RIP, KXL

Unless Hillary Clinton revives it in 2017, when oil prices rebound because of the war she starts with Iran.  New Middle East war or not, she might need to kickstart her 2020 re-election campaign with some Big Oil Super PAC lube.

Somebody get that polar bear a sandwich

Today is a day to celebrate, however, so I'll pause the snark.  From Vox:

• The Keystone XL pipeline was formally declared dead (yesterday) at 11:45am Eastern Standard Time.
  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• The cause of death is currently under review. Possible diagnoses include:

• Ritual sacrifice by the Obama administration in order to preserve "global leadership" (in President Obama's words) going into the UN climate summit in Paris next month.
  [AP]

• Chronically low oil prices. Under current prices, Keystone's investors might have struggled to break even.
  [Los Angeles Times / Christi Parsons and Paul Richter]

• A deflating jobs argument: the State Department's finding that the pipeline would create only 35 permanent jobs in the US was a pretty big blow to Keystone supporters who argued it was a job creator.
  [Washington Post / Glenn Kessler]

• An attack of activism: Climate change activists have had the Keystone XL pipeline in their sites since Obama's first term, and helped make it a serious partisan issue. They probably do deserve some credit for killing the pipeline.
  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

Let's remember that Canadian tar sands oil is still flowing through the US at a rate somewhere between 300,000 and 700,000 barrels a day since January 2014 via Keystone South, which runs from Cushing, OK to Houston and mid-Jefferson County, Texas, where it is being refined.  And that tar sands oil rides the rails from Alberta to Cushing in what has become colloquially known as "exploding bomb trains".  And that there are at least five other pipelines which never required State Department approval to pump tar sands oil directly from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast right from the jump, several years ago.

So... a victory against Big Oil, but a somewhat hollow one.