Senate approves Keystone XL pipeline

[donnay]

I think the issue should be decided by the corporations and the land owners with the courts acting as the arbitrator. I don't see why Congress should be involved. I don't see where Congress even gets the Constitutional authority to prevent a pipeline from being built.

What a tangled web...the corporations want congress involved, they have paid them handsomely to help them out. The bottom line is the fifth amendment be damned.

 

[donnay]

Refinery Operators Make Big Contributions

Senators voting for the bill got 10 times the amount, at an average $236,544, than those who voted against it ($22,882). Democratic senators who voted for the bill, even though Obama had indicated his opposition, received 3.2 times as much as the Democrats who voted against it ($73, 279 vs. $22,882). Sen. John Hoeven, the Republican from North Dakota who sponsored the legislation, received $275,998.

The contributions happened between Oct. 1, 2012 and Sept. 30, 2014. To say that more money caused the vote is not necessarily a foregone conclusion. It could be that the industry donated more heavily to candidates predisposed to support the bill. But the contributions did happen over a time that was of particular importance to political support of the bill.

Gulf Coast refinery operators have contributed heavily to generally lobbying Congress and federal agencies. Since Jan. 1, 2013, the following top five spent $58.8 million (although there is no way to know what percentage was focused on the pipeline question vs. other topics):

ExxonMobil (XOM) — $26,070,000
Shell (RDS-A) — $17,280,000
Phillips 66 (PSX) — $7,420,000
Marathon Petroleum (MPC) — $5,800,000
Valero (VLO) — $2,180,000

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2015/02...contributions-connected/?a_dgi=aolshare_email

 

[Natural Citizen]

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2015/02...contributions-connected/?a_dgi=aolshare_email

Some interesting players in the Canadian oil fields. Haven't mentioned them here yet. You know the ones. Koch Brothers are cashing in on a great deal of land relative to tar sands holdings while continuing to fund a political army within government to legislate their products and interests domestically as well as abroad. I wonder how much of their money has gone toward the so called representatives who passed this thing. I had a list around here some place. It was huge. As was the list of political organizations.

And I won't even get into the many political organizations that have been created under the illusion of liberty in order to disillusion the people as to what is really happening here. Going to have to put a lasso on that stalking horse, for sure.

Here is just one example... Koch Brothers Cashing In 220,000 Acres of Tar Sands Holdings

 

[William Tell]

The Keystone Pipeline isn't libertarian?

Lol! Ron said let the market deal with it and let the states deal with it. Here we are talking about a specific bill, I don't object to pipelines. I object to pipelines that are crony deals that lead to violating property rights.

 

[Brett85]

If destroying the largest aquifer in our country is a libertarian stand than I renounce it right now. Water is way more necessary to life and health I don't care who looses money. Go Obama veto that crap.

Did you see the link I posted? There's no threat to the water aquifer from the pipeline being built.

 

[Brett85]

Lol! Ron said let the market deal with it and let the states deal with it. Here we are talking about a specific bill, I don't object to pipelines. I object to pipelines that are crony deals that lead to violating property rights.

I think Ron was pretty clear in what he said that he would support a bill that would allow the Keystone pipeline to be built. Ron wasn't just referring to pipelines generally, but said specifically that he was in favor of allowing the Keystone Pipeline to be built.

 

[kpitcher]

It's libertarian to get the government out of the way, which is what this bill does.

Aren't there issues of eminent domain being used which puts the government back in charge of doing the bidding of corporate interests?

 

[Natural Citizen]

I think Ron was pretty clear in what he said that he would support a bill that would allow the Keystone pipeline to be built. Ron wasn't just referring to pipelines generally, but said specifically that he was in favor of allowing the Keystone Pipeline to be built.

What did Ron say about putting it on the world's second largest aquifer? Oh...that's right...nobody asked that question. Right? What did he say with regard to Eminent Domain? Nothing? What?...nobody asked about that? Well put me in polkadots and call me Suzy. Whoda thunkit. We ask, you decide, is it?

I wonder if Rand would respond to those questions. You know...if anyone had the sense to maybe ask him in front of a genuine journalist's camera. Hm. Someone maybe needs to help that along.

 

[donnay]

Some interesting players in the Canadian oil fields. Haven't mentioned them here yet. You know the ones. Koch Brothers are cashing in on a great deal of land relative to tar sands holdings while continuing to fund a political army within government to legislate their products and interests domestically as well as abroad. I wonder how much of their money has gone toward the so called representatives who passed this thing. I had a list around here some place. It was huge. As was the list of political organizations.

And I won't even get into the many political organizations that have been created under the illusion of liberty in order to disillusion the people as to what is really happening here. Going to have to put a lasso on that stalking horse, for sure.

Here is just one example... Koch Brothers Cashing In 220,000 Acres of Tar Sands Holdings

Koch Industries 2014
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000186&year=2014

Total Lobbying Expenditures: $13,800,000
Subtotal for Subsidiary Koch Industries Public Sector: $13,800,000

Role in Keystone XL tar sands pipeline:

Koch Industries has been involved in tar sands operations for half a century. Koch refines 25% of tar sands crude oil entering the U.S. and operates a terminal at the proposed pipeline's origin in Hardisty, Alberta. Koch Industries has repeatedly denied any financial interest in TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline. After 6 months of public insistence that Koch Industries had nothing to do with Keystone XL, news emerged that Koch's wholly-owned subsidiary Flint Hills Resources told Canada's Energy Board it has "direct and substantial interest" in a government filing. Flint Hills owns Koch's Pine Bend refinery in Rosemont, Minnesota, which can process 339,000 barrels of oil per day, and "is among the top processors of Canadian crude in the United States. Koch has continued to deny any financial link to TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline, although Americans for Prosperity (which was founded by the Kochs, chaired by David Koch and funded by over $5.6 million from Koch foundations) bussed pipeline supporters to testify at State Department Hearings in Nebraska.

http://www.polluterwatch.com/koch-industries

 

[invisible]

But it isn't "government intervention." It's just getting the government out of the way.

If government forces someone to sell their property through eminent domain, it is not getting out of the way. Supporting that sort of thing can in no way be construed as a libertarian position.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Koch has continued to deny any financial link to TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline, although Americans for Prosperity (which was founded by the Kochs, chaired by David Koch and funded by over $5.6 million from Koch foundations) bussed pipeline supporters to testify at State Department Hearings in Nebraska.

Yeah, aside from the ones they have in political office running interference for them, they have a rather large PR mechanism out in the public...

Cato Institute, Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, Citizens for a Sound Economy 2, Environmental Literacy Council, George Mason’s Mercatus Center, Property and Environment Research Center, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, Center for Equal Opportunity, Heritage Foundation, Institute for Energy Research, Institute for Humane Studies, Atlas Economic Research Foundation, Bill of Rights Institute, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Youth Entrepreneurs of Kansas, Citizens for Congressional Reform Foundation, Institute for Justice, Frontiers of Freedom Institute, Reason Foundation,Texas Public Policy Foundation, National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship,The Phillips Foundation, Federalist Society,John Locke Foundation, Institute for the Study of Human Origins,Fund for American Studies, American Enterprise Institute & Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, James Madison Institute, Manhattan Institute, John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, Washington Legal Foundation, Young America’s Foundation, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Leadership Institute, Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment, American Council on Science & Health, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Laffer Center for Global Economic Growth, National Center for Policy Analysis, Association of Private Enterprise Education, American Legislative Exchange Council, Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives, Capital Research Center, Center for Independent Thought, Tax Foundation,National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Legal Foundation, Independent Women’s Forum, Carbon Dioxide & Global Change Center, International Foundation for Research in Experimental Economics,Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Acton Institute, Market Based Management Institute, Fraser Institute, Media Institute, Pacific Research Institute, Heartland Institute, American Council for Capital Formation, Goldwater Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation, Libertarian Review Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, Students in Free Enterprise, Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, Center for Excellence in Education, Center for Freedom & Prosperity Foundation,Ayn Rand Institute, National Tax Limitation Foundation,International Policy Network, North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Free Enterprise Education Institute, Atlantic Legal Foundation, South Carolina Policy Council for Political Economy, Center for Individual Rights, Media Research Center, Texas Justice Foundation, Future of Freedom Foundation, Foundation for Economic Education, Pacific Legal Foundation, National Taxpayers Union Foundation, Foundation for Human Development, Institute for Policy Innovation, American Spectator, Critical Review Foundation, Galen Institute, Hudson Institute

Source: Tax records for the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, available at guidestar.org for 2009 and compiled on Media Matters Action Network website for prior years.


USA is so freaking doomed at this rate. I'm still chuckling about the whole "Well, let's just run this tar sands pipeline through the second largest aquifer in the world and to heck with sovereignty and private property because...get this...Liberty" gag. Who the heck are these idiots?

Well...we know who is who. I suppose that what I mean is who the heck do they think they are? Gosh.

 

[Brett85]

If government forces someone to sell their property through eminent domain, it is not getting out of the way. Supporting that sort of thing can in no way be construed as a libertarian position.

But it just seems like the issue should be handled between the corporation and the land owner with the courts as the arbiter. I'm not sure why Congress should vote against allowing the process to move forward, or where they even have the Constitutional authority to prevent a pipeline from being built.

 

[invisible]

But it just seems like the issue should be handled between the corporation and the land owner with the courts as the arbiter. I'm not sure why Congress should vote against allowing the process to move forward, or where they even have the Constitutional authority to prevent a pipeline from being built.

The issue should be between the land owner, and anyone who wants to purchase the land. No courts, no government, no force. Courts ARE government. If someone doesn't want to sell, then someone else can't buy. That should be the end of it, right there.
Congress should vote against it, because a vote for it is a vote to force government to take someone's property through eminent domain. Perhaps it's easy for you to sit back and argue that eminent domain is a good thing, that it's for the greater good (which is a socialist argument, not a libertarian argument) because you've never had it happen to you. I have, and lost a fully paid for house taken by eminent domain. Why are you attempting to make an argument that Congress voting to authorize eminent domain is somehow a good thing? The only argument for this is a socialist argument. Or perhaps a mercantilist / fascist one.

 

[Brett85]

The issue should be between the land owner, and anyone who wants to purchase the land. No courts, no government, no force. Courts ARE government. If someone doesn't want to sell, then someone else can't buy. That should be the end of it, right there.
Congress should vote against it, because a vote for it is a vote to force government to take someone's property through eminent domain. Perhaps it's easy for you to sit back and argue that eminent domain is a good thing, that it's for the greater good (which is a socialist argument, not a libertarian argument) because you've never had it happen to you. I have, and lost a fully paid for house taken by eminent domain. Why are you attempting to make an argument that Congress voting to authorize eminent domain is somehow a good thing? The only argument for this is a socialist argument. Or perhaps a mercantilist / fascist one.

That's just a straw man argument. I'm not advocating that Congress authorize eminent domain. I'm just advocating what Ron advocated, that the issue should be handled by the states and the free market.

 

[invisible]

That's just a straw man argument. I'm not advocating that Congress authorize eminent domain. I'm just advocating what Ron advocated, that the issue should be handled by the states and the free market.

Please, by all means, go ahead and demonstrate that my argument is a straw man. It isn't. Saying so doesn't make it one.
You advocated that the courts should somehow be involved. Courts are government. By all means, please explain how someone being forced to sell their property the government is a free market mechanism.

 

[Brett85]

Please, by all means, go ahead and demonstrate that my argument is a straw man. It isn't. Saying so doesn't make it one.
You advocated that the courts should somehow be involved. Courts are government. By all means, please explain how someone being forced to sell their property the government is a free market mechanism.

I'm saying that it should be up to the courts to rule that a private company doesn't have the right to force a landowner to sell their property. The courts should tell the Keystone company that they can only go through land where the landowner agrees to allow his land to be used for that purpose. But Congress has no Constitutional authority to prevent a company from building a pipeline. It's basically the same thing with the EPA. Libertarians don't support allowing people to pollute other people's property, but we still don't support having an agency like the EPA handle the issue. We rightly understand that the best way to protect the environment is by protecting private property rights, by allowing people to sue and go through the court system when someone pollutes their property.