Anyone who disputes this .. have lost touch with reality...

[healthmyths]

My personal concerns with the pipeline are not environmental concerns.

I'm trying to wrap my head around why we need to give the oil companies $1.8 billion of taxpayers' money so they can pipe this sludge across the U.S. to get it refined into products for foreign markets.

I'm not saying I'm 100% against the pipeline. I'm still looking into as much good information as I can to get the whole picture.



Hmmm - that's a fairly decent question. Since the refined products are earmarked for sale abroad, how are they gonna get the product to the overseas markets???

But anyway, the environmental questions are not my main questions right now. My first order of business is how we justify spending $1.8 billion of taxpayers' money to help the refineries re-tool to handle this stuff?

Maybe the first order is to determine how much it will cost if a 1 million barrel Exxon Valdez event occurs?

To me it is less expensive to pay for the pipeline then to live in constant fear of another Exxon Valdez contaminating 11,000 square miles of ocean.

Why is that such a hard thing to grasp?
Canada is going to ship 1 million barrels either way. Which way would cause the least amount of damage?

Why should U.S. taxpayers be stuck with the bill for EITHER?

Don't disagree with you why should tax payers pay for pipeline other then there will be TAX revenue generated..
people building will be paying as well as employer SS/Medicare taxes.
Suppliers of equipment in USA will keep people employed again paying taxes.

BUT NO pipeline means shipping by tanker. Guess who paid the Exxon Valdez even to today???

 

[nodoginnafight]

BUT NO pipeline means shipping by tanker. Guess who paid the Exxon Valdez even to today???

Exxon says they did. To the tune of $2.1 billion.

But taxpayers are supposed to pay almost that much - $1.8 billion - to help refineries re-tool to handle the stuff from this pipeline?

you have an idea how much that is per job created? (About $300,000)

Doesn't look like a sweet deal to me

 

[edthecynic]

Maybe the first order is to determine how much it will cost if a 1 million barrel Exxon Valdez event occurs?

To me it is less expensive to pay for the pipeline then to live in constant fear of another Exxon Valdez contaminating 11,000 square miles of ocean.

Why is that such a hard thing to grasp?
Canada is going to ship 1 million barrels either way. Which way would cause the least amount of damage?

Why should U.S. taxpayers be stuck with the bill for EITHER?

Don't disagree with you why should tax payers pay for pipeline other then there will be TAX revenue generated..

It is obvious that the Right are always completely misinformed about everything, but you take the cake!

The Keystone XL will take the tar sands to refineries in Foriegn Trade Zones where oil may be exported to international buyers without paying U.S. taxes. It is criminal that people as misinformed as you are allowed to vote!!!

 

[healthmyths]

My personal concerns with the pipeline are not environmental concerns.

I'm trying to wrap my head around why we need to give the oil companies $1.8 billion of taxpayers' money so they can pipe this sludge across the U.S. to get it refined into products for foreign markets.

I'm not saying I'm 100% against the pipeline. I'm still looking into as much good information as I can to get the whole picture.



Hmmm - that's a fairly decent question. Since the refined products are earmarked for sale abroad, how are they gonna get the product to the overseas markets???

But anyway, the environmental questions are not my main questions right now. My first order of business is how we justify spending $1.8 billion of taxpayers' money to help the refineries re-tool to handle this stuff?

Maybe the first order is to determine how much it will cost if a 1 million barrel Exxon Valdez event occurs?

To me it is less expensive to pay for the pipeline then to live in constant fear of another Exxon Valdez contaminating 11,000 square miles of ocean.

Why is that such a hard thing to grasp?
Canada is going to ship 1 million barrels either way. Which way would cause the least amount of damage?

Why should U.S. taxpayers be stuck with the bill for EITHER?

Are you living in fantasy world???
Again.. the question to you is would you rather pay tax payer money to have it built with american workers and employers paying their SS/Medicare taxes? Would you rather have American suppliers provide for equipment etc. and in turn pay taxes in states/local all the while they too and their employees paying SS/MEdicare taxes?

American Petroleum Institute officials say approval of the full pipeline could “support 42,000 jobs” and “put $2 billion in workers’ pockets during its construction.” -
Keystone Pipeline: Job Creator or Environmental Menace? | The Fiscal Times

According to the Department of Energy, Keystone XL would be able to move up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day. This represents about half the amount the U.S. imports from the Middle East.

TransCanada estimates it will spend $7 billion in the U.S. to build the pipeline and 20,000 jobs would be directly created from the pipeline’s construction.


Keystone XL would generate much needed tax revenue in several states and collectively boost Gross State Product by billions of dollars.

By delaying approval of the pipeline, President Obama is providing China with an opportunity to out-compete the U.S. and gain access to Canada’s rich oil supply.

Several labor unions have endorsed the project and criticized the president’s decision to reject American jobs.

Even Chris Matthews described President Obama’s rejection of Keystone XL as a “mistake.”

- See more at: Keystone XL: #TimeToBuild | Energy & Commerce Committee

Average construction wages in South Dakota where portions of a separate pipeline were built starting in 2008 rose 10 percent to 30 percent to more than $600 a week, according to the study released today. The same premium may apply for workers in certain Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska counties along the route of the planned XL pipeline connecting Hardisty, Alberta, and Steele City, Nebraska.

Construction Pay Seen Rising as Much as 30% From Keystone - Bloomberg

So if Trans-Canada's estimate of 20,000 jobs at $600/week that is in a year's time almost $100 million in JUST SS/Medicare tax payments.

 

[jon_berzerk]

Injection wells, or the actual fracturing process? That's the debate and the focus of investigation. And an inconsequential product of a highly successful endeavor IMO.

BTW... that's MISTER Kemo Sabe to you, bub!

Until the day that it becomes inconsequential, with a major earthquake that may do massive damage, or worse.

I don't think that's even scientifically possible. Again, these are minor seismic events and are associated with wastewater disposal not the act of hydraulic fracturing.
Texas alone has 10,000 such disposal wells.

If you want to see "massive damage", just look at agriculture. Yet we hear no calls for environmental justice in that regard.

Hmmm... I kinda screwed up that quote box LOL. Oh well trying to cut out the lengthy stuff.[/QUOTE]

If you want to see "massive damage", just look at agriculture. Yet we hear no calls for environmental justice in that regard.

early on the admin proposed putting a tax or a fine on farms

based on the output of dust created while doing farm work

 

[Kosh]

Still no proof with datasets and source code to prove CO2 drives climate, nothing but AGW propaganda.

 

[Mr. H.]

Injection wells, or the actual fracturing process? That's the debate and the focus of investigation. And an inconsequential product of a highly successful endeavor IMO.

BTW... that's MISTER Kemo Sabe to you, bub!

Until the day that it becomes inconsequential, with a major earthquake that may do massive damage, or worse.

I don't think that's even scientifically possible. Again, these are minor seismic events and are associated with wastewater disposal not the act of hydraulic fracturing.
Texas alone has 10,000 such disposal wells.

If you want to see "massive damage", just look at agriculture. Yet we hear no calls for environmental justice in that regard.

Hmmm... I kinda screwed up that quote box LOL. Oh well trying to cut out the lengthy stuff.

If you want to see "massive damage", just look at agriculture. Yet we hear no calls for environmental justice in that regard.

early on the admin proposed putting a tax or a fine on farms

based on the output of dust created while doing farm work[/QUOTE]

FYI my quote and the Synth quote should be reversed (don't know how that happened).

 

[Mr. H.]

Sheesh I give up LOL.

 

[edthecynic]

I don't think that's even scientifically possible. Again, these are minor seismic events and are associated with wastewater disposal not the act of hydraulic fracturing.
Texas alone has 10,000 such disposal wells.

If you want to see "massive damage", just look at agriculture. Yet we hear no calls for environmental justice in that regard.

Hmmm... I kinda screwed up that quote box LOL. Oh well trying to cut out the lengthy stuff.

If you want to see "massive damage", just look at agriculture. Yet we hear no calls for environmental justice in that regard.

early on the admin proposed putting a tax or a fine on farms

based on the output of dust created while doing farm work

FYI my quote and the Synth quote should be reversed (don't know how that happened).

I fixed it for you!


It happened because know-it-alls like you are too stupid to edit a quote properly and then even more inept at fixing it once you started it and just let it happen quote after quote while pretending to be smarter and more analytical than everyone else.

Here is where you started it:
http://www.usmessageboard.com/8595476-post138.html

 

[healthmyths]

Still no proof with datasets and source code to prove CO2 drives climate, nothing but AGW propaganda.

The fundamental initial source of temperature rising data have been the weather recording stations around the world.

If the basis over the last 113 years has been this...

"The number of [Siberian] stations increased from 8 in 1901 to 23 in 1951 and then decreased to
12 from 1989 to present only four (4) stations, those at Irkutsk, Bratsk, Chita and Kirensk, cover the entire 20th century.
IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently
than the correct data of remote stations…

The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass.
The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration.

[URL="http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/21/climategatekeeping-siberia/[/URL]
How can any long term dependency on HISTORICAL comparisons of temperatures that leaves out 12% of the land mass and also have most of reading stations in
urban heat generating population centers?

Is this an appropriate basis to calculate rising global temperatures when these readings are NOT honest!

 

[nodoginnafight]

American Petroleum Institute officials say approval of the full pipeline could “support 42,000 jobs” and “put $2 billion in workers’ pockets during its construction.” -

Even if the american petroleum institute is correct on their numbers (and why in the world should we doubt them????) that means taxpayers are spending $1.8 billion to put 2 billion in workers' pockets.

Is that the best deal for taxpayers that you can come up with?

 

[healthmyths]

American Petroleum Institute officials say approval of the full pipeline could “support 42,000 jobs” and “put $2 billion in workers’ pockets during its construction.” -

Even if the american petroleum institute is correct on their numbers (and why in the world should we doubt them????) that means taxpayers are spending $1.8 billion to put 2 billion in workers' pockets.

Is that the best deal for taxpayers that you can come up with?

It DEFINITELY IS if it prevents BILLIONS being spent WITHOUT any tax revenue due to another Exxon Valdez!

I just don't understand!
Canada will ship 1 million barrels a day either through a tanker on the open ocean with daily risk of spills affecting 11,000 sq. miles of ocean and as a result
much of USA coastline being damaged...hence the billions needed to clean it up from WHERE???

On the other hand 1 million barrels going through a pipeline ON land with monitors that can shut the pipe down within hours reducing the chances of spills that
oh by the way will pay taxes and constructions and supplies .. it is an absolute no brainer!

Billions of dollars in risk on the ocean versus billions of dollars in taxes/salaries/suppliers.etc. and the pipeline risk of moving oil considerably less then by ship!
Here read the facts!
At this web page USA Oil spills since 1900s... List of oil spills - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
have the largest number AND largest amount of oil spills?
amount spilled % of total
in Barrels # by spilled Oil
11,471,098 23 Ships or 73.0%
3,882,203 8 drilling rig 24.7%
195,564 17 pipeline 1.2%
99,036 4 Terminal 0.6%
75,228 4 Refinery 0.5%
15,723,129

Ships have a 300% greater chance of spilling and when they do they spill 300% more during the spill!

 

[ABikerSailor]

Again..................I ask............................

Anyone reading this thread keeps holding up the Exxon Valdez as an example of why we should build the pipelines (which was only 1 spill) while ignoring all the spills that have occurred since then with oil pipelines.

Like I said................there have been several spills from ruptured pipes, yet nobody talks about them. Additionally, nobody talks about the fact that tar sand oil will SINK IN WATER (making it harder to clean up) than oil that is spilled from a tanker which actually floats on water.

Wanna talk about the Milk River in Montana? How about that oil spill that happened a year or two back that took out an entire neighborhood in suburbia? Or even talk about that oil spill from a pipeline that ruined several acres of a farmer's lands?

Nope.......................sorry.......................kill the XL pipeline, because not only is it risky for this country (as in we'll have to absorb the damage and consequences if it ruptures) but also because the only reason that Canada wants to build it is so they can sell the oil to other countries which will charge more when they sell it back to us.

Nope..................it won't create enough lasting (meaning farther than the initial building) jobs, nor does it create enough jobs for it's building.

We'd be better off hiring people to fix the infrastructure (meaning the roads, bridges and power grid), because not only can those jobs NOT be outsourced, but we'd be fixing our country.

I'd rather see the money that would be spent on XL used for our bridges, roads and power grid. It would benefit the U.S. more.

 

[Abraham3]

I oppose the Keystone XL pipeline project but I do not agree with all your points.

The project will make fewer jobs than are being claimed by its proponents and the vast majority of them will last no longer than the construction of the thing. And, for many of those employed, it will only be a viable job while the construction is local to them.

It is not spill-proof, but with a reasonable amount of precautions, it can be made less likely to spill and to spill large volumes than would a group of tankers transporting the same oil volume over the same distance. The pipeline doesn't move. The tankers, however, would employ more people. They would also put more oil company money into the economy (read: cost more per barrel). That would also drive up the cost of the product and thus it would put more of our money into the economy as well. And we would suffer the damage and likely most of the cost of any spills that do take place.

The major point of disagreement I have with you and the reason I was prompted to post this was your comment, "I'd rather see the money that would be spent on XL used for our bridges, roads and power grid. It would benefit the U.S. more.". While I would love to see money spent to fix our ailing infrastructure, such funds are not being spent on the Keystone XL Pipeline. It is a project of private industry, not a government project. Taxpayer dollars would not pay for its construction. The only thing the government is being asked to do is give permissions and rights of way. There is a cost in the losses of public lands occupied by the pipeline, but that is relatively small in area and the land would not be made completely unusable.

My primary opposition to the pipeline is that it enables a technology that we should be doing out best to get away from, not adopt. On a carbon and particulate emission basis, coal tar sands are as filthy as filthy can be. Their use will do enormous harm to the environment even if no pipeline spill ever takes place. Every ounce of it will be spilled via alternative routes: out refinery stacks and vehicle exhaust pipes.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Actually, there are quite a few tax dollars that would be spent in the building of the XL Pipeline.

Sorry, but the oil companies get subsidies and benefits, probably anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of the pipeline would be funded by the taxpayer.

 

[Abraham3]

1-1.8 billion dollars in rapid amortizations (3-5 years vice 10-20) for the three Port Arthur refineries that will handle it. The subsidies would go to oil company coffers with or without the pipeline. While I strenuously oppose ALL the special treatment the oil companies get in US tax code, 1.8 billion over 10-20 years (the amount actually lost to the taxpayer) would not go very far towards infrastructure repair.

The pipeline offers extraordinarily little benefit to the American people while promising extraordinary amounts of pollution. Even the limited cost involved in short term amortization of those refinery upgrades will likely exceed the payroll the pipe's construction would provide.

It is obvious that as oil gets more and more expensive, oil companies will try to go further and further to get it. Methods that were once too costly - in terms of capital, environmental damage and simple aesthetics - will eventually be encompassed by the widening boundary of what is acceptable as the cost per barrel climbs. The ANWR will eventually be raped. The oceans off every coast will be dotted with production platforms. The world, unwilling to give up the convenience of petroleum power will sacrifice everything to keep it. The human race is just too stupid to do anything else.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Yanno................if we paid as much money towards infrastructure repair as we did in oil subsidies every year, we'd have highways that worked very well, have a power grid that never went down, as well as would have bridges that never collapsed.

I'd rather send money to fund the repair of our infrastructure, rather than send money to the oil companies.

 

[Abraham3]

I agree completely. They may have the function off a utility, but they're certainly not short of profits with which to work.

 

[nodoginnafight]

American Petroleum Institute officials say approval of the full pipeline could “support 42,000 jobs” and “put $2 billion in workers’ pockets during its construction.” -

Even if the american petroleum institute is correct on their numbers (and why in the world should we doubt them????) that means taxpayers are spending $1.8 billion to put 2 billion in workers' pockets.

Is that the best deal for taxpayers that you can come up with?

It DEFINITELY IS if it prevents BILLIONS being spent WITHOUT any tax revenue due to another Exxon Valdez!

I just don't understand!


On the other hand 1 million barrels going through a pipeline ON land with monitors that can shut the pipe down within hours reducing the chances of spills that
oh by the way will pay taxes and constructions and supplies .. it is an absolute no brainer!

Billions of dollars in risk on the ocean versus billions of dollars in taxes/salaries/suppliers.etc. and the pipeline risk of moving oil considerably less then by ship!
Here read the facts!
At this web page USA Oil spills since 1900s... List of oil spills - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
have the largest number AND largest amount of oil spills?
amount spilled % of total
in Barrels # by spilled Oil
11,471,098 23 Ships or 73.0%
3,882,203 8 drilling rig 24.7%
195,564 17 pipeline 1.2%
99,036 4 Terminal 0.6%
75,228 4 Refinery 0.5%
15,723,129

Ships have a 300% greater chance of spilling and when they do they spill 300% more during the spill!

Canada will ship 1 million barrels a day either through a tanker on the open ocean with daily risk of spills affecting 11,000 sq. miles of ocean and as a result
much of USA coastline being damaged...hence the billions needed to clean it up from WHERE???

I addressed that question earlier. Exxon says THEY paid for it (in the Valdez case).

If you have to keep pretending a question has not been answered in order to make your point, then you don't have a very good point, do you?

No justification for $1.8 billion in taxpayer money going to oil companies who are enjoying record profits.

 

[healthmyths]

American Petroleum Institute officials say approval of the full pipeline could “support 42,000 jobs” and “put $2 billion in workers’ pockets during its construction.” -

Even if the american petroleum institute is correct on their numbers (and why in the world should we doubt them????) that means taxpayers are spending $1.8 billion to put 2 billion in workers' pockets.

Is that the best deal for taxpayers that you can come up with?

And so YOU'd prefer another Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels (41,000 to 119,000 m3) of crude oil. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters. The Valdez spill was the largest ever in U.S. waters until the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in terms of volume released. However, Prince William Sound's remote location, accessible only by helicopter, plane, and boat, made government and industry response efforts difficult and severely taxed existing plans for response.
The region is a habitat for salmon, sea otters, seals and seabirds. The oil, originally extracted at the Prudhoe Bay oil field, eventually covered 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of coastline, and 11,000 square miles (28,000 km2) of ocean.
Exxon Valdez oil spill - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Remember Exxon Valdez was ONLY going to Long Beach Ca. only 3,300 miles!
Remember any future 1 million tanker is going to be going to China over 4,000 miles.
On the open ocean not hugging the coast line as Exxon Valdez will do. And the ability to contain any oil will be more difficult the farther out to sea the spill occurs.

So again.. YOU tell me would you rather the risk of 1 million barrels floating one mile or 700 barrels in one mile of Keystone?
That simple.
Which do you think will cost more to clean up???