THE KEYSTONE CONSTRUCTION BEGINS

From the Patriot Post (Foundation) on the Keystone

Economy

Around the Nation: Construction to Begin on Part of Keystone Pipeline

It's not everything Republicans want and it certainly won't make environmentalists happy, but TransCanada announced earlier this week that they will press on with the southernmost extension of the Keystone pipeline project, a section connecting Cushing, Oklahoma with Port Arthur, Texas. They will also -- once again -- file for a federal permit to extend the Keystone XL pipeline across the Canadian border.

The new pipeline, when completed in late 2013, is expected to transport 700,000 barrels of oil per day and relieve what's become a glut of supply at the Cushing pipeline terminus. According to TransCanada, building and utilizing the new stretch of pipeline will create about 4,000 jobs.

The Obama administration now calls this "welcome news" and claims it hasn't ruled out the remainder of the pipeline yet, but it also makes the laughable assertion that Republicans were really to blame for its scuttling the project "by not allowing sufficient time for important review." Never mind the project's been at the mercy of the Obama State Department for over three years. Democrats, remember, just don't believe that drilling for oil is necessary with solar, wind and amoeba power just around the corner. Meanwhile, tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will keep soaring gas prices down. Not that the White House actually wants prices to go back down.

While the pipeline won't be the complete answer to our energy needs, the adroit nature of TransCanada's decision shows that, regardless of the anti-energy nature of our current regime, smart businesses can still find enough capitalism to succeed despite the best efforts of socialists.

What would help gas prices go back down?

Why Drill When You Can Scoop?

"Drill, baby, drill" is the long-adopted slogan of those who seek a real answer to our energy needs. Last week, Barack Obama put out the call to "scoop, baby, scoop" up algae as the renewable resource we can use to fuel our cars. On the stump in Florida, the president said, "You've got a bunch of algae out there, right? If we can figure out how to make energy out of that, we'll be doing all right." And if Obama's inane utterances were nickels, there would be no debt crisis. Unfortunately, every time he speaks, we need a scooper of a different kind.

The truth is that billions of dollars of research into biofuels of many sorts has been going on for decades, and we're no closer to filling our cars with a plankton byproduct. Yet as recently as last year, the Department of Energy handed out $24 million in grants to researchers studying the process of creating oil from algae. This regime certainly has a propensity to "invest" billions into failed schemes that are nothing more than high-priced boondoggles.

There's not much promise on the electric car front, either. After Fisker Automotive lost out on the remainder of its $529 million promised from the Department of Energy, their battery supplier A123 Systems had to lay off 125 workers from its Michigan plant. Still, the "one percent" there is doing all right. Company executives voted themselves hefty raises ranging from 5.7 percent to 20.7 percent despite the company's losing $172 million in the first three quarters of 2011. Abound Solar, which received a $400 million stimulus loan, is also laying off 70 percent of its workforce. If these are stimulus "success stories," we would hate to see the failures.