I’ve already discussed the Keystone XL pipeline situation here and here. It’s apparent the Obama administration has a problem with the oil and natural gas industry although they are deemed safe to the environment through mountains of impact studies and create thousands of new jobs.

A little reported lawsuit in which the US Attorney for North Dakota hauled seven oil and natural gas companies into federal court for killing 28 migratory birds that were found dead near oil waste lagoons last year has been ruled upon. Wind production companies were not found within this suit and not presumed “guilty” of similar circumstances. Imagine that.

Continental Resources was accused of violating the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act because “on or about May 6, 2011 in the District of North Dakota” the company “did take [kill] one Say’s Phoebe,” of the tyrant flycatcher bird family. Brigham Oil & Gas is accused of killing two Mallard ducks. The Class B misdemeanors carry fines of up to $15,000 for each dead bird and up to six months in prison.

Now, about the wind industry, which the environmentalists and Barack Obama are wild about. Each year the wind industry kills not 28 birds, or even a few hundred, but some 440,000, according to estimates by the American Bird Conservancy based on Fish and Wildlife Service data. At the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area Northern California, some 5,000 wind turbines each year kill scores of golden and bald eagles, which are highly protected under federal law. In fact, according to the September 13 draft of its new “Land-Based Wind Energy Guidelines,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would give the wind industry “assurances” of law enforcement discretion if it adheres to certain safeguards and then inadvertently kills birds.

Gas and oil had been prosecuted under the “Migratory Bird Act.” The criminal charges carried fines and potential prison sentences. A recent ruling by US district Judge Daniel Hovland contrasted “incidental and unintended” deaths during “legal, commercially-useful activity” with “hunting and poaching.”

The court rejected US Attorney Timothy Purdon’s “expansive interpretation of the law” because it “would yield absurd results”:

If the government’s case carried the day, “many everyday activities become unlawful—and subject to criminal sanctions—when they cause the death of pigeons, starlings, and other common birds.”

The court wrote that among the potential felonious bird-killing habits are cutting brush and trees, planting and harvesting crops, driving a vehicle, owning a building with windows and . . . “owning a cat.” The court noted that cats kill “hundreds of millions” of birds each year and cars kill 60 million, while windows kill 97 million to 976 million. In short, every American could be an unwitting criminal bird killer.

What we have here is “selective prosecution” by the Obama administration. Judge Hovland also pointed out that windmills kill “roughly 39,000 birds annually.” No lawsuits can be found against the windmill industry under the Migratory Bird Act.

Although I thought the Dodo bird was extinct it appears Obama and his ilk are the reincarnation of the bird. At least in name.

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Straight below I wrote about Barack Obama’s decision to “postpone” the Keystone XL Pipeline after the State Department (State presided over the Keystone XL review because it would cross the 49th parallel) determined in 2010 and then again last year that the project would have “no significant impacts” on the environment, following exhaustive studies.

This is significant because the environmental lobby rained down on the White House with protests and the State Department suddenly changed its position announced that a rerouting in Nebraska was necessary, which implied yet another round of environmental impact studies forecasting this would take another 15 months.

Keystone will run 2,000 miles but the area in dispute is 100 miles in Nebraska. A rerouting plan has been in the works since late November 2011. 20,000 direct jobs and at least 100,000 indirect jobs are hanging in the balance, not to mention the potential energy supply to America.

Republicans in Congress are at fault by attaching a rider to the December 23, 2011 payroll-tax bill that instructed Obama to make his determination within 60 days on whether the oil pipeline crossing the US border is in the national interest.

Guess what – Obama decided it’s in the national interest to oppose a project that creates jobs, economy, energy security, foreign policy advantages, employment, and trade. Keeping in mind all the impact studies have said their is no negative impact on the environment.

However, Mr. Obama may have sidestepped the rule of law in his decision. This make no difference to “The One” since he shreds portions of the Constitution frequently.

Back to that pesky rider.

1.  ”. . . the final environmental impact statement issued by the Secretary of State on August 26, 2011, satisfies all requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 . . .
2. . . . and section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.” Second, “any modification” to the route “shall not require supplementation of the final environmental impact statement . . .”
3. “. . . no further Federal environmental review shall be required.”

If we are to follow the law, as Obama failed to make national interest a part of his determination as part of the rider, “the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline . . . shall be in effect by operation of law.”

We are left with the following questions:

Will Mr. Obama be made to obey the letter and spirit of the law? and Will the Republicans in Congress enforce the rider?

If current events are any indication the spineless Republicans will back off, not assert themselves and allow Barack Obama to disregard the law. What’s new?

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Remember Obama telling us how we needed bailouts and TARP money to energize the economy and create shovel ready jobs? All we got were signs and orange barrels on the highways and byways of America but no crews working to improve our driving experience. To be fair, last year while driving through Michigan I did see some road work going on but mostly lane changes and those pesky barrels.

Times change but Barack Obama is consistent – he’s a pathological liar.

After 3 years of environmental review and a 60-day congressional deadline for a decision, the Obama administration ended the Keystone XL pipeline project that would bring tar sand oil from Canada to the US Gulf Coast and create thousands upon thousands of jobs – crude traveling 1,661 miles from Alberta to interconnections in Oklahoma and then to US refiners on the Gulf Coast. Shovel ready jobs and much needed oil in cooperation with our largest trading partner.

Obama complains he needs more time to make a decision. However, Keystone XL has been planned for years with TransCanada filing its application in 2008, and the State Department (State presided over the Keystone XL review because it would cross the 49th parallel) determined in 2010 and then again last year that the project would have “no significant impacts” on the environment, following exhaustive studies.

Then the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demonstrated why they need to be cut down to size or entirely eliminated. The EPA and Obama needed to appease the Leftist environmentalists while ending an economic opportunity for the country. Obama’s own Jobs Council disagrees with the administration and released a report that endorsed an “all-in approach” on energy, including the “profound new opportunities in shale gas and unconventional oil.” The 27 members handpicked by Obama recommended that he support:

“… policies that facilitate the safe, thoughtful and timely development of pipeline, transmission and distribution projects,” and they warned that failing to do so “would stall the engine that could become a prime driver of U.S. jobs and growth in the decades ahead.”

Obama has commissions (Simpson-Bowels) to recommend and advise him but when he doesn’t like the outcome of studies and analysis he goes in the direction he intended all along.

Shovel ready jobs for construction workers, pipefitters, mechanics, welders, electricians and “spin-off” jobs on the pipeline’s supply chain like skilled manufacturers and equipment suppliers, or still others who might work in oil refining and distribution have been killed by Obama.

Environmentalists seem to think they can prevent the development of Canada’s oil-rich tar sands, and that their rallies against Keystone XL will keep that carbon in the ground. They can’t, and it won’t. America’s largest trading partner will simply build a pipeline to the Pacific coast from Alberta and sell its petroleum products to Asia instead, China in particular.

These green advocates are merely delusional and Obama is pandering to them for money and votes. Real job creation is less important to Barack Obama than the people who make a living working for the green anti-industrial complex.

The Wall Street Journal called Barack Obama the “anti-jobs President” but he’s not my President. I call him the anti-American Marxist.

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