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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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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Yes, Marxist! Or maybe you’d prefer Communist? Barack Obama has once again crossed the line and ignored the US Constitution. Let me be very clear concerning one thing – Obama is no scholar or expert on the US Constitution. At best he was a part-time lecturer at the University of Chicago in the law department. He was not a Professor, he was only tenured in community organizing and a graduate from the “School of Saul Alinksky.” So forget that “expert” argument, it’s hold no weight.

If George W. Bush was referred to as the “Imperial President” for recess appointments than Barack Obama should be labeled “Tyrant.” At least Bush followed the rules and made legal recess appointments when Congress was officially out of session. Obama sees things differently. His arrogance precedes him. What did Obama do?

“The One” installed Richard Cordray, former Ohio Attorney General and current Comrade, as the first chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This latest Czar appointment is a result of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. Isn’t it funny how both sponsors, Dodd-Frank, chose not to seek reelection after years in office? HA! That was a rhetorical question. Bad legislation sometimes has its way of catching up to the crooked politicians who get them passed.

Obama has the power to make recess appointments but he has a problem when he doesn’t get his way. The last clause of Section 5 of Article 1 of the Constitution says that “Neither House” of Congress can adjourn for more than three days “without the Consent of the other” house. In this case, the House of Representatives had not formally consented to Senate adjournment.

It’s true the House did this to block Obama from making recess appointments, but it is following the Constitution in doing so. How does Mr. Obama legally justify this?

Senate Republicans had blocked Mr. Cordray’s nomination “because they don’t agree with the law setting up the consumer watchdog.”

So like a schoolyard child he picks up his marbles, burns the Constitution and goes on the campaign trail with his new Comrade with a visit to Ohio. Congress is allowed to have a different position then Obama. New Flash! It’s still America!!

Obama didn’t stop with the Cordray appointment. He named three new members to the National Labor Relations Board, two Democrats and one Republican, effectively giving the labor board a quorum that it wouldn’t have had with the December 31 expiration of the term of previous recess-appointee Craig Becker. Obama only notified Congress of his intent to nominate them on December 15 and the Senate hasn’t had time to hold a single confirmation hearing.

The NLRB is supposed to be bi-partisan but has now become a partisan arm of Big Labor but appointee Sharon Block is the Labor Department’s Congressional liaison and former aide to Ted Kennedy and Richard Griffin is general counsel for the International Union of Operating Engineers. You can’t get much further Left unless you resurrect Vladimir Lenin and appoint him.

One additional item on the Cordray appointment to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Dodd-Frank specifically states that the director or chief must be confirmed by the Senate to operate at full capacity in setting budgets and making rules. So without a full Senate confirmation for Comrade Cordray he remains illegitimate.

“The irony is that while this recess appointment may advance the White House’s political goals, it does nothing to advance the work of the CFPB. The statute creating the CFPB makes clear that only Senate confirmation of a director — not a recess appointment — can activate the new powers of this agency,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said in a statement.

Of course the administration disputes this assertion but I see a conflict between a recess appointments authority and what the law that person is operating under says.

There is a conflict but who cares, this is the Obama administration, illegitimate as well. Radicals like Obama make up their own rules, why let the US Constitution get in the way?

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