#1:
The Palin Pipeline is a deal conceived and nurtured in the corrupt intersection of Alaskan politics, Republican politics and the Oil & Gas Industry.
President Carter's Administration approved the concept of a natural gas pipeline to bring Alaskan natural gas to market. Since then, it has been a constant fight between competing groups of grifters to get a pipeline built that maximizes profits while passing on the risks to others. In 2006 Palin became Governor during the that year's battle over the pipeline.
The Palin Pipeline finally hits the sweet spot-it will maximize profits and dump the risks. Under the Palin Pipeline plan, American taxpayers are the "easy marks" of the scam. At the heart of the Palin Pipeline is the concept that the US Federal Government should shoulder all the financial risks-in fact, without massive Federal aid and loan guarantees, the pipeline will never be built. Perhaps, this is why Palin is on the ticket.
Not surprisingly, the law firm that Palin hired to put the deal together, review the applications and defend the TransCanada proposal is Greenberg Traurig (GT). Not only were they Jack Abramoff's employer at the height of his corruption, they are also tied to many, many other scandals and questionable deals. While Jack was a lobbyist for GT he hired an Alaskan lobbyist, Steven Silver, to work on "Issues Relating to Indian/Native American Policy" and "Exploration for Oil and Gas". It turns out that Silver was also Palin's lobbyist and that Jack hired him at the same time that GT moved into the "Oil & Gas" business by opening offices in Texas. Another aspect of the corrupt nature of this deal is that the Palin Pipeline will continue the long tradition of stealing resources from the indigenous peoples of North America while destroying their land and cultures.
Greenberg Traurig's entry into the international Oil & Gas business began after they hired Jack Abramoff and his scandal became a major problem for the firm. The firm's involvement with Abramoff's work for his clients and the Republican Party threatened Greenberg Traurig with a corporate death sentence similar to the one that Authur Andersen got in the wake of Enron. The firm was saved from this fate when they hired McCain's advisor Randy Scheunermann to "advise" GT on how to "work" with John McCain. It was a good investment. McCain's investigation cover-up of the Abramoff scandal gave Greenberg Traurig a "clean" bill of health and placed 750,000 pages of Abramoff documents that might prove otherwise into cold storage for 50 years. Since then the firm has given McCain over $160,000 and now John McCain has chosen their pipeline deal employer, Sarah Palin, as his running mate.
#2:
The Palin Pipeline is a proposal that puts Alaska First.
On the campaign trail, the Palin Pipeline is being sold as something that is great for the United States of America. Perhaps it will yield some good, but combing through the TransCanada application and the review of that application by Governor Palin and her Team, benefits to the United States are not mentioned. The focus is on benefits to Alaska-as if the people negotiating the deal thought Alaska was a separate county or something.
The deal is also very concerned with the needs of the Oil & Gas companies who will use the pipeline and how to maximize their profits. The deal is extremely concerned with ensuring that TransCanada is guaranteed a profit. The deal relies on loan guarantees, earmarks, appropriations and open-ended financial commitments from the Federal Government (aka US Taxpayers) to build and complete the pipeline. In return, there are no guarantees that the natural gas from the North Slope of Alaska will ever make it to the lower Forty-Eight States.
The Palin Pipeline will only move gas to Alberta, Canada. But it also offers a plan to divert some of the gas for shipment to China in the form of Liquid Natural Gas from a yet to be built facility in Valdez, Alaska.
There is very little about benefits for the rest of the United States in the proposal. The Federal Government only comes up when discussing regulations to get around; how to guarantee that any private sector money put into the project will get a return on their investment; and how any possible loss will be absorbed by US Taxpayers. Only a liar would call this "the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history." It is a typical Republican project. Guaranteed profits are outsourced while risks and problems are owned by the Government (and that really means that the risks are owned by us-"We the people").
The Palin Pipeline ensures that gas will get to homes and business in Alaska, but it does not guarantee that the gas will get to consumers and businesses in the lower Forty-Eight. The Palin Pipeline will only get the gas to Canada and then it will be up to the invisible hand of the markets to get the gas across the border. The end point of the Palin Pipeline does not connect to an existing gas pipeline to carry the gas South-that would have to be built by somebody else. Of course if the gas stays in Canada it can earn more money for investors by pulling oil out of the Alberta Tar Sands, but I'm sure that the McCain Campaign will tell you that in this case the "invisible hand" will put Country First. Oh, you betcha.
#3:
The Palin Pipeline will cost U.S Taxpayers Billions of dollars
Since Jimmy Carter approved building an Alaskan Natural Gas Pipeline roughly 30 years ago, various grifters have been getting US Taxpayers to fund various different schemes and plans as the Republican politicians, Alaskan politicians and the Oil & Gas Companies have fought a battle to control the energy resources of Alaska. Here we go again.
The Palin Pipeline plan guarantees that Alaskan taxpayers will give TransCanada $500 Million just to help cover the cost of getting the proposal through US and Canadian regulators, environmental reviews and negotiations with Alaskan and Canadian indigenous peoples. Now, of course Governor Palin says the money comes from "Alaskan Taxpayers", but in reality it is US Taxpayers who are picking up the tab. Perhaps this payoff to TransCanada is how Governor Palin is choosing to spend the almost $500 Million that US taxpayers gave Alaska for the Bridge to Nowhere. Or the money could come from the Billions of dollars in earmarks, giveaways and payoffs that Federal Government keeps sending to Alaska. In 2005 Alaska got $1.84 for every $1 sent to the Federal Government. It is an energy rich State that is subsidized by the tax payers of New Hampshire, Michigan and the rest of the lower Forty-Eight.
US Tax Payers are already on the dime for Federal loan guarantees to build the pipeline. $18 Billion was appropriated as part of the Alaskan Natural Gas Pipeline Act of 2004 and more funds and loan guarantees will need to be committed if the pipeline is ever to be built. And if anything goes wrong, taxpayers will fund the bail-out of TransCanada.
The TransCanada pipeline proposal not only pushed the idea of even more Federal Loan Guarantees, it also promoted the concept of the Federal Government acting as a "Bridge Shipper" to guarantee TransCanada payment for gas NOT shipped through the pipeline. The Anchorage Daily News reported that "this means the government would agree to pay some of the pipeline transportation fees -- potentially billions of dollars -- should gas producers not commit enough gas initially to operate the line at full capacity."
This reminds me of an old Marx Brothers routine where Groucho asks Chico what it would cost for him NOT to work and Chico replies "You couldn't afford it".
A McCain/Palin Administration will ensure that all the financial risks of this project will be paid by US Taxpayers. Hang onto your wallets. Your pockets are being picked and-as a bonus-don't expect to ever see the gas.
#4:
The Palin Pipeline will divert natural gas to the tar sands of Alberta
When the McCain/Palin Campaign and their supporters brag about the Palin Pipeline they point to it as a "free-market" response to our dependence on foreign oil and the high costs of energy. They may even go so far as to claim that the pipeline will reduce the clear and growing threat of Climate Change because natural gas is a cleaner burning fuel than oil or coal. They may point to the pipeline as the "Invisible Hand of the Market" solving the energy problem and the climate crisis at the same time. This is, of course, nonsense.
The Paline Pipeline is different from past Alaskan pipeline proposals because it does not place a lot of emphasis on how natural gas would get from Alberta to the lower Forty-Eight. This is a detail to be worked out later-if at all. Even the proposed spur of the pipeline to ship Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) from Valdez, Alaska is a secondary goal. It seems to have been added to the TransCanada proposal to win support for the plan from that part of Alaska.
Way back in 2006 there were a number of competing pipeline plans. There was an "All Alaskan Plan" that would build a pipeline from the North Slope to a LGN shipping facility in Valdez, AK. There was the long discussed "Southern Route" that would build a pipeline that tracked the Alaskan Highway into Canada and connect with existing pipelines delivering gas to the lower Forty-Eight. A third proposal took a different route to get the gas to US and international markets.
The Palin Pipeline just goes to Boundary Lake, Alberta. Curious.
Raise your hand if you know why that might be the case. Did you say oil sands or
tar sands? If you did, give yourself a gold star.
Now Canada has the world's second largest reserves of oil. Estimates are that our neighbor to the North is sitting on over 179 billion barrels of oil. Unfortunately for Canada and our planet, 95% of those reserves are embedded in the tar sands of Alberta. To pull oil out of those tar sands requires up to 4 barrels of fresh water per each barrel of oil and up to 1000 cubic feet of natural gas to heat the water and separate the oil from the tar sands. As thing stand today, pulling oil from tar sands requires about 0.6 billion cubic feet of gas per day. By 2015 the natural gas needs are projected to need 1.6 billion cubic feet of gas per day. By the time the Palin Pipeline comes online in 2017 the gas per day requirements are projected to be higher-and energy needs to pull oil out of the tar sands will only keep growing if our only energy policy is to always feed our oil addiction until the system collapses.
It used to be that the cost of a barrel of oil was less than what it cost to pull oil out of the tar sands. It is an energy, resource and labor intensive process and cost at least $28 per barrel to produce. In 2006, the price of a barrel of oil started climbing. No wonder, the former pipeline plans that bypassed the tar sands had to be changed.
The price of natural gas is not rising nearly as much as the price of oil. If you are an energy company, would you rather ship your gas to heat homes in the lower Forty-Eight for the market price of natural gas or would your move the your gas to your tar sand fields in Alberta, convert the gas to oil and then reap the profits. For example, in their 2006 Annual Report Royal Dutch Shell bragged about doubling their profit per barrel of oil from their Alberta tar sand field when compared to the profits they were making from other means of oil production. Moving gas to the Alberta tar fields is a cash cow.
And the Palin Pipeline is designed to maximize those profits. TransCanada is not a competing oil company. They'll make their profits from a piece of the action as the gas moves through their pipes (or payments from the US taxpayers when the gas flow is less than they need for their bottom line). Your energy companies, BP, Exxon, Shell and the like will have a low cost and low risk way to convert gas from Alaska into crazy profits. And all of it will be protected for any downside by Treasury of the United States.
We get the risks and they get the profits. We also get a doomed planet because pulling oil out of the Alberta Tar Sands is a Climate Change Acceleration Machine
#5:
The Palin Pipeline will Accelerate Climate Change and cause massive damage to people and the planet
If none of the above was true. If everything about the Palin Pipeline was on the up and up (and it isn't) this pipeline would still be a Global disaster because it will accelerate oil production from the tar sands of Alberta.
The current levels of oil production in Alberta is already a major contributor to the growing Climate Crisis. These fields rival coal power plants as a major contributor to Climate Change, and that is saying a lot. The only way to extract oil from these tar sands is to use massive amounts of energy. And once the oil is pulled out it also will contribute to the climate crisis. The Carbon Footprint of oil production in Alberta is massive. Increasing production and the size of that Carbon Footprint is insane.
Because it terminates in Alberta to feed to energy needs of extracting oil from tar sands, the Carbon Footprint of the Palin Pipeline in massive, reckless and dangerous to the future of our planet. This is a boondoggle that must be stopped.
Why only a person who does not believe in Climate Change and/or is a
Champion For Big Oil could approve, push and promote such a reckless plan. And only a fool would give such a person a chance to carry out the plan as Vice President.
And yet, here we are.
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