Keystone Xl

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Friday he wanted to put more Americans to work by slashing the amount of time it takes to grant federal approval for big job-creating projects. But Obama's choice of venue for his remarks - a Baltimore company that makes mining and pumping equipment - provided fodder for Republicans. They noted that the company president had, just the day before, testified on Capitol Hill in support of the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration has delayed for years over environmental concerns.

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Friday he wanted to put more Americans to work by slashing the amount of time it takes to grant federal approval for big job-creating projects. But Obama's choice of venue for his remarks - a Baltimore company that makes mining and pumping equipment - provided fodder for Republicans. They noted that the company president had, just the day before, testified on Capitol Hill in support of the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration has delayed for years over environmental concerns.

In March, the State Department gave the president cover to open a big spigot that will hitch our country to one of the dirtiest fuels on Earth for 40 years or more. The draft environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline acknowledges tar sands are nasty stuff for the environment, but concludes that the project is OK because this oil will get to market anyway - with or without a pipeline. A public comment period is underway through April 22, after which the department will prepare a final statement to help the administration decide whether the pipeline is in the "national interest.

SAN FRANCISCO - Mark Zuckerberg is the public face of one of the world's most prominent companies. But now it's his actions as a private citizen that are making him - and Facebook Inc. - a target of environmentalists and progressive activists, highlighting the pitfalls of political involvement at a level rarely attempted in Silicon Valley. The 28-year-old billionaire co-founder and chief executive of Facebook has funded a political advocacy group called Fwd.us that has come under fire for spending millions on television ads that support expansion of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

This year President Obama will decide whether to allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico. Few environmental issues in recent years have engendered so much passion and debate. The pipeline would facilitate the transportation of a particularly thick type of oil, oil sands crude, from Canada to U.S. ports. What is oil sands crude? It is a tar-like substance containing bitumen, extracted from the boreal forests of western Canada by strip mining.

The Times' Politics Now blog reports that the Obama administration has rejected a permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project. The decision was due by Feb. 21, under provisions voted in by Congress as part of the payroll tax cut extension in December, but the president and his appointees are expected to announce a decision as early as Wednesday. This does not mean, however, that the project is dead. The pipeline's parent company TransCanada will need to propose an alternative route to avoid putting the pipe over a large aquifer in Nebraska, and then it can resubmit its permits.

As expected, Republicans are seizing upon the Obama administration's reported decision to delay the permitting process for the Keystone XL pipeline project, contending that President Obama is missing an opportunity to boost the economy. The State Department is expected to announce that it cannot grant a permit to the project within the 60-day window mandated in legislation passed by Congress. It doesn't mean, however, that the project won't go forward at some point. “President Obama's decision to reject the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline is as shocking as it is revealing,” Mitt Romney, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination, said in a statement.

The Canadian pipeline company TransCanada has quietly begun construction of the southern leg of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, installing segments near Livingston, Texas, company officials confirmed Thursday. “Construction started on Aug. 9. So we've now started construction in Texas,” TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard told the Los Angeles Times. The southern section of the pipeline received government approval in July. The first in a series of protests also was launched Thursday as opponents of the pipeline, designed to eventually carry diluted bitumen from the tar sands of northern Canada to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast, unfurled protest banners at two equipment staging yards in Texas and Oklahoma.

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency issued a sharply critical assessment of the State Department's recent environmental impact review of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, certain to complicate efforts to win approval for the $7-billion project. In a letter to top State Department officials overseeing the permit process for the pipeline, the EPA lays out detailed objections regarding greenhouse gas emissions related to the project, pipeline safety and alternative routes.

Republicans continued efforts to advance the Keystone XL oil pipeline, hoping to bypass President Obama's decision to shelve the project and drive a political wedge between Democrats on the issue. The GOP-led House's Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation on Tuesday that would remove the project's approval from the administration's jurisdiction and require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to decide whether to approve the project within 30 days. “We've got to move the Keystone XL pipeline forward, despite the president's effort to kill it - and this bill does just that,” said Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.)

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday criticized the State Department's environmental impact review of the Keystone XL pipeline, saying there was not enough evidence to back up key conclusions on gas emissions, safety and alternative routes. In a letter to top State Department officials, the agency said it had "environmental objections" to their review, which concluded the pipeline would have minimal impact on the environment. The analysis could complicate efforts to win approval for the controversial $7-billion project.

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency issued a sharply critical assessment of the State Department's recent environmental impact review of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, certain to complicate efforts to win approval for the $7-billion project. In a letter to top State Department officials overseeing the permit process for the pipeline, the EPA lays out detailed objections regarding greenhouse gas emissions related to the project, pipeline safety and alternative routes.

Re "Is 'illegal immigrant' the right term?," April 4 All minority groups have had to endure demeaning slurs that reinforce prejudice and its resultant discrimination. As our moral sense matures, we come to see that words make a big difference in shaping our attitudes and cultural creeds. Thus, it's disturbing that The Times has still not dropped the term "illegal," a label usually reserved for acts and not people, when referring to immigrants. Some claim that deodorizing bigoted language is an exercise in "political correctness," itself a phrase of denigration.

Re "A pipeline to disaster," Opinion, April 4 Climate scientist James Hansen is right to push for reducing our carbon dioxide emissions to minimize global warming, but he has no sense of using the political art of compromise to achieve our goals. As he admits, the oil from the Alberta tar sands in Canada will find its way to the market one way or another, where it will replace even dirtier coal. Not allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to be built to transport that oil through the U.S. to the Gulf of Mexico will simply force the use of more expensive and dirtier forms of transportation and would anger our best friends, the Canadians.

Re "Trying to prove their love," Column One, April 4 Your poignant story about Gerardo Herrejon and Ana Verdin-Hernandez - who fell in love when he was 63 and she was 22, but whose marriage is under question by U.S. immigration officials because Ana is an undocumented immigrant - brings to mind one of the most famous romances of the 20th century. After three failed marriages, acclaimed actor Charlie Chaplin met the love of his life - Oona O'Neill, daughter of the playwright Eugene O'Neill - when he was 54 and she was 17. They had eight children and she never married after he died.

This year President Obama will decide whether to allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico. Few environmental issues in recent years have engendered so much passion and debate. The pipeline would facilitate the transportation of a particularly thick type of oil, oil sands crude, from Canada to U.S. ports. What is oil sands crude? It is a tar-like substance containing bitumen, extracted from the boreal forests of western Canada by strip mining.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Katy Bodenmiller was worried about the proposed pipeline work near her house in Groveland Township, Mich., so she started looking for help. She emailed U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) asking about the project being pushed by a Canadian pipeline company called Enbridge Inc., which spilled 20,000 barrels of tar sands oil in Michigan in 2010. The email response from Stabenow's office: A form letter about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline - a different pipeline project proposed by another company altogether,TransCanada Corp.

In March, the State Department gave the president cover to open a big spigot that will hitch our country to one of the dirtiest fuels on Earth for 40 years or more. The draft environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline acknowledges tar sands are nasty stuff for the environment, but concludes that the project is OK because this oil will get to market anyway - with or without a pipeline. A public comment period is underway through April 22, after which the department will prepare a final statement to help the administration decide whether the pipeline is in the "national interest.

From: Goldberg, Nick Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2013 12:31 PM To: Los Angeles Times Staff Subject: Dan Turner Dan Turner, an editorial writer at The Times, died this morning after a two year struggle with pancreatic cancer. Though he suffered a lot of pain in recent months, he died peacefully.   It's overwhelmingly sad and terribly unfair.  Dan was about to reach his 50th birthday next month. He was a lovely colleague, a mild, kind, smart voice in our editorial board meetings.