TOO MUCH LOST BLOOD AND TREASURE FOR OIL

from: Jerry Buechler

It has been said that the President  missed a shining moment to preserve peace in Iraq. Except, there never was peace.  Negotiations died over a Status of Forces Agreement that would protect remaining troops from Iraqi Kangaroo courts and a Hydrocarbon Law that would allow Production Sharing Agreements with western oil companies.  Maliki couldn’t secure either because of strong opposition by Iraqis and Iran to American occupation.

   I agree with Alan Greenspan who wrote “this is a war largely about oil”   Vice President Cheney held secret “Energy Task Force” meetings in 2001 and 2002 with oil company heads and the State Department and they decided that Iraq “should be open to international oil companies as quickly as possible after invasion.”

   We abandoned the hunt for Osama bin Laden to pursue Saddam Hussein who had nothing to do with 9/11.   CIA’s George Tenet said on “60 Minutes” , “We could never verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction, control, or complicity with Al-Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America, period.”

   Here is how Iraqi experienced our “Shock and Awe” attack.  First, approximately 29.000 bombs and missiles were detonated in Iraq in 2003.  10,000 were non precision weapons and about 4,000 of the precision weapons missed their targets altogether wreaking death and destruction on civilian homes, and other inadvertent targets.

   Second, household to household surveys estimated war deaths of 1.2 million Iraqis out of a population of 24 million.  If the U.S. was invaded and the result was 1 out of 20 or 17 million Americans killed,  I am positive we wouldn’t welcome the invaders as liberators.  So, if another U.S. surge is needed, let it be a surge of compassion.  Any finger-pointing has to include us.

CLIMATE CHANGE

from  Jerry Buechler

Why should economic and environmental insecurity be the price we pay for our addiction to fossil fuels?  The EPA is taking actions supported by former EPA heads for Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes!  Even the conservative World Bank states we need to keep 70% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground to avoid runaway climate change. 

  The U.S. consumes 20% of the 93 million barrels of oil burned everyday.   This combustion of fuel creates heat equal to 4-5 Hiroshima bombs going off every second or the lighting of an Olympic pool full of fuel every 15 seconds.  Over 94% of this heat is being absorbed by the ocean.  The result is warmer ocean waters and acidification as the ocean absorbs our carbon emissions.

   There is a better choice we can make.  The cost of wind energy fell tenfold between 1980 and 2000, and solar panel prices have dropped more than 80% in five years.  In 1998 U.S. Crude, after adjusting for inflation, was $17.10 a barrel and last week it hit $107.

  As for coal, El Paso Energy in Texas signed a purchase agreement to buy solar power form Macho Springs in NM for 5.79 cents a kilowatt-hour---- less than half the 12.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity from new coal plants.  East Coast offshore wind turbines can generate the same amount of electricity as 3,000 coal-fired power plants.  Do we want to invest in renewables which are getting cheaper each year or in foolish fossil fuels that are getting more expensive and damaging to our climate, air, water, and oceans?

ISN'T IT TIME FOR SOME TRUTH?

from Jerry Buechler

Letters keep bashing President Obama over Obamacare, Benghazi, and the “socialist redistribution of wealth.” The truth is,  “Trickle-Down economics” has benefited 434 U.S. billionaires.  Thirty percent of the Bush tax cuts went to the top 1%.  The result?  The tax cuts financed factories overseas and we have 20 million unemployed or underemployed.  While the inequality boom is booming over 16 million children live in poverty.  “The promise was that when the glass is full, it would overflow, benefiting the poor.  But what happens is that when the glass is full,  it magically gets bigger- nothing ever comes out for the poor,” said, Pope Francis.

Extremists constantly beat the drum of Benghazi.  What FOX (Fact Obstructing  extremism)  omits is that Ambassador Stevens rejected offers from Army Gen. Ham for additional security support, yet under President Bush 13 consulate attacks resulted in 112 deaths including 13 Americans.  U.S. Diplomat David Foy was killed in the Karachi, Pakistan Consulate after two previous attacks there?  Where was the outcry then?   Where was the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden after that Pakistan attack?  

    

The endless attempt to repeal Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) is hypocritical.  This market-based system was originally promoted by the conservative Heritage Foundation as an alternative to universal coverage.  Its fundamental premises are individual responsibility and market competition.  Its first success occurred under Gov. Mitt Romney with  97% of the people in Massachusetts now having coverage vs 80% of Floridians. Tallahassee turned down $51 billion of our tax dollars over the next decade to cover 1 million uninsured Floridians.  5-6 people per thousand die each year due to lack of coverage.  That’s 5000 Floridians dying needlessly each year due to lack of Medicaid coverage.  Twenty-five states are implementing this part of  Obamacare, why aren’t we?  I guess we just don’t care, even though our President does.

George Iliff calls global warming nonsense even though 97% of scientists disagree with him.  Here’s information from NASA scientists:

• The heat trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases is proven. 
• Ice core samples show CO2 levels fluctuating for the last 650,000 years between 180 parts per million and 298 PPM until 1950 when we crossed 300 PPM.
• Last year we moved past 400 PPM of CO2 in our atmosphere with annual increases over 2 PPM.
• Even though the 2000s witnessed a solar output decline resulting in an unusually deep solar minimum in 2007-2009, surface temperatures continued to increase.
• 10 of the warmest years on record have occurred in the last 12 years
• Global sea levels rose 6.7 inches in the last century.  The rate of the last decade was nearly double that of the last century. 
• The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 2300 feet showing warming of 0.3 degrees F since 1969.
• The amount of CO2 absorbed by the upper layer of the ocean is increasing by about 2 billion tons per year with the acidity of the ocean increasing by about 30% since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.  Reefs, a vital part of the ocean food chain, are dying from acidification.
• Glaciers, which feed rivers supplying fresh water for much of the world, are retreating in the Alps, Himalaya, Andes, Rockies, Alaska, and Africa.
• In Antarctica sea ice has been increasing by about 1% per decade, but about 100 billion tons of continental ice has been lost per year since 1993, causing the global sea level to rise by about 0.2mm a year.
• Greenland lost 60 cubic miles of ice in 2012, with a record ice melt last year.  Watch “Chasing Ice”- Netflix

Contact Jerry at: thetruthbyjerryb@gmail.com     305-510-4927

What is the Keystone XL Pipeline and the Tar Sands?

from Jerry Buechler

Explaining the Keystone XL Pipeline:

• The Keystone XL Pipeline is a proposed 36” diameter pipeline that would transport Canadian tar sands to Gulf coast refineries for export to foreign markets.  The pipeline will cross over thousands of farms and ranches, over 1400 waterways, over the Ogallala aquifer providing 30% of all agricultural water used in the U.S., and within 100 feet of 35 municipal water supplies.
• The tar sands are petroleum deposits consisting of a mixture of 85% sand and clay, 5% water and 10% bitumen.  Bitumen is a thick, tar-like form of hydrocarbon which when spilled has been impossible to extract from the environment  because it does not float on water like other forms of gas and oil. The largest known bitumen reserve exists in northern Alberta, Canada underneath 54,000 square miles of pristine boreal forest, an area the size of Florida.  Boreal forests store almost twice as much carbon as tropical forests.
• Extracting and processing tar sands into usable fuel is an energy-intensive process extremely devastating to the environment.  First, forests are clear cut, wetlands are drained and all of the subsoil (mostly peat) is bulldozed away to create gigantic pit-mines often encompassing 50 square miles or more.  The tar sands are then excavated with heavy machinery to the depth of about 100 yards and then washed  with steam and solvents to separate out the bitumen.   Processing of the tar sands  each day utilizes more freshwater than Calgary, Canada uses yearly, and enough natural gas to heat 3 million homes.  Over 90% of the water ends up as toxic wastewater pumped to unlined “tailings ponds” where it seeps into and contaminates the groundwater.  The Canadian organization, Environmental Defense, has called the Alberta tar sands “the most destructive project on earth.’
• The thick bitumen itself must be diluted with toxic chemicals in order to be able to flow through pipelines to specialized refineries capable of handling the tar sands oil.  The diluted bitumen is highly corrosive to pipelines and even more hazardous to the environment and public health.  A 2010 pipeline rupture in Marshall, Michigan spilled over 840,000 gallons into the Kalamazoo river, poisoning the groundwater, sickening hundreds and resulting in 150 families being permanently relocated.  
• Producing a barrel of synthetic tar sands oil releases three times more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than conventional oil, not counting the destruction of forests and peat bogs, two of the planet's largest terrestrial carbon sinks. NASA scientist James Hansen says tar sands development is “game over” for the climate.

“Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we can’t eat money.”

A  Few will profit while We will lose if the Keystone XL is built

• Keystone XL will not improve America’s energy security.  The pipeline is designed  to send oil directly to the Texas Gulf coast, and from there to overseas markets.  Canada isn’t producing enough oil to fill existing pipelines to Midwest refineries, which are running half-empty. Recently discovered TransCanada documents predict the pipeline to increase gas prices in the Midwest up to 15 cents a gallon when they skip over refineries in the Midwest, costing U.S. consumers over $2 billion yearly.
• After the pipeline is finished, the number of full time jobs according to the State Department's’ own study is about 35 yearly.  The 7 billion construction spending could create many more permanent jobs if the money was invested in clean energy technologies such as wind and solar energy.  Over 100,000 workers in the agricultural and tourism sectors contribute several billion to the economies in the Keystone XL pipelines states.  A large tar sand spill puts these workers jobs at risk.
• The first Keystone pipeline operated by TransCanada spilled 35 times in the U.S and Canada in 2010.  A spill frequency 100 times higher than predicted.  Additives added to the tar sands oil allowing it to flow are very corrosive to the pipelines.  The  2010 spill in the Kalamazoo River has ongoing clean up costs surpassing $1 billion already while residents still complain of headaches, dizziness and nausea.  
• Canadian government scientists have found that levels of mercury around the region’s tar sands operations are up to 16 times higher than regular levels for the region.  The 7500 square miles impacted are contaminated by airborne mercury emissions originating from oil sands developments according to scientists.
• Climate Change:  The Keystone XL is the fuse to North America’s biggest carbon bomb.-  In a study funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, a group of retired four-star generals and admirals concluded that climate change, if not addressed, will be the greatest threat to national security as people are uprooted globally by rising seas, destructive fires, erratic weather, windstorms, desertification, and failing crops.
• TD Bank (Toronto Dominion Bank) has more than 15 billion dollars invested in the expansion of the Alberta tar sands project.  This Canadian bank has a well documented involvement with tar sands corporations Enbridge and TransCanada.  We encourage TD Bank account holders to talk to your TD Bank manager and encourage him to write a letter to the TD CEO, urging him and the Board of Directors to divest their holdings and loans to TransCanada the Canadian energy giant that is developing the Alberta Tar Sands Oil fields.
• Call on President Obama (202)456-1111 and the State Department (202)261-8081 to reject the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Texas.  10 Nobel Peace Prize recipients are asking the President  to do the same

Contact Jerry Buechler at thetruthbyjerryb@gmail.com      305-510-4927

Keystone XL Pipeline: Danger to the Environment and the Economy

from Jerry Buechler

photo credit

Dear President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, and Senator Nelson,

We are not serious about reducing global warming and its huge costs if we allow the investment of $7 billion in a pipeline to bring the most carbon-intensive oil, Tar Sands oil, to the U.S. Gulf for export.  There is no mention in the March 1st U.S. State Department Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) that the Keystone XL pipeline will actually increase costs and U.S. dependence on oil by transporting Canadian oil to gulf refineries for export.

The refineries contracted are all within a Foreign Trade Zone, which will profit from special tax breaks for shipping gasoline and diesel out of our country.  TransCanada’s own analysis, as part of its Canadian permit application, estimates per barrel prices will rise an estimated $3/barrel once the pipeline line is completed due to the fact that large gulf refineries will be refining the tar sands for export rather than Midwest refineries who now refine the tar sands for domestic consumption.  The estimated increased pump price is 3-4 cents/gallon more, plucking an estimated $4 billion out of the pockets of US consumers yearly and giving it to Canadian and multinational oil interests.

The Keystone XL Pipeline is going through the U.S. and not to the U.S.  Needing the KXL for energy independence and for jobs is the repeated lie promoted by big oil and and elected representatives in Congress who fear offending the hand that feeds their campaign coffers.  This was shown in a House vote last year on a Keystone XL proposal called the “Sell-in-America Only” amendment which got voted down by all Republicans while supported by Democrats.  

We import more oil from Canada than any other country.  From a Canadian perspective the problem with the existing tar sands pipelines, which have unused capacity, is they all end in the Midwest and allow one buyer only- the United States.  Most of the tar sands oil is refined into diesel, but U.S. diesel prices average $4/gallon while European prices average $8/gallon. TransCanada, the builder of the existing pipelines, has proposed building and connecting pipelines to west and east coast shipping ports in Canada, but Canadian citizens have consistently opposed the idea.

The fact is the U.S. for the first time since 1949 exported more oil in 2011 than it  imported.  In 2011 shipments abroad of petroleum products exceeded imports by 439,000 barrels a day.  In 2012  the U.S. shipped abroad 350,000 barrels a day more petroleum products than it imported and the Energy Department's estimates for 2013 are 320,000 more barrels per day exported than imported. Global demand for transportation fuels is dramatically up in China, India, and Latin American countries.  Pump prices are rising due to rising global demand and  oil companies with an allegiance to profit rather than the country from which they harvest the oil  Higher pump prices are occurring despite  increased oil production and lower fuel consumption in the U.S.

Where are the jobs?  The 3/1/13 SEIS estimates the creation of 35 permanent jobs.  I come from South Dakota and when the Keystone One pipeline was built through S.D. to Midwest refineries  constructions jobs in abundance were promised. But according to TransCanada’s own data,  just 11% of the construction jobs on the pipeline in S.D. were filled by South Dakotans- most of them temporary, low-paying manual labor jobs.  We need jobs, but not ones which will increase  global warming.  There is no shortage of water and sewage pipelines, bridges and tunnels, transportation and electrical infrastructures that need repair or development.  A carbon tax channeled to energy conservation, electrical grid upgrades, building appropriately placed solar and wind installations, and improving and expanding public transportation could create millions of jobs and as a result reduce air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and save money for Americans by investing in energy efficiency for homes and businesses.

Three years after a tar sand oil spill on Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, clean up costs could surpass $1 billion according to the pipeline builder Enbridge Energy Partners.  More than 800,000 gallons of tar sands oil flowed some 40 miles across wetlands and rivers in July 2010.  Enbridge keeps asking the EPA to delay clean up orders while citizens criticize the slow clean up efforts near their properties.  TransCanada promised that Keystone One would have one leak in 7 years, but there were 12 spills in the first year. TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline will cross through America’s agricultural heartland (250,000 ranches and farms),  and cross over the Ogallala aquifer ( which provides 30% of the agricultural water used in the U.S.), over the Missouri River (and 1400 other waterways), sage grouse habitat, walleye fisheries, and the Right of Way comes within 100 feet of 35 municipal water supplies all of which face potential contamination should we proceed with this folly.

Senator Bill Nelson you recently voted to approve, in a non-binding Senate vote, the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.  After your return from your space flight in 2001 you spoke these words in the Senate supporting W. Virginia Senator Byrd’s legislation on global warming:  “Space is an airless vacuum that goes on and on for billions of light-years.  There in its midst, suspended, is this wonderful creation called planet Earth, our home.  As I would look at the rim of the Earth, I could see what sustains all of our life.  I could see the atmosphere.  As I would look further, I would start to see how we are messing it up.”  In the light of your words I would ask you to reconsider your support for the plunder and destruction of pristine carbon reducing boreal forest in Canada with the potential size of Florida, leaving behind toxic tailing lakes which kill birds and aquatic life and then release global warming carbon and methane as everything in them rots and dies.  Mr. President, Mr. Kerry, and Mr. Nelson are you going to support the 1% or are you going to support carbon reduction and clean air and the millions of jobs that could be created for the 99% by making this country clean energy independent?  CO2 levels went up from 393.54 parts/per/million (ppm) in February 2012 to 396.80 ppm in Feb. 2013 at the Mauna Loa Observatory.  350 ppm is considered safe by scientists, yet at the current rate of increase we will be at 500 ppm in another 30 years.  CO2 was last at 500 ppm 2.5 million years ago and two-thirds of present Florida was underwater.  It is time to stop ignoring the elephant in the room!

                                                            

Jerry Buechler, St. Lucie County Democrats, V- President

thetruthbyjerryb@gmail.com

Also Concerned? Speak up at:  keystonecomments@state.gov. and

billnelson.senate.gov/contact/email.cmf  or  call (202)224-5374