Senator Mike Rounds has reading comprehension problems. Check out his response to President Barack Obama’s decision that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would not serve our national interest:
“This president clearly worships at the altar of climate change,” U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds told The Associated Press. “I’d much rather be buying oil from our friends in North Dakota and our friends in Canada than the Iranians, and I think this president and this secretary of state are going to have a lot of explaining to do” [“SD Keystone XL Review Goes on Despite President’s Rejection,” AP via Rapid City Journal, 2015.11.06].
The President said a lot about climate change in his speech announcing his rejection of Keystone XL yesterday. He affirmed that the United States is and should be a leader in combatting the harms climate change is doing to our biosphere. But he said pretty explicitly that climate change was not a major factor in this specific decision. Review the text:
Now, for years, the Keystone Pipeline has occupied what I, frankly, consider an overinflated role in our political discourse. It became a symbol too often used as a campaign cudgel by both parties rather than a serious policy matter. And all of this obscured the fact that this pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others [President Barack Obama, speech, The White House, 2015.11.06].
If President Obama was worshipping at some altar when he decided to axe Keystone XL, it wasn’t the altar of climate change. It was the altar of job creation, lower gas prices, and U.S. energy security, none of which, he said in his three main points, would be enhanced by Keystone XL.
President Obama doesn’t worship at some altar of climate change. Unlike Senator Rounds, President Obama does respect truth in informed public debate. He rejected the lies Rounds has peddled. He actually looked at the evidence and saw that the U.S. would not use the oil shipped by Keystone XL. Senator Rounds evades the truth with his hyperbolic climate-change rhetoric.
The President made the right decision: Keystone XL was no good for South Dakota and no good for America.
Mike Rounds is right on this one. The oil will still be produced and transported on rail. Trains derail and they have killed people. This decision has set our energy independence back 20 years.
This was another scare tactic by the tree huggers and bunny lovers to make the USA more dependent on imported oil from countries that are supporting those trying to destroy the USA.
The liberal are always screaming for more money for education and every time someone such as Trans Canada is willing to increase the tax base they try to stop them with their constant miss-information campaigns.
This was a decision based on fiction instead of fact.
Rounds is an idiot. This crap isn’t oil, it’s diluted bitumen and is safe enough to ship in gondolas.
Kristi Noem voted with the majority to approve the export of domestically produced oil. I expect that Mike Rounds will vote in a similar manner when the bill gets to the senate. How can Mike be so concerned about buying oil from Canada when he will turn around and export US produced oil. Mike, you have some splaining to do.
That’s not what Mike Rounds said, Sam. The comment above didn’t mention rail.
Rounds said Keystone XL had oil that we’d be buying and that instead we’ll be stuck buying from the Iranians. The facts show that little if any of that oil was destined for the U.S. market. And twenty years? Out of what hat do you pull that number? That sounds more like the same hyperbole that the President said he was resisting. How does Keystone XL represent a vital source of imported oil that we haven’t already recovered through domestic production and fuel efficiency?
Sam, Tarsands dilbit will not be shipped by rail. Bitumen needs to be thinned with 30% diluent to be able to flow. Or you could ship it undiluted in gondola cars as larry mentioned. Problem is how to get it out of the cars once it reaches the Gulf. Undiluted bitumen is the consistency of peanut butter. Currently only 4% of the dilbit that reaches the Gulf does so by rail. It just ain’t going to happen despite what you and Mike think.
As for your comment about the tax revenue that the counties will receive: TransCanada had promised the counties along the route of Keystone 1 that they would receive $9.1 million a year in new tax revenue. The five year average of taxes paid by TransCanada is closer to $3.4 million. Someone seems to be misinformed on this and I think that it is you.
Mike Rounds is the idiot who gave foreign company TransCanada a $30 million tax break for doing something they were going to do anyway – build the Keystone I pipeline through South Dakota. No other states gave TransCanada free money like South Dakota did. You really can’t trust anything Mike Rounds says about pipelines. He’s never looked out for taxpayers, landowners, or for the public interest.
Sam,did you freaking nutjobs ever stop to wonder why other nations hate us? Could it be that you and your buddies are arrogant SOBs with no respect for any life except the filthy rich and the unborn? Does your party of first strikes bear any responsibility for the problems in the Middle East,which was relatively stable until Frat Brat dumbass dubya decided to upset the entire apple cart cuz Saddam tried to kill his daddy,not? How’s democracy in the M.E. working out for you,pal?
A couple SoDak politicians took money from the Koch’s and made iron clad promises in exchange. “Somebody got some ‘splainin’ to do, Lucy.”
…ps: I love trees and bunnies. Gun Huggers? Not much love for them.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/06/17/tar-sands-tracks-railbit-dilbit-and-u-s-export-terminals
Why not ship dilbit by pack mule? They are sure footed. They can drop fertilizer along the way. They don’t cost much to feed,hardly ever tip over and you can eat them,if you get desperate. Unlike sheep with cowboys,you can’t screw up the cooking or vice versa.
Rounds was also the governor when he and his 2/3 Republican legislature killed all Democratic attempts to require TransCanada to be financially responsible for any environmental damage done by Keystone pipelines. TransCanada being a limited liability business entity, is not really a person despite Republican claims. If it wants to get from under its obligations like the mining companies did in the Black Hills it can transfer its assets to some other limited liability business entity and declare bankruptcy leaving SD landowners with ruined land. Democrats tried to address this potential several different ways by requiring TransCanada to either bond for or pay into a fund to ensure that landowners would be protected in the event of a spill. Rounds and his Republicans would have nothing of it. Corporations first. South Dakotans second. Had Republicans been willing to do right by the people who elected them rather than handing windfalls to the monied special interests, and had they been honest about the export nature of the pipeline, maybe they could have brought about an approval of Keystone II years ago. This polarization they propagate leads to all or nothing results and this time they got nothing.
I am curious as to how the current PUC renewal process can continue after this recent development. Would not this completely change TransCanada’s stated objectives? Would not this allow lawsuits by landowners who signed easements under false pretenses and or under duress? Mr. Seamans?
Under Mike Rounds TransCanada was on track to receive a refund of 90% of the 2% contractors excise tax. This would have amounted to a refund of $50 million. The bigger the project the higher the refund percentage. TransCanada had no problem with accepting this refund and yet they will turn around and try and convince us that they are such nice people for paying the same property tax that we all pay.
To our legislatures credit they removed Mike Rounds’ program that would have refunded the excise tax.
Rorschach….. it was not democrats who tried to establish a spill fund multiple years running…
@Sam you might want to check out this story. It’s a year old but still valid. Oil independence set back 20 years? Typical conservative and obviously not checked by Rounds-don’t check the facts. We’re producing more oil then we ever have and producing more then importing.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/how-obama-became-oil-president-gas-fracking-drill
Bret, PUC Commissioner Kristi Fiegen stated on the news last night that TransCanada still has to comply with the 50 Amended Conditions of their permit. Amended Condition No. 2 states that TransCanada must have all their permits. That is not possible now. I expect the PUC to deny TransCanada’s permit certification.
I would expect that landowners such as yourself will file suit to have their easements voided, good buddy.
I’ve been wrong about Mike Rounds. I had him pegged for a clever, smarmy, calloused weasel who’d sell his mother to the Cartel if it meant he could swing more illegal business deals for his pals. This statement about Iran is just plain dumb as a bag full of hammers.
Makes me wonder who does his thinking for him, and why wasn’t that guy consulted before this goofy statement went to the press?
bret…this took 7 seconds:
Instead of getting a $24 million-a-year tax break not afforded to other pipeline companies, TransCanada should be held responsible if they put America’s environment and the health of American citizens at risk [Rep. John Garamendi, floor statement, 2015.01.09].
Rep. Garamendi is talking basic responsibility. But if I’m reading the roll calls right, his amendment, rolled into a motion to recommit, failed on a straight party-line vote, with every Republican in the room, including our Rep. Kristi Noem, saying that making TransCanada pay for its messes is too much responsibility for our corporate Canadian friends to bear. madville times
SD sends such light weights to D.C. They get elected to do the bidding of the party, rubber stamp everything and spout talking points. What was the last piece of good legislation proposed by a SD official? Been a while!
rounds got elected by misrepresentation to SD voters, 10.30.14:
“Asked about supporting Senator Grassley’s call to review the EB-5 visa investment program, Rounds completely avoided the question.
He said we should review all federal programs and repeated his comments on ObamaCare and Keystone XL.
Weiland said Rounds’s evasion on EB-5 showed Rounds refuses to accept responsibility for what happened with EB-5 under his watch in South Dakota. He said Rounds makes up EB-5 job-creation numbers just as he makes up Keystone XL job-creation numbers and lies about Weiland wanting to kill Ellsworth Air Force Base.
Gordon Howie jumped in to defend Weiland, saying Rounds knows Weiland doesn’t want to kill Ellsworth.
Howie then branded Rounds’s EB-5 response as an example of “professional deceit.”
Pressler responded to Rounds’s evasion by “stunningly” asking Rounds why he thinks Richard Benda killed himself and why the autopsy report as been sealed. [my comment-pressler hyperbole adverb should be “stupidly”-the autopsy is sealed because it does nothing more than show grisly details that will only hurt the living despite morbid curiosity disguised as evidence of murder or aliens! this has be discussed ad infinitum]
In response to that pummeling, Rounds kept evading. He gave no direct rebuttal; he only whined that his opponents were throwing “trash talk” and “innuendo” and (don’t even try to restrain your laughter) “avoiding real issues.”
Weiland and Pressler both leapt on the question of issues. Weiland noted that Rounds spent most of the campaign avoiding debates and forums where the other candidates did talk about issues. Pressler agreed with Weiland that Rounds has skipped opportunities to talk policy and said he resents Rounds’s suggestion that Pressler avoids real issues. (Pressler’s resentment is justified, given that Pressler wonked out on specific legislation all night, as he has done in every debate).
Rounds’s most laughable lie came in the discussion of Keystone XL. KELO loaded the question, framing it around the 60% approval rate Keystone gets from South Dakota voters and thus daring candidates to challenge the majority.
Weiland boldly took the challenge, offering his bold and accurate three-point critique:
Rounds’s job numbers (inflated last night to 42,000) are bogus: Keystone XL will create 1,350 temp jobs and 35 permanent jobs.
Keystone XL will send oil to the Gulf and overseas rather than boosting our energy independence.
Rounds and Big Oil have lost those first two arguments, so now they’re making up a new argument about pipelining Bakken oil to free rail cars for grain shipments, when that won’t happen either, since the Bakken producers want to send their oil east for domestic refining and consumption, not south to the Gulf for export.
Pressler added that Rounds’s KXL-Bakken-rail claim is false because the shippers can’t mix Canadian tar sands oil and North Dakota crude.
Rounds responded that 10% of Keystone XL is reserved for carrying Bakken oil. How does he know this? The folks at TransCanada told him so, he said, and they wouldn’t say that if it weren’t true.
***
Mike Rounds hid behind the bogeyman he makes of Barack Obama.
He cried that his opponents are talking trash instead of addressing the specific questions and rebuttals they offered to his claims.
And when pressed on his lies, he repeated them and told bigger lies.
[emphasis added] madville times 10.30.14
bret clanton, who do you claim it was who tried to impose financial responsibility on pipeline companies? Here’s a hint:
Sen. Gary Hanson (D-District 1) 2009 bill killed by Republicans:
http://legis.sd.gov/Legislative_Session/Bills/Bill.aspx?Bill=171&Session=2009
Sen. Kloucek (D-District 19) 2008 bill killed by Republicans:
http://legis.sd.gov/Legislative_Session/Bills/Bill.aspx?Bill=138&Session=2008
Mike Rounds is the BEST politician that K Street money can buy.
Anyone claiming he is a conservative, shows a total disregard for political ideologies. While he may be a registered Republican and a big government loving establishment politician, he is not a mainstream, main street America, Republican.
Rorshach…..I was implying there were many Republican testifiers and backers on these bills….
Rorshach….why do you not post in your given name?…..do I know you?
True, bret. Sen. Abdallah co-sponsored the 2009 bill, and it was not Democrats alone supporting the bills. But it was Republicans alone who killed them.
Or how about just not shipping the dilbit at all and striving for even greater fuel efficiency?
Ah! Note that Rohr’s Senator Gary Hanson should not be confused with Public Utilities Commissioner Gary Hanson.
But I am puzzled, too, how the PUC process can move forward. Shouldn’t the President’s decision yesterday moot all state-level deliberations?
Bret, thank you for provoking Rohr to that clarification. Recall that in 2011, our Republican friend Charlie Hoffman said he supports a pipeline tax to pay for environmental clean-up. He didn’t actually propose such a tax in the 2012 Session, but it’s the thought that counts. ;-)
We don’t know each other bret.
Why not build a new refinery in close proximity to the tars sands, build enough pipeline in Canada to transport gasoline and connect to the thousands of miles of existing pipeline in America?
Oh, I don’t know, El Rayo X, aside from making us party to genocide, that may be a fine idea.
Hey, whose hyperbole was that? ;-)
Paul Seamans….could this possibly negate TransCanadas original permit from the PUC which could essentially mean they never had condemnation authority to begin with?
I thought the sanctions against Iran precluded anyone from purchasing oil from them. Why would Marion think we are purchasing oil from Iran. Also, I was under the impression that the tarsands was for the refineries in the Gulf region to process and then export the finished product. Not sure, yet that doesn’t seem to help our domestic supply.
I always find it great that Porter has to come on here and straigten these wingers out here.porter keep those posts coming.
Bret, I wonder how this denying of TransCanada’s permit will affect the easements that they obtained. Should TransCanada have easements for a pipeline that hopefully will never be built? We need answers to a lot of questions. Thune/Rounds/Noem/Daugaard seem to have answers for everything, we need to ask them these questions
Bret, your question gets me reading the original PUC permit issued in 2010.
Condition 2 of the 2010 permit says that “Keystone shall obtain and shall thereafter comply with all applicable federal, state and local permits, including but not limited to: Presidential Permit from the United States Department of State….” Hmmm, TransCanada can’t meet that condition; therefore the permit is void, right?
In more than one place, the permit says, “The Keystone pipeline will be designed constructed, tested and operated in accordance with all applicable requirements, including the PHMSA regulations set forth at 49 CFR Parts 194 and 195, as modified by the Special Permit.” TransCanada and the PUC anticipated federal permission, and TransCanada carried out condemnation under that anticipation. But now it turns out that anticipation was premature. I don’t know if the courts will negate the easements negotiated under a state permit predicated on an anticipated federal permit, but it might set a precedent for future cases for landowners to hold out and judges to hold off until all permits are in place.
The permit was written for a permit to transport oil from Alberta to Texas. I suppose TransCanada could try to hang onto the current route and amend its application to carry oil from the Bakken so they could skip having to ask the State Department’s permission to cross the border, but (a) Dakota Access is beating them to it, (b) Bakken producers want to ship their oil east for domestic use, not south for export, and (c) that’s a whole nother permit for a whole nother product requiring a whole nother environmental impact study.
By the way, paragraph 14 of the 2010 permit says of the oil Keystone XL was to carry, “This supply will serve to replace U.S. reliance on less stable and less reliable sources of offshore crude oil.” As Francis notes, that oil wasn’t coming to our gas tanks. Thus, you could argue that the 2010 permit was granted on a false finding.
Brett-after THE Drubbing @SAM just Took, i Am SURPRISED U feel THe NEED To keep REAching. Given Name. Landowner. PUC. Repub Spill Fund. 0-4. Other Questions? Grammer? Thats Always Gud!!
Operating under false pretenses. Bitumen is not oil. If it were it would be subject to environmental taxes. Am I right? If it is not considered oil for the purposes of not paying taxes it can’t hardly qualify as oil being transported from Alberta to Texas.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/11/07/how-stephen-harper-s-old-schoolmate-helped-kill-the-keystone-xl-pipeline_n_8498722.html?utm_hp_ref=canada
Bill McKibben is amused to hear pro-pipeline politicians in Canada deride opponents like him as foreign radicals. McKibben quipped in an interview: “I had exactly the same upbringing as Stephen Harper.”
Ya all ve sleeping for over five years.
Sen Maher was the mother or co mother of the .02cent/barrel cleanup fund to be capped at 30Mil give or take a few Mil. Of course it was killed by the GOP. Mostly the east rive GOP if I had to guess.
It was run for several years and don’t believe it ever hit a gov desk for his veto. Gov interference runners make sure of that.
You’re right Les. Maher ran a bill in 2010 when he was a Democrat. Four of the 12 sponsors that year were Republicans, but the GOP killed it:
http://legis.sd.gov/Legislative_Session/Bills/Bill.aspx?Bill=161&Session=2010
After Maher switched to Republican he lost all interest in pipeline financial responsibility and never sponsored such a bill again.
I can’t find a weed blogging but Mr. PP is saying that the Indians in Flandreau are burning all the weed patches in an attempt to get the entire county high. You can’t make this up, but Mr. PP probably can.
It was on the KSFY news at 6 Grudz. It is a fact. They are destroying the crop for now.
As far as the not so good Senator complaining about the denial of the KXL, he and his two compadres in Congress from SD, as well as most in their party complain constantly about and propose discontinuance of the EPA. They could give a rip about the environment. After reading the five part series on the former and proposed uranium mine in the Edgemont area, we can be thankful that we have the EPA to save us from ourselves.
That bill came up several times and couldn’t get out of committee if I remember right. 10-11-12-13? Where are you at, Bret?
Mr. Stricherz, that is really going to aggravate Lar, and I’m not even sure my good friend Bob will show up at Talley’s tomorrow morning for the usual gathering. Oh my.
The best that the spill fund bill did was, I believe, in 2012. It made it out of Senate committee with a vote of around 10-2. When it made it to the full Senate Lt. Gov. Daugaard decided that it was a tax issue and that it needed a two thirds vote. Final vote was 23-12 with one senator absent. Big supporters were Abdallah, Rhoden, and Heidepriem. That was the closest it ever came. With Rounds and Daugaard against the bill it was surprising that it went as far as it did. Rounds has stayed true to his TransCanada buddies.
Its about the water, we all need to sustain our lives and the lives of future generations.Have you ever been thirsty?have you seen the water some children from third world countries have to drink? can you see your grandchildren drinking the same kind of water?Think before you act or speak,your grandchildren will have to live with a decision you make!!
Paul, you are talking about the 2010 bill. See my link above.
If we let people smoke pot in South Dakota, we’d at least tax the weed and make some money for our trouble. If we pipe dirty oil under our farm and ranch land and over our aquifers (and remember, we do that with Keystone I in East River), we should at least tax the oil and make some money for our trouble. The same logic applies to either unhealthy substance.
But the same logic suggests we’re also better off without either harm.
(And if you’re looking for today’s marijuana debate, my post on Flandreau’s fallback is up!)
If you were to let the oil industry in this country vote on Keystone my bet would be they would do the same thing as our president did and vote no. The companies that this would effect in Canada are Suncor, Canadian Natural Resource and Cenovus Energy. If the pipeline were built they would just flood the market with their oil and drop US oil prices by another $10 or more. These oil sand companies are virtually the only companies in the world that are going to be able to increase oil production year in year out going forward. Rounds knows nothing about the oil industry!
god cory, u keep bringing up that complex tax issue. got any handle on it? there’s some $72.50 an hour work! :) call doyle estes.
oh, jon, thx 4 that rounds observation. his/daugaard’s REGENTS actually think @heatherwilson knows how to run a university (sdsm&t)–unlike NSU’s new prez, who trew joop out!.
Corrupt Rounds says that the president and state department have some explaining to do for rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline and protecting South Dakota landowners and tribes from eminent domain being used on them to benefit a foreign corporation? Give me a break! If anybody has explaining to do, it is scandal-plagued Mike Rounds. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry deserve our heartfelt thanks for respecting the property rights and health of our state’s citizens, a job that is supposed to be done by those that are elected to protect us, but isn’t by the likes of Rounds, Thune, Noem, Daugaard, and Jackley. By the way, let’s end the argument that the majority supports this pipeline. Facts released by the U.S. State Department reveal that 5 million comments were submitted to them concerning Keystone XL, and 60% of those comments opposed Keystone and supported the President’s decision. So much for the KELO “poll” and the TransCanada and Republican propaganda about overwhelming support for Keystone.
@heatheranwilson
ellen, industry hires experts that will convince lay boards that mining/petroleum engineers can protect underground horizontal 13 mile long/deep boreholes and secret fracking solutions from harming ground water aquifers sometimes. $$$
Wingnuts in Alaska sold the state to Trans-Canada in a sweetheart deal that would make Dakota’s ruling idiots jealous. Fortunately,after coughing measly millions of public bucks,cooler heads finally had a wtf moment and divested themselves of these losses. Read em and weep about how bad your state could be if they had oil to sell or in Alaska wingnut’s case-give away. http://www.themudflats.net/archives/46351
Shannyn Miller is one of the best writers in Alaska and most passionate about liberal and social issues,too.
My humblest apologies to Shannyn Moore,not Miller. It is getting late for me.
PARIS CLIMATE TALKS December 2015
Delegates will undoubtedly have to begin dealing with conflicts of the present moment as well, including those in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Ukraine, in order to collaborate in devising common, mutually binding climate measures. In this sense, too, the Paris summit will be a peace conference.
With their traditional livelihoods in peril and little assistance forthcoming from the capital, the Tuaregs revolted in January 2012, capturing half of Mali before being driven back into the Sahara by French and other foreign forces (with U.S. logistical and intelligence support).
Between 2006 and 2010, Syria experienced a devastating drought in which climate change is believed to have been a factor, turning nearly 60% of the country into desert. Crops failed and most of the country’s livestock perished, forcing millions of farmers into penury. Desperate and unable to live on their land any longer, they moved into Syria’s major cities in search of work, often facing extreme hardship as well as hostility from well-connected urban elites.
Consider the events in Syria and Mali previews of what is likely to come later in this century on a far larger scale. As climate change intensifies, bringing not just desertification but rising sea levels in low-lying coastal areas and increasingly devastating heat waves in regions that are already hot, ever more parts of the planet will be rendered less habitable, pushing millions of people into desperate flight.***
For the first time, the nations of the world will have to step beyond national thinking and embrace a higher goal: the safety of the ecosphere and all its human inhabitants, no matter their national, ethnic, religious, racial, or linguistic identities. Nothing like this has ever been attempted, which means that it will be an exercise in peacemaking of the most essential sort — and, for once, before the wars truly begin.
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/05/the_water_wars_are_coming_civilization_will_never_survive_climate_calamity/