http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/keystone-pipeline-advances-as-house-passes-oil-drilling-bill-1-.html
Bloomberg
Keystone Pipeline Advances as House Passes Oil-Drilling Bill
By Katarzyna Klimasinska – Feb 16, 2012 4:01 PM PT Fri Feb 17 00:01:41 GMT 2012
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TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline is opposed by groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club, that say the crude to be carried is corrosive and air pollution will increase during production and refining. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
The U.S. House passed legislation that would force U.S. approval of TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL pipeline and open Atlantic waters to offshore drilling over objections from the Obama administration.
The bill, approved 237-187 today, would strip President Barack Obama’s authority to decide on TransCanada’s $7 billion project and give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 30 days to approve the pipeline after it’s deemed safe.
Obama rejected Keystone last month and asked the Calgary- based company to find a route that wouldn’t endanger a Nebraska aquifer.
“This legislation would create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs for American workers,” Representative Doc Hastings, a Washington Republican and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said during a floor debate. “It’s time to secure our own future with American-made energy.”
The measure is part of the House Republicans’ three-bill plan to add jobs, lower energy imports and finance highways and mass-transit programs. A portion of the revenue would come from giving oil producers access to federal waters off the coasts of California, Florida and Virginia. The House plans to complete action on the measures after taking a recess next week.
The House and Senate are examining proposals for funding projects from non-transportation sources. Lawmakers plan to next consider forcing federal employees to pay more toward their pensions. The Senate began debating a separate measure last week, which doesn’t include a Keystone provision.
Wildlife Refuge
The House bill passed today would permit energy production in a part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area the Obama administration wants to keep off-limits. The measure also allows production from oil-shale deposits in Colorado.
“We all know these places are not going to be developed in the near-term at all,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said during a hearing at the House’s natural resources panel this week. “They will not fund the transportation needs of the United States of America.”
The bill would raise $4.28 billion by 2022, less than 10 percent of the revenue needed to pay for transportation projects, Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts, senior Democrat on the committee, said on Feb. 15.
Democrats and environmental groups said the beaches of California and Florida are too pristine to risk being spoiled by an oil spill, while oil-shale production may taint Colorado’s drinking-water sources.
NRDC Opposition
Keystone XL is opposed by groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club, that say the crude to be carried is corrosive and air pollution will increase during production and refining.
The number of people needed to operate and maintain the 1,661-mile (2,673-kilometer) pipeline may be as few as 20, according to the U.S. State Department, or as many as a few hundred, according to TransCanada.
Senate Republicans on Feb. 15 introduced legislation that would bar the Obama administration from using the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve unless Keystone XL pipeline is approved.
The bill is H.R. 3408. The other measures are H.R. 3813 and H.R. 7.
To contact the reporter on this story: Katarzyna Klimasinska in Washington at kklimasinska@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net
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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2012/02/16/house_passes_drilling_friendly_energy_package/
Boston.com
House passes drilling-friendly energy package
By Dina Cappiello
Associated Press / February 16, 2012
WASHINGTON-The Republican-controlled House endorsed a plan Thursday to vastly expand oil and gas drilling off the nation’s coasts to help pay for a $260 billion transportation bill.
The legislation has no chance of passing the Senate and faces a White House veto. But for Republicans, the 237-187 vote showed they’re willing to go further to boost U.S. energy production than President Barack Obama. Obama lately has embraced increased oil and gas production on the campaign trail, and has touted how the U.S. in recent years has produced record amounts of oil and natural gas.
“The bill we are considering … is an action plan that clearly contrasts President Obama’s anti-energy policies with the pro-energy, pro-American jobs policies of Republicans,” said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.
The legislation, which 21 Republicans voted against and 21 Democrats voted for, would open the eastern Gulf of Mexico off Florida and areas off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to drilling, lift a ban on drilling in a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and order leases to be offered for Western oil shale.
Obama has said he would not pursue drilling off the Pacific and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and has pushed back offering leases in the Atlantic until at least 2017.
The measure also would force the approval of the Keystone oil pipeline within a month, which Obama recently rejected, saying there wasn’t enough time for an adequate environmental review.
Democrats argued that the bill amounted to a gift for an oil industry that was headed nowhere and would pay only a fraction of the cost of the transportation bill. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the offshore drilling portions alone would bring in $4.3 billion between 2013-2022, a number Republicans say is underestimated.
It was also unclear whether the energy provisions, which were added as a sweetener to get tea partiers behind the expensive transportation bill, will help save the measure.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, put off action on the legislation until after next week’s congressional recess when it became clear even his own party wasn’t enthusiastic about it.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, echoing the sentiments of other Democrats, said this week that the additional drilling provided “phantom revenue.”
“We know that these places are not going to be developed in the near-term at all,” Salazar said at a congressional hearing Wednesday on his agency’s budget. “It will not fund the transportation needs of the United States of America.”
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Follow Dina Cappiello’s environment coverage on Twitter: (at)dinacappiello
Special thanks to Richard Charter