Hair Balls with the executive summary.
If the Republican House of Representatives can vote to repeal Obamacare nearly 60 times, there's little doubt they will try to override the pipeline veto, if only for the piss value and the fundraising letters. The Senate is already making plans to do so. They need more votes in the House, though, so it's time to remind the Texas Democrats who voted for Keystone -- that would be Henry Cuellar, Filemon Vela, Gene Green, Al Green, Marc Veasey, and even Sheila Jackson Lee -- that repeating their 'ayes' a second time (even if Majority Whip Steve Scalise breaks out his white hood and his flogger) is not acceptable.
Call them and tell them to vote 'NO' on KXL when John Boehner brings it up again. Call them all (I am). If you live in a district represented by a Republican like me, be sure and tell them that as a Texas Democrat (or Green, or independent liberal/progressive) that you have no representation in Washington DC, and as such will they kindly be yours on this issue. That's what I'm going to say.
In its long-awaited environmental impact assessment last year, the State Department essentially said mining and refining the Canadian tar sands was a foregone conclusion -- that the stuff would be burned anyway, regardless of whether it's shipped via Keystone -- and that any argument against the pipeline that invoked climate change was a nonstarter. But last month, an EPA official cited tanking oil prices to challenge that premise. In her letter to the State Department, assistant EPA administrator Cynthia Giles insisted that below that $65-per-barrel mark, shipping tar sands crude by rail, the more expensive route, would no longer an attractive, lucrative option for industry.
For now, it appears the only way Keystone will be built is if Congress can muster a super-majority to override Obama's veto, if the State Department review ultimately concludes the project is in the "national interest", or if Obama changes his mind.
If the Republican House of Representatives can vote to repeal Obamacare nearly 60 times, there's little doubt they will try to override the pipeline veto, if only for the piss value and the fundraising letters. The Senate is already making plans to do so. They need more votes in the House, though, so it's time to remind the Texas Democrats who voted for Keystone -- that would be Henry Cuellar, Filemon Vela, Gene Green, Al Green, Marc Veasey, and even Sheila Jackson Lee -- that repeating their 'ayes' a second time (even if Majority Whip Steve Scalise breaks out his white hood and his flogger) is not acceptable.
Call them and tell them to vote 'NO' on KXL when John Boehner brings it up again. Call them all (I am). If you live in a district represented by a Republican like me, be sure and tell them that as a Texas Democrat (or Green, or independent liberal/progressive) that you have no representation in Washington DC, and as such will they kindly be yours on this issue. That's what I'm going to say.
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