Republicans, poised to take full control of both houses of Congress thanks to voter suppression and apathy in November, wasted no time in announcing that they will push hard for the Big Fossils - i.e. oil-and-coal billionaire class - who bought them air time and the election. First order of congressional business come January, puffed the soon-to-be-Senate-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, will be to steam roll the EPA and President Obama to clear the way for their snaky, fat Keystone Pipeline that is supposed to carry oil from the Dakotas and Canada south to Gulf refineries in Texas.
Besides their reckless disrespect for climate science and environmental consequences in the name of corporate profits, there are some lessor known, but critical reason McConnell has been told to hurry things up. Keystone's backers need their giant project built on the run for more reasons than prevailing over environmentalists and selling oil.
Keystone looks to be one giant, legalized Ponzi scheme engineered by Koch Industries, Halliburton and Wall Street to sell overvalued securities to unwary investors. With Germany and other countries -- now even China - accelerating their non-fossil alternatives exponentially - thus driving the price of energy downward with their solar-and-wind-tech efficiency advances - all that dirty, high-cost shale oil they're extracting so recklessly from Canada and the Dakotas - and want to jam through the Keystone pipeline -- will soon become a white elephant (or maybe a tar elephant).
CREDIT: AP Photo/Ferdinand Ostrop
Hello! All the cheap oil already has been exploited globally. The Fossil-Fuel-Industrial Complex has done its best to kill renewable enterprises here in the USA through their GOP hacks, but the high-tech, wind-solar energy-tech genie is out of the bottle globally now. Big Coal and Oil are getting desperate, despite just having bought Congress. The Kochs and their ilk, now need the the vigorish from big-capital investment-driven projects like Keystone more than ever to hedge their bad bets and sustain their obscene profit structure, or else they're going down. Way down! Their bubble will burst no matter who sits in a corrupt Congress next year, leaving everyone but them holding the bag, as usual. Be efficient, Conserve. Vote with your energy choices.
