Filing an amendment in Congress is easy. Constructing, operating, and maintaining a functioning and hazard-free pipeline is pretty damn hard (just ask Canada or the communities in the US facing the clean-up of oil spills).
Rep. Lee Terry can’t even successfully file an amendment to greenlight and rush TransCanada’s Keystone XL tarsands export pipeline, yet they want all of us to trust them to make important pipeline decisions?
Hmmm…something doesn’t add up.
The Keystone XL pipeline is an export pipeline that would pump 900,000 barrels a day to the export market, not doing a darn thing to help American energy needs. We haven’t seen a single long-term study on the safety of tarsands oil and are still waiting on the study Congress just recently asked PHMSA to conduct on the corrosive nature of tarsands on pipeline infrastructure. And, let’s just use our common sense, do we need to look any further than the Kalamazoo river and the major problems for families that the tarsands spill there created?
Critical things get overlooked when the GOP rushes through the amendment process, and can’t risk the same results with a pipeline.
Here is what the paper Politico had to say about Rep. Terry’s pipeline oops…
Reps. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Connie Mack (R-Fla.) withdrew their amendment to a GOP energy bill that would have approved the pipeline after realizing that key language was missing, a Terry aide told POLITICO. “Some language was omitted from the amendment and after rereading it, we realized the error and it completely changed the intent of the amendment,” the aide said.
Lastly, speaking of amendments…
We see that Sen. Mike “on the other hand” Johanns can raise his fist at the EPA for doing aerial surveys but he does not say a peep about TransCanada doing these surveys. One would think that if “on the other hand” Johanns is concerned about privacy with the EPA flyovers he would be just as concerned with TransCanada’s flyovers. But, I guess what is good for the goose is not good for the gander.