Amid Record Low Oil and Gas, Trump Says Keystone XL Needed ‘Desperately’. Then threatens to reject it
January 25, 2016

 
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During another one of his “phone it in” TV interviews yesterday, Donald Trump told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd we “need the Keystone XL pipeline desperately“. However, at some other point in the day (before or after?), he told reporters that if we weren’t promised “a big chunk” of the profits, he’d reject it (link). Did I mention this was *yesterday* in the space of a few minutes? The price of oil “rallied” Friday to close up just over $32/barrel… $4 below where it was the day before we invaded Iraq. It had fallen as low as $26.55 last Wednesday. In 2012, the KXL was part of Newt Gingrich’s plan to get gas prices down to just $2.50/gallon by 2017. As I type this, the national average price for a gallon of gas is $1.83. The process of converting “tarsand” into oil is so expensive, oil needs to be over $65/barrel just to be cost effective. Not only would the KXL have NOT been a “job creator”, but the economy created a stunning 292,000 jobs last month… NEARLY SEVEN TIMES the number of (temp) jobs the KXL promised to create over TWO YEARS (and even that is doubtful.) So how exactly is it that we “desperately” need the Keystone XL pipeline? I really want to know. Every single one of the GOP presidential candidates supports the building of the KXL… the perfect symbol for today’s GOP: the very epitome of a white elephant.
 

Trump: “Keystone XL needed desperately“ (:08 seconds)

 

As I noted less than three weeks ago, the Republican congress made good on it’s threat to try to pass the “Keystone XL pipeline” one more time, in a juvenile move to pander to their childlike constituency. Not ONE Republican was willing to step up as the adult in the room (or perhaps too dumb to even know themselves) and point out that the price of oil is too low for the KXL to be economically feasible… not just due to current oil prices, but as OPEC has now proven, they can easily undercut the price of oil any time they like to make the KXL too costly to operate.

So if it’s not because “we need the jobs” and it’s not because “gas prices are too high” (oil producing states in the South and Alaska are actually being hit hard by job layoffs due to a lack of need for more oil), then what is it? A Google News search turns up no other mention of Trump explaining why we “desperately” need the KXL. More to the point, if NOT building it has hurt us, how do you then defend threatening to NOT build it yourself? If we need it so badly, wouldn’t “some” gain be better than none?

Clearly, “The Donald” is not talking about the loss of jobs, because those meager few jobs would have been created whether we got most of the profits or not. Nor is it about getting gas prices down for the same reason. Is it about “Energy independence” after he “bombs the Middle-East back to the Stone Age”? I bet’cha that’s what he’s thinking.

Except it wouldn’t.

I’ve already explained in great detail (see Keystone link in titlebar) how the Alberta tarsands would not get us anywhere CLOSE to “energy independence”. And OPEC would ensure it was ALWAYS too costly to operate.

As I just pointed out above, the price of oil is SO low now, the pipeline would operate at a loss for months/years to come (likely never turn a profit). TransCanada is suing the Obama Administration… not for the right to complete the pipeline, but for “damages”. This is a tacit admission that THEY DON’T WANT IT BUILT ANYMORE. The Obama Administration rejecting the pipeline likely saved their butts from incurring catastrophic losses that could have bankrupted the company, and suing for damages is a way to recover part of their losses for the portion they’ve already built. They could have suffered a loss of over $30 for every barrel of oil produced, and TransCanada predicted the KXL would transport/produce “1.1 million barrels of oil per day“… which translates to a loss of $31 Million/DAY (or roughly $11 Billion dollars a year). Just how long do you think they could have kept THAT up? (And this is AFTER the expense of completing the construction.) They should be thanking their lucky stars the pipeline was rejected.

I’m of the personal belief that the reason Trump thinks we “desperately” need the KXL is because of his plan to “bomb the $#!+” out of the Middle East. Like so many other clueless Republicans that have bought the hype, he clearly believes the KXL would make the United States “energy independent”, allowing us to not need to import a drop of foreign oil. Not only is that beyond ridiculous, but unless he also plans to take over the entire U.S. oil industry, NATIONALIZE it and ban all exports, oil prices will ALWAYS be set by the world market, still subjecting American consumers and TransCanada to the whims of the Middle East.

It’s also one more reminder why Republicans should NEVER be trusted with running our economy ever again if they STILL think we need the Keystone XL and rejecting it has been devastating to (or otherwise endangers) the U.S.. Ask the Southern states with all their oilfield job layoffs if they think now is the time for MORE oil glutting the market and driving prices down even further?

An aside: During an interview on Fox “news” Sunday yesterday, Marco Rubio vowed to “turn the country around.” Turn it around? Record job growth. Unemployment down. The deficit is down. Military deaths are down. Gas prices are WAY down. The stock market is up… explain to me why ANYONE would want the country to do an about-face and return us to the economic & national security disaster of just seven short years ago???

These ideologues are so clueless, they’re dangerous.

(Note: Iowa caucus is one week from tonight [Feb 1st], so expect a brief delay in next week’s column. – Mugsy)
 

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January 25, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Economy, Election, Energy Independence, Jobs, Money, myth busting, Politics, Right-Wing Insanity

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