In case you've missed it lately, we've been ramping up our coverage of the looming Keystone pipeline battle with the only weapons we have here at the Daily Felltoon: cartoons and words.
It's been quite obvious that TransCanada has opened up its pocketbook in an last ditch attempt to buy or bully most of the lawmakers involved in authorizing the current proposed route for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
Not only did the forces of big oil recently manage to buy a favorable review from the U.S. State Department, but they've proudly been working with Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper - an anti-evironmentalist sometimes called 'Bush Lite' - in an obvious attempt to push a false sense of inevitability with the pipeline.
As we've noted multiple times, a majority of Nebraskans do NOT want the pipeline's route to cross the Ogallala aquifer. Even Nebraska's Governor, who we gave some credit to yesterday, has previously said that he does not want the pipeline to cross the aquifer (though he's willing to allow the pipeline to be built, if TransCanada routed it elsewhere in the state).
We wish that all of the politicians involved - local, state, Federal, and even those in Canada - would have shown REAL political courage months or years ago and stood up to the obvious bullying and barely legal bribery of TransCanada, the pipeline builder.
Too often, our politicians - of ALL parties - have waited until it's clear that decisions have already been made behind the scenes to take any sort of definitive action. Then when they make grand gestures, shaking their political lances, and waving flags of special sessions, we have a strong suspicion they may be mostly meaningless.
Our worldwide competition in China, in the energy business, has NOT been sitting by and biding their time. China has begun to forcefully drive their own demand for solar power up with feed-in tariffs that heavily benefit solar and wind power. They're also flooding the world market with heavily state-subsidized solar and wind products, while America and the rest of the world does nothing.
While those who support the Keystone pipeline claim that the pipeline's construction will generate jobs in the short term, our energy trade policies right now are further killing one of the only bright spots in the American manufacturing sector... NEW, long-term, well-paying manufacturing jobs.
Serving up a short term benefit, with negative lasting effects for Nebraskans isn't just an unhealthy snack for the insatiable monster of big oil.
It's an outline for a story that ends in anything but happily ever after.
