[ROCKMAN]

Syn - You re correct to the degree that US oil exports to Canada are not granted on a case by case basis. The are allowed by a permit granted in 1985 that is still in effect:

"The Obama administration is allowing U.S. companies to sell some oil to Mexico, by approving several transactions that exploit the bounds of a longstanding crude export ban. The discrete, case-by-case approvals — already permitted under current law — do not signal a wholesale dismantling of the decades-old ban on most crude exports is imminent, either at the White House or on Capitol Hill. This is a win for Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill who have lobbied the administration to approve oil sales to Pemex, the Mexican oil company.

Under the deals approved by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, some light U.S. oil can be swapped for similar quantities of heavier, lower-quality Mexican crude that is a better fit for many Gulf Coast refineries. The action falls short of a broad affirmation that all oil exports to Mexico are in the national interest — similar to the declaration that has allowed licensed U.S. companies to sell crude to Canada without transaction-level approvals since 1985. Separately, the bureau denied applications to exchange U.S. oil for crude or petroleum products from several other countries, a senior administration official said. Existing trade law sets a lower bar for swaps with adjacent nations."

But note: the EIA shows no oil exports to Canada prior to the early 90's:

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHa ... REXCA1&f=M

But in those early days the exports were less then 1 mm bbls/yr. Sometimes much less. Compare that to the current 120 mm/yr. And let's not forget President Obama could cancel that rule by executive order...a move he has used on issues less important the climate change. Also note above his move to swap our light oil for heavier and "dirtier" oil from Mexico.

But why should anyone expect him to do so given his long standing support of importing oil sands production. From over 3 years ago:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/southern-le ... bama-says/

"Mr. Obama's stop in Cushing was part of a four-state, two-day tour in which the president touted his energy policies. Standing next to the giant TransCanada pipes that will make up the Southern leg of the Keystone pipeline, Mr. Obama sought to remind voters that he's not opposed to domestic oil drilling. In fact, "we're drilling all over the place right now," the president said, citing his administration's directive to open up millions of acres for oil and gas exploration in 23 states. Under his watch, Mr. Obama said, the number of operating oil rigs has reached a record high, he said, and the U.S. has added enough new oil and gas pipeline to "circle the Earth and then some."

Obama: I'm cutting through red tape on Keystone pipeline

The Southern leg of the Keystone pipeline should be a priority, he said, to free up the "bottleneck" of oil heading to refineries. "If we could, it would help us increase our oil supplies at a time where we need as much as possible," he said. Cushing is a major trading hub for crude oil, but the industry says a bottleneck in pipeline there has backed up its use. TransCanada Corporation plans to lay pipe through Cushing as part of its Keystone project. The Keystone pipeline is ultimately planned to link the tar sands fields of northern Alberta to oil refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast."

But back to my main point: President Obama has done more then any other individual to support the production of the Canadian oil sands: he supported removing the choke point at Cushing and continues to allow exporting US condensate that enables Canada to ship 60% of their "dirtiest oil on the planet" to the US. And not just allowing but overseeing a 1,000% increase during his term. And most of that while he was promoting a stronger response to climate change.

Can you point to any greater hypocrisy by any other US politicians?

[Synapsid]

ROCKMAN,

Now, back to the topic of my comment...

[Cid_Yama]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')id - "Since Exxon knew that the burning of fossil fuels leads to dangerous climate change as early as the 1970's (per internal Exxon memos and presentations), then they also knew that what they had already found couldn't be extracted and sold, lest it be burned and do irreparable harm through dangerous climate change."

Stop, take a breath and think about what you just said. First, and most important, if XOM had disclosed whatever their analysis may or may not have revealed...so what? It had no legal requirement to stop doing their thing.

[ROCKMAN]

Syn - And I made another small misstatement. The POTUS doesn't need to issue an executive order. It's simple a regulation he can instruct his depart to change. But I did stumble across a tidbit when I found the regulation. Either President Obama is violating the regulation or he or some other POTUE changed it. But I found no record of it being changed. The reg says less than 20 mm bo per year can be exported to Canada BY ALL EXPORTERS COMBINED:

e) Exports to Canada for consumption or use therein.

(iii) The quantity stated on each application must be the total number of barrels for the quarter, not a per-day rate. This quantity must not exceed 50,000 barrels times the number of calendar days in the quarter.

(iv) Each application must include support documents providing evidence that the applicant has either:

(A) Title to the quantity of barrels stated in the application; or

(B) A contract to purchase the quantity of barrels stated in the application.

(v) The quantity of barrels authorized on each license for export during the calendar quarter will be determined by the BIS as a prorated amount based on:

(A) The quantity requested on each license application; and

(B) The total number of barrels that may be exported by all license holders during the quarter (50,000 barrels per day multiplied by the number of calendar days during the quarter).

[ROCKMAN]

Cid – You’re running into the same problem most “jailhouse lawyers” bump into: you’re trying to convert opinions into fact. Such as the RICO statutes. So back the questions others have asked and no one, including you, have answered: the RICO statute involves a conspiracy to commit a crime. So what crime are you alleging XOM has committed? Answer that correctly then there some basis to talk about RICO. Considering no one in the US Dept of Justice, overseen by the “greenest POTUS in history”, has only not charged XOM with RICO there’s no conversation in the govt even discussing the subject.You’re certainly welcome to your OPINION about potential RICO violations but that doesn’t make your OPINION a FACT. But please get back to us when the authorities charge XOM with RICO. Thanks in advance.

Now let’s jump to the point you made about morality and “common sense’. First we have to address the FACTS that you and others appear to be emotionally unable to accept. Burning fossil fuels produces GHG. FACT…corrects? GHG emissions are causing climate change…correct? I’ll assume you’ve agreed. So who is DIRECTLY PRODUCING the vast majority of GHG going into the atmosphere? It isn’t XOM nor is it all the oil and NG producing companies. Their activities produce very little GHG compared to the amount DIRECTLY created by the consumers of refined products and NG. IOW you and virtually every US citizens. Your contribution may be totally insignificant in itself. Regardless you are still part of the collective that is responsible for climate change. That is a FACT you cannot deny without looking childish IMHO.

So let’s acknowledge the production of GHG is a PROCESS that involves many participants. That would include XOM and all the other oil/NG production companies. But it also includes the parties who make the oil/NG leases available to XOM et al to produce oil/NG. And that includes millions of US citizens that own the mineral rights that they PROVIDE XOM et al. And the single largest mineral owner in the US: the federal govt. And all those minerals owners do it for financial gain. With the US govt collecting tens of $BILLIONS over the years and continues to do so today. Without the mineral owners allowing the production of the oil/NG that BELONGS TO THEM neither XOM nor any other oil/NG producer would even exist today.

So let’s look at it from your moral judgement and common sense point of view: the primary responsible parties are all the US citizens that have ALLOWED XOM et al to produce oil/NG. It also includes the US govt which has done so on YOUR BEHALF as well as all out citizens. And then there XOM et al that produce those fossil fuels. And then there are the refiners that convert oil into consumable products and the utility companies that deliver NG to the end users. And lastly there are all the consumers of refinery products and NG.

You cannot escape the fact (no matter how much you refuse to acknowledge it) that the major players in this PROCESS that are DIRECTLY responsible for the production of the vast majority of GHG are you and all the other consumers. All I can imagine is that your guilt over being a member of the group primarily responsible for most of the climate change is just too much to bear and you have to strike out at any the other parties involved in the PROCESS regardless of how little their role played in the DIRECT production of GHG.

So let’s give you the last word: would you demand that XOM et al stop producing fossil fuels immediately because of the production of climate changing GHG? If not then you’ve just acknowledge that you are a voluntary participant of any RICO violation…aren’t you? LOL.

[ROCKMAN]

A small sidebar. Seems like there's always somewhere to build a pipeline these days:

Days after the U.S. spurned TransCanada Corp.’s proposal to expand its Keystone pipeline network across North America, Mexico opened its arms. TransCanada won the rights last week for its sixth pipeline in Mexico, one of the company’s key targets for growth. The Nov. 10 decision came four days after the U.S. denied TransCanada’s bid to build its Keystone XL oil sands project across the border into Nebraska where it would connect to existing pipes leading to Gulf Coast refineries. Mexico’s need for foreign investment to help the nation improve its infrastructure is a welcome opportunity for TransCanada after losing its seven-year battle to complete Keystone XL. The Canadian company, which owns both pipelines and power plants, plans to invest more than $3 billion in the country by 2017, said Robert Jones, President of Mexico operations. "We see a number of short and long-term opportunities,” Jones said in a Nov. 13 interview from his Mexico City office. Mexico is planning to hold as many as five pipeline auctions before the end of January, and TransCanada will “look at them all." Tuxpan to Tula The new 163 mile pipeline will carry natural gas from the coastal port town of Tuxpan to the central industrial hub of Tula, giving TransCanada what Jones called "a nice foothold" in a major natural gas market for the country. With the contract, the company now holds rights to develop and operate 2,000 kilometers of pipelines in Mexico, Jones said.

[Cog]

Oh my God!!. You mean a company actually went after another prospect to build pipelines in a country that did not spurn their efforts like Obama did? Who could have ever foreseen such a thing?

LOL

Thanks Rockman for pointing out the absurdity of stopping the Keystone border crossing pipeline into the US.

[Cid_Yama]

One more time since Rockman prefers to pretend I never posted it before.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')t a meeting in Exxon Corporation's headquarters, a senior company scientist named James F. Black addressed an audience of powerful oilmen. Speaking without a text as he flipped through detailed slides, Black delivered a sobering message: carbon dioxide from the world's use of fossil fuels would warm the planet and could eventually endanger humanity.

“In the first place, there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels,” Black told Exxon's Management Committee, according to a written version he recorded later.

It was July 1977 when Exxon's leaders received this blunt assessment, well before most of the world had heard of the looming climate crisis.

A year later, Black, a top technical expert in Exxon's Research & Engineering division, took an updated version of his presentation to a broader audience. He warned Exxon scientists and managers that independent researchers estimated a doubling of the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the atmosphere would increase average global temperatures by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit), and as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) at the poles. Rainfall might get heavier in some regions, and other places might turn to desert.

“Some countries would benefit but others would have their agricultural output reduced or destroyed,” Black said, in the written summary of his 1978 talk.

So they knew. Yet:

Then, toward the end of the 1980s, Exxon curtailed its carbon dioxide research. In the decades that followed, Exxon worked instead at the forefront of climate denial. It put its muscle behind efforts to manufacture doubt about the reality of global warming its own scientists had once confirmed. It lobbied to block federal and international action to control greenhouse gas emissions. It helped to erect a vast edifice of misinformation that stands to this day.

[Lore]

Well layed out and damming critique Cid. I see this though as one of the many levers for discrediting the future of oil in the eyes of the public. Oil will pass in death by a thousand cuts.

[Tanada]

This flew right under my radar, and probably a lot of other peoples as well.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t was surely no accident that on the same day that President Obama said "no" to the hugely controversial Keystone Pipeline, and just weeks before the COP 21 Climate Summit, he said: "yes" to nuclear energy. I was honored to be one of 177 invitees to the nuclear summit at the White House this month.

Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline ends a seven-year saga with a declaration that the project is "not in the national interest and would undercut US global leadership in the fight against climate change". The White House said the rejection was key to bolster credibility as the US urges other nations to confront climate change. In the final weeks building up to COP21 in Paris, the rejection sends a diplomatic message as the Obama Administration works towards a global climate agreement.

In opening the White House Nuclear Summit, Dr. John Holdren, assistant to President Obama on science and technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said: "President Obama considers addressing the global climate change challenge to be a top priority."

Political leadership of this kind is critical, given that average global temperatures have already risen by 1C since the industrial revolution. Paris is supposed to ensure that warming doesn't exceed 2C, even though the existing pledges made so far will amount to between 3C to 4C of warming by 2100, depending on your level of optimism or pessimism. Beyond that 2C threshold, scientists say severe and irreversible changes are likely. Whatever you think about arbitrary thresholds: going beyond 2C looks nothing short of disaster on an epic, heart-breaking scale.

[dohboi]

Well, I guess we're just destined to fry one way or the other, so might as well be a micro-wave as much as a crock pot.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', 'W')ell, I guess we're just destined to fry one way or the other, so might as well be a micro-wave as much as a crock pot.

[ROCKMAN]

T - "with a declaration that the project is "not in the national interest and would undercut US global leadership in the fight against climate change". " And again the same question: will the MSM show the President's speech when he declared the building of the southern leg of KXL WAS "...in the national interest" even though it "...would undercut US global leadership in the fight against climate change" because it would allow greater access of Canadian oil sands production to Texas refineries.

And undercut US global leadership in the fight against climate change in the same manner as President Obama currently allowing US condensate exports to Alberta which DIRECTLY provides the Canadians with the ability to produce 60% of the "dirtiest oil on the planet" that they couldn't do otherwise.

And undercut US global leadership in the fight against climate change in the same manner as President Obama facilitating the major increase in coal exports from govt leases.

Amazing isn't it: all that I've pointed out, and much more that I haven't, completely contradicts the words of the POTUS on climate change and is readily available with a few minutes search on the web and virtually no reporting of it by the MSM. So is it by ignorance or design that the MSM misses the obvious. Even more amazing how so many of our more liberal cohorts choose to ignore those facts. It's as if they are paid lobbyists for the oil patch. LOL.

[ROCKMAN]

Lore - Nothing Cid said contradicts a single point that I made. But I appreciate how difficult it is for you and Cid to accept that both of you are members of the group DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for the vast majority of GHG produced from fossil fuels. And doing so with full knowledge of the damage you're contributing to. XOM may or may not have known or acknowledged the extent of the problem. But both you and Cid clearly do. And yet both of you continue your contribution to the problem.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'L')ore - Nothing Cid said contradicts a single point that I made. But I appreciate how difficult it is for you and Cid to accept that both of you are members of the group DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for the vast majority of GHG produced from fossil fuels. And doing so with full knowledge of the damage you're contributing to. XOM may or may not have known or acknowledged the extent of the problem. But both you and Cid clearly do. And yet both of you continue your contribution to the problem.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') federal court has ruled that the Enbridge Alberta Clipper (Line 67) cross-border tar sands pipeline expansion project,permitted covertly and behind closed doors by the Obama Administration, got its greenlight in a legal manner.
...
But first the basics: President Barack Obama and the State Department gave Enbridge its initial Alberta Clipper permit in August 2009, during congressional recess. In November 2012, Enbridge requested an expansion of that pipeline from its initial 450,000 barrels per day capacity to 880,000 barrels per day.

Seeing TransCanada‘s sordid experience with Keystone XL in action, Enbridge decided that a year into the expansion permitting project, it would do what environmental groups have coined a “switcheroo.”

That is, they dreamt up the idea to add pump stations on each side of the border to two different pipelines (in name only, but part of the same pipeline system) — Line 3 and Alberta Clipper, respectively — and avoid having to go through the conventional State Department presidential permit process for border-crossing projects.

[ROCKMAN]

Keith - Similar with the Keystone Pipeline...not to be confused with the Keystone XL Pipeline. While folks were distracted with KXLP this is what was happening with the other border crossing going on DURING President Obama's first term:

The Keystone Pipeline (Phase I), delivering oil from Hardisty, Alberta, over 2,147 mi to the junction at Steele City, Nebraska, and on to Wood River Refinery in Illinois and Patoka Oil Terminal Hub in Illinois, completed in June 2010.

The Keystone-Cushing extension (Phase II), running 291 mi from Steele City to storage at Cushing, Oklahoma, completed in February 2011.

The Gulf Coast Extension (Phase III), running 487 mi from Cushing to refineries at Port Arthur, Texas was completed in January 2014, and a lateral pipeline to refineries at Houston, Texas and a terminal will be completed late 2015, going online a year later.

And yes: the GC Extension was the same pipeline which President Obama, while standing in front of a stack of pipe in its construction yard, proclaimed that this final phase to get oil sands production to Gulf coast refineries was "key to the nation's economy" and instructed all his departments to do whatever to expedite its completion. Completion which was achieved ahead of schedule.

BTW the Keystone Pipeline delivers the same volume of oil as the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline was designed to do. That’s it…keep watching what the right hand is doing. Pay no attention to the left hand. lol.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Keith_McClary', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'A')s far as I know we're still trading in oil with Canada. This is about building a pipeline on U.S. soil. We have trade agreements with many countries, but that doesn't give them the right to plunk a factory down here because of them.

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Keith_McClary', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Keith_McClary', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'A')s far as I know we're still trading in oil with Canada. This is about building a pipeline on U.S. soil. We have trade agreements with many countries, but that doesn't give them the right to plunk a factory down here because of them.

[Plantagenet]

The Canadians are crazy. Don't they know King Obama has taken over and laws and the constitution no longer matter? Even if they get to court a D judge will dismiss their lawsuit quicker than a banana republic might do it to make room for more trials of police