Tuesday Open Thread

13 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

1. Imagine that……

    

   Keystone XL pipeline may no longer make economic sense, experts say

    

    

    

    

   WASHINGTON — Amid the shouting on Capitol Hill, the wads of campaign cash and the activist careers shaped around the Keystone XL pipeline, the project at the flash point of America's energy debate now confronts a problem bigger than politics.

   It may no longer pencil out.

   As Congress' six-year obsession with Keystone nears a climax, plunging oil prices have industry analysts questioning whether the plan to link Canadian tar sands with Gulf Coast refineries still makes economic sense.

   It is now possible that pipeline backers could win their hard-fought battle for political approval yet never build the project.

   With the GOP about to take control of both houses of Congress, backers of the pipeline say they are close to having a veto-proof majority for a bill that would order the Obama administration to give the project the federal permit required for pipelines that cross a U.S. border.

   But "the political debate is not paralleled by the realities" in the market, said Sandy Fielden, director of energy analytics at Texas-based RBN Energy. "The economics of this project are becoming increasingly borderline."

   http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/keystone-xl-pipeline-may-no-longer-make-economic-sense-experts-say/ar-BBgPVu0?ocid=ansTribuneNewsService11

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   1. It's enough to make some poor Koch cry . . .

      . . . still, I'm betting there's a backup plan — always some reason, and a ready means [looking at you Senator Elect Slimy], to make the insanely wealthy er . . .

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      1. Last I saw they were heading east – to a deep water port in New Brunswick. All the better to stifle Putin's asperations.

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         1. 

            http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/30/proposed-mega-pipeline-tar-sands-opponents-vow-its-not-going-happen

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   2. …and in other fossil-fuel news, and to the surprise of no one, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association blasts the EPA's Clean Power Plan citing one of their most commonly-used excuses: we are trying to protect the poor.  

      Also, the fundamentally rural geography of many cooperatives is a challenge to the extent of capital expenditures that may be needed to meet EPA's rule. Not only are there fewer customers over a co-op's service territory than for an investor-owned or public power utility, but NRECA members provide service in 327 of the nation's 353 "persistent poverty counties," the trade group says.

      It begs the question: if you've been serving these communities for over 75 years and they are still in a state of persistent poverty, perhaps you have a model that could use a tweak or two?  Although rural electrics consumers only constitute roughly 17% of the nations energy demand, their geographical area covers over 80% of the entire United States; areas that include the best solar, wind, biomass and geothermal resources in the nation.  Developing those resources could go a long way in stemming the poverty in your service territories.

      Please, stop with the 'we care about the poor folk'….it's an old, tired line that few any longer believe.

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2. Dr. Chaps makes GQ's 20 Craziest in America List!

   http://www.gq.com/entertainment/celebrities/201501/craziest-politicians

    

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   1. La dee da.  G-Klappy is gonna' make everyone's list — he's noteworthy crazy by even National Enquirer standards . . . 

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   2. How in the H-E-double hockey sticks did I lose out to Grimm?!?  He didn’t even actually cast out that reporter.  He’s a ball-less papist who couldn’t tell an exorcism from an exercise video.

      I be castin’ out demons like a fly rod.
      While I’m pumpin’ dope beats that honor my God.
      Fighting off evil, with my nines, my rhymes,
      Droppin’ dimes on our leaders doin’ crimes.

      Chaps out.

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3. How to pay back your Citigroup sponsors by putting the law Citigroup execs wrote back onto the books

   Kevin Yoder (R-Kansas), a second-term congressman whose largest contributors are in the finance industry, introduced the provision last summer. It was literally written by Citigroup executives, but Yoder took their language and rolled it into an amendment to a spending bill in a House subcommittee meeting. It got swept into the year-end spending package because it "was within the scope of negotiations" on it, according to an Appropriations Committee aide.

   Let's not forget our friends, representatives and Democratic leaders Ed Perlmutter and Michael Bennet voted yes to help out Citigroup just one more time.

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   1. Mark Udall also voted for the bill. Why? He believes it is good policy. I submit the same can be said for both Perlmutter and Bennet. Remember Perlmutter voted for the provision in the Banking Committee when it was a stand alone bill. (Here)

      What is it going to take to prove that these guys are doing what they really believe. They are neoliberal's who have no right to claim to be progressives or even supporters of the working and middle class.

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4. Here's a guy we're supposed to be "bipartisan" with:

   Senator Tom Coburn (Okie-Muskogee) Blocks Veterans' Suicide Prevention Bill

   Everything is political for the hideous human beings that Republicans keep electing. He can't die of cancer soon enough for me.

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5. And………

   The DC Insider Game being played by Sen. Michael Bennet

   What Did the Continuing Resolution (CRomnibus budget bill) Show Us?

   As I've often written, when it comes to votes in the House or Senate, you can only trust the sincerity of people who vote with the winner when the outcome is uncertain. In situations where the outcome is not in doubt, votes for either side may be sincere, or they may be just "for show," for "the district," or a form of what Howie Klein below calls preening. 

   We got a perfect example of that in the Senate recently on the so-called "CRomnibus" bill — the continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government, which also contains the "omnibus" appropriations for all of its agencies. (That bill passed in both the House and Senate, by the way, so the government is funded through the end of its fiscal year, October 1, 2015.)

   There were many many reasons to vote against this abomination (there are at least ten at the link), but Elizabeth Warren and others made several impassioned pleas to kill it over a "Citibank rider" that would have put taxpayers back on the hook for derivatives-gambling losses. Warren was especially strong and caustic, as in this floor speech:
    

   In the Senate and in the caucus, it was Warren who led the charge, who forcefully urged rejection of the "CRomnibus" bill. Since Steny Hoyer and almost everyone in House leadership except Nancy Pelosi supported the bill, and since both Barack Obama and Joe Biden whipped for its passage, she put herself squarely in the insurgency, in open and public rebellion against her leaders. 

   As it played out in the Senate, those three groups revealed themselves, partly in caucus meetings and partly in their votes. Let's consider just the votes here, and leave the caucus discussion for another time. There were two votes on the bill, two chances to kill it. One group tried to kill the bill every chance they got. One group supported the bill every chance they got. And one group voted against the bill only after it was sure to pass.

   As usual, three groups of Democrats. And because Warren created such a sharp bright line with her charismatic, principled intra-party challenge, the self-sorting into those groups was both revealing and perhaps a harbinger.

   This is where Michael Bennet, and Citigroup, are counting on your silence. 

   Democrats Who Voted With Wall Street All the Way

   There were plenty of Democrats in the corporate group — who were a Wall Street Yes all the way. Granted there were other reasons to vote Yes on both cloture and the bill — including and maybe especially, reasoned surrender to blackmail, or a (complicit) "this is the best deal we could get." Still, a double Yes was a Wall Street Yes, for whatever reason. You can get the full list here of double-yes Democrats, but the names that jump out at me are —

   Tammy Baldwin
   Michael Bennet (who "curated" the 2014 electoral losses as head of DSCC)
   Dick Durbin (often an Obama surrogate)
   "Independent" Angus King
   Pat Leahy
   Patty Murray (!)
   Brian Schatz (!)
   Jean Shaheen (!)
   Debbie Stabenow
   Mark Udall (who lost)
   Tom Udall (who won)
   Mark Warner (who very nearly lost, and whom Schumer brought into the leadership anyway)

   Care to ask about their votes? Full Senate phone numbers here.

   Is this what Colorado voters expected from Bennet when they hired him for another six years? Is this the kind of representation they want Bennet to provide: going all in for Citigroup and barely having the time of day for the people back home?

   I don't think so. 

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6. If we can't rely on the state to enforce the rules it already has, why bother trying to make the rules better?  What's the task force recommendation supposed to be?  "Enforce the damned rules?"

   http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_27144028/cogcc-wrestles-how-strictly-enforce-oil-and-gas

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