Obama Delays Decision on Keystone XL

The U.S. Department of State announced Thursday afternoon that it will postpone making a decision on whether TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL Pipeline project is in the national interest until at least early 2013.

Under Executive Order 13337, the State Department can issue Presidential Permits for transborder pipelines projects that it deems are in the national interest. The department has led what it calls a "transparent, thorough and rigorous" review of TransCanda's permit application for the Keystone XL project, and the executive order directs the secretary of state or a designee to consult with at least eight other federal agencies. The pipeline would carry crude oil approximately 1,661 miles from Alberta's Oil Sands to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.

This past summer, the State Department issued its Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project under the National Environment Policy Act (NEPA). The agency found that the 36-inch-diameter pipeline would pose "no significant impacts" to most resources along the proposed route. Prior to Thursday's decision to delay making the national interest determination, the State Department accepted public comments during a 90-day review period. Click here for a timeline showing the agency's role in the permit review process......Read the entire article.


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Phil Flynn: Italy Inverts

Crude oil prices are starting to pullback as the situation in Italy goes from bad to worse. The Italy bond yield curve has gone inverted suggesting that the recent Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi show has taken away Italian confidence and could drive the country into a recession. While Berlusconi is promising to go somehow that is not giving the market the same solace that it seemed to yesterday.

Yesterday Iran fears helped drive the market higher but today it is the concern of economic slowing and the fear of contagion. Maybe because the market is not convinced that the bombing of Iran is not going to happen anytime soon. That makes the news on Chinese inflation data sort of a double edge sword. Yes China inflation hit a five month low and that will allow China some slack to stimulate the economy. Yet at the same time the Chinese economy might be slowing reflecting a great European recession .

President Obama 5 year plan for offshore drilling is a five year plan to economic disaster. President Obama trying to provide political cover for his politically motivated drilling moratorium that has cost this nation thousands of good paying jobs and has intensified the impact of the recession across the south is now proposing a five-year plan to open up six areas for oil and gas drilling, including unleased portions of the Gulf of Mexico and along Alaska's coast which they say is a cautious approach that "will help us continue to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and create jobs here at home."

The problem is that it is too little too late. The Interior Department is proposing just 15 potential lease sales in 2012-2017, with five annual lease sales in the western Gulf beginning next fall, and lease sales in the central Gulf starting in spring 2013. according to reports Two of the lease sales will be held in 2014 and 2016 for tracts in the eastern Gulf. Those that are not currently under a congressionally mandated leasing moratorium, set to expire in 2022, and three more sales would be scheduled in "frontier areas" off Alaska's coast, including the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, and the Cook Inlet.

Also the jobs lost because of the resistance to the Keystone pipeline is it any wonder that the President's approval rating is abysmal?

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