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Though the U.S. Congress currently has no official say in the process of deciding whether to greenlight the Keystone XL pipeline project, which would send tar sands crude from Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas, leaders in both parties are gearing up for a fight on the subject anyway.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired by Michigan Rep. Fred Upton, is to hold hearings on Monday on a bill that would set a Nov. 1 deadline for the State Department to make a final decision on whether to allow the project to be built.

According to Reuters, the GOP has stacked the panel that will be testifying with supporters of the pipeline. Out of six witnesses, only one — Jeremy Symons of the National Wildlife Federation — is opposed to the project.

Upton has become an outspoken advocate of the project despite the fact that last year’s spill of a million gallons of tar sands crude oil affected his own district. Experts say tar sands crude is more toxic, more likely to cause pipeline damage and leaks and significantly higher in greenhouse gas production than regular crude oil.

The ranking Democratic member of that committee, Rep. Henry Waxman of California, wrote a letter to Upton requesting that the Koch brothers be questioned about their financial interest in the pipeline project. According to Waxman’s letter, the Koch company has denied that it has any stake in the outcome of the approval process, but as the owners of several refineries that process tar sands oil in the United States, that appears not to be true.

The Koch brothers are heavy supporters of Republican candidates and conservative causes throughout the country. Their critics insist that the billionaires are buying support from politicians for policies that further enrich their bottom line.

Republican aides on the Hill are fuming over Waxman’s request, calling it a “transparently political stunt that has absolutely nothing to do with the real issues at stake – lowering gas prices, jobs, and energy security.” http://michiganmessenger.com/49226/keystone-pipeline-fight-moves-to-co
ngress, they've got no stake in it, of course not:

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Keystone pipeline would enrich Koch brothers

Reuters points out one fascinating subplot to the story of whether the Obama administration will approve completion of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast: It would help make his most prominent political adversaries even richer.

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What’s been left out of the ferocious debate over the pipeline, however, is the prospect that if president Obama allows a permit for the Keystone XL to be granted, he would be handing a big victory and great financial opportunity to Charles and David Koch, his bitterest political enemies and among the most powerful opponents of his clean economy agenda…

An unknown amount of company profits — figures are unavailable as the company is privately held — come from the Pine Bend Refinery near St. Paul, Minnesota, which supplies 30 to 40 percent of Wisconsin’s transportation fuel and a large percentage of the jet fuel used at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

About 80 percent of what the Koch refinery processes is heavy crude from Alberta’s oil sands, a company spokesperson told the media last year. The oil that reaches the refinery is supplied through the Koch brothers’ Flint Hills operation in Calgary, the company’s website says.

Pine Bend is capable of refining up to 320,000 barrels per day of predominantly Canadian crude oil, most of it sourced in Alberta’s oil sands. Every day, the U.S. imports about 1 million barrels of oil from Alberta’s oil sands mines, and about 2 million barrels of Canadian oil overall.

This means that the oil sands crude which reaches the Pine Bend refinery on American soil accounts for about a quarter of the total supply reaching the U.S. from Alberta’s tar sands mining operations.

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Very interesting. http://michiganmessenger.com/46493/keystone-pipeline-would-enrich-koch
-brothers hey, the Kochs are good guys, we all know we can trust them to have America's best interests at heart! And they wouldn't cause environmental damage, surely!

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As Georgia-Pacific continues to fight environmental groups and the state Department of Environmental Protection over the waste that it dumps into Florida’s rivers and streams, the paper company may be headed for similarly-heated battles elsewhere.

Georgia-Pacific makes Dixie cups, Brawny paper towels and Angel Soft toilet paper, among other paper products, and is a division of Koch Industries. The company is also one of the companies responsible for polluting a Superfund site on the Kalamazoo River with PCBs.
The Ouachita Riverkeeper, which strives to maintain the quality of the Ouachita River as it snakes through Arkansas and Louisiana, has alleged that Georgia-Pacific is destroying the Ouachita ecosystem by flooding the river with waste in violation of regulations that have already come under attack in the past for being too lax.
In a YouTube video, Ouachita Riverkeeper Cheryl Slavant (the term “Riverkeeper” refers to both the organization and Slavant as the person who oversees and represents the organization’s efforts) details the violations that she says are ongoing at Georgia-Pacific’s Crossett, Ark., plant. More at http://michiganmessenger.com/47544/koch-industries-accused-of-env-viol
ations-in-arkansas

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Michigan has ever reason to be afraid, me thinks.