing on the pipeline on Wednesday and introduce a bill to approve it on Thursday.
A pro-Keystone bill came one vote short of passing in the Senate in November - and that was back when Democrats were still in control. This time, Republicans...
Obama sounds like he’s about to reject Keystone pipeline
Posted by Grist: None Given on December 19th, 2014
Grist: Speaking at his end-of-the-year press conference on Friday afternoon, President Obama sounded very much like he’s poised to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. He gave his sharpest assessment to date of its potential costs and benefits - lots of costs and few benefits.
Climate hawks rejoiced, not only because of Obama’s implied opposition to Keystone, but because he finally confronted American ignorance of how the oil market works, and attempted to reorient our energy policy around reality.
At...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Obama sounds like he’s about to reject Keystone pipelineOil pipelines are so last year, says Wall Street Journal
Posted by Grist: None Given on December 11th, 2014
Grist: What a difference a year makes. At the end of 2013, Keystone XL looked like a done deal. KXL South (a.k.a. the Gulf Coast Pipeline) was already built and weeks away from being turned on.
Now, a year later, that renowned pinko/green publication known as the Wall Street Journal writes that the fight against Keystone XL has been so successful that it`s become the training model for at least 10 other anti-pipeline fights. Seriously. There`s a slideshow and everything.
National groups provide access...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Oil pipelines are so last year, says Wall Street JournalHow oil ate the heart of North Dakota
Posted by Grist: None Given on November 25th, 2014
Grist: Nothing completes a quiet morning drinking coffee and reading the paper like a multi-part investigative saga of pollution and the fracking boom in North Dakota, and boy howdy, did The New York Times deliver this weekend. In the two-part series, investigative reporter Deborah Sontag brings up one example after another of ways that pollution in North Dakota is on the rise.
There`s the old filling station filled with illegally dumped and radioactive oil filter socks. There`s the train crash that...
Keystone “trade” talk is still empty nonsense
Posted by Grist: None Given on November 21st, 2014
Grist: Several people have asked me to comment on the notion, flying all over political media at the moment, that Obama might use Keystone XL as a bargaining chip to trade in exchange for Republican support for ... something else.
This kind of talk has been around for as long as Keystone XL has been on the political agenda. All along, Very Serious People have been sure that Obama doesn`t really care about Keystone and that he`s just waiting for the right opportunity to give it away, which will happen...
Frackers are terrorizing school kids in California
Posted by Grist: None Given on November 19th, 2014
Grist: Rodrigo Romo’s daughter is afraid because of the oil and gas drilling activity happening around her school, Sequoia Elementary School in Kern County, Calif. She has trouble sleeping at night and has difficulty focusing in class because she doesn’t know what the industry`s pollution might be doing to her and her classmates. Romo doesn’t know how to answer when she asks him if they’re going to be OK.
This is what happens when companies don’t care about the lives of young people of color.
The...
Environmental movement not the Tea Party of the left
Posted by Grist: None Given on November 19th, 2014
Grist: Perhaps it was inevitable, in the current Tea Party era, that a noisy progressive movement would draw comparisons to the right-wing insurgents who have taken over the Republican Party. And so - with climate change in the headlines, thanks to historic pledges from President Obama and Congress voting on Keystone XL - The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank has asserted that environmentalists are taking the same uncompromising attitude toward moderate Democrats that Glenn Beck fans in tricornered hats have...