Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian. January 12, 2012.
An independent research group that tracks the influence of money in politics has conducted an analysis of oil industry contributions to members of Congress supporting the pipeline.
With the new rush to approve TransCanada's tar sands pipeline, let's review some key facts that should underlie any analysis of the proposed 1700-mile project.
The brothers control nearly 25% of the tar sands crude that is imported into the US and own mining companies, oil terminals, and refineries all along the Keystone XL route.
By siding with concerned members of Congress and his own environmental agency and choosing to reject the Keystone XL pipeline, Obama could begin to make good on that pledge.
Rich Bindell, Food & Water Watch. September 29, 2011.
When the EPA decided to prohibit the dumping the wastewater in streams, the oil and gas industry opted to truck it over to Ohio and inject it 8,000 feet in the ground.
This is shocking considering carbon emissions from tar sands are 80% higher than the average crude and the extraction process requires strip mining and toxic waste.
"We are deeply worried that we still know far too little about the environmental impact of the spill, how it could impact wildlife, and the scale of the threat."
His belief that EPA regulations of mercury, air toxics and CO2 will cause businesses to stop spending money is exactly the opposite of what analysts say would happen.
"We are the human face of Chevron's operations, armed with the memories of our dead relatives, our neighbors, our sick children," said one woman who traveled from Ecuador.
The threats to the Clean Air Act are coming from the Republican side of Congress, in bills to strip the U.S. EPA of funding and curtail its powers to regulate air emissions.
In the Central Valley of California cows generate the same amount of fecal waste as a city of 21 million people, much of which goes untreated and pollutes waterways.
The Kochs have directed many millions into a vast propaganda machine that's corrupting American politics in order to reward their pollution-based enterprise.
