Obama rejects Keystone XL pipeline bid

President Obama announced Friday that he has rejected Canadian energy giant TransCanada's application to build the Keystone XL pipeline, saying that the pipeline was not in the U.S. national interest.
"The State Department has decided the Keystone XL pipeline would not serve the interests of the United States. I agree with that decision," Obama said at a White House press conference.
The announcement caps a 7-year saga that has become one of the biggest environmental flashpoints of Obama’s presidency. It comes just days after the State Department refused to agree to TransCanada’s request to suspend the review process on the controversial project, which has seen enormous opposition from environmental groups.
Killing the pipeline allows Obama to claim aggressive action on the environment. That could strengthen his hand as world leaders prepare to finalize a major global climate pact next month in Paris that Obama hopes will be a crowning jewel for his legacy.
Alberta-based TransCanada first applied for Keystone permits in September 2008 -- shortly before Obama was elected. As envisioned, Keystone would snake from Canada's tar sands through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, then connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to specialized refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.

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• State Department defends Keystone pipeline rejection

Democrats and environmental groups latched onto Keystone as emblematic of the type of dirty fossil fuels that must be phased out. Environmentalists chained themselves to construction equipment and the White House fence in protest.
But Republicans, Canadian politicians and the energy industry touted what they said were profound economic benefits -- thousands of U.S. construction jobs and billions injected into the economy. They argued transporting crude by pipeline would be safer than alternatives like rail, and charged Obama with hypocrisy for complaining about the lack of investment in U.S. infrastructure while obstructing an $8 billion project.

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Jan 10, 2015: Activists hold a rally against government approval of the planned Keystone XL oil pipeline, in front of the White House in Washington. (Reuters)

Obama dismissed the claims that Keystone would be a major job creator.
“If Congress is serious about wanting to create jobs, this is not the way to do it,” he said, before calling for a bipartisan infrastructure plan that he says would make a more significant impact on job creation.
Republicans called the decision disappointing.
"President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline is a huge mistake, and is the latest reminder that this administration continues to prioritize the demands of radical environmentalists over America's energy security," said. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum condemned the decision in a tweet.
“It [is] ironic that after delaying construction for more than seven years – postponing the jobs, revenues and other benefits that would result from the project – the president now finds it pressing to make a decision just as the company is asking for a pause to resolve any concerns," Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D. said in a statement.
Some Democrats, such as Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., praised the decision as a positive step in protecting the environment.
"I want to thank the Obama Administration for protecting the health of the American people and the health of the planet by rejecting the ill-advised Keystone tar sands pipeline, which would have brought the filthiest oil known to humankind into our country in large amounts,” Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said.
Meanwhile 2016 hopeful Bernie Sanders called support for the pipeline "insane."
"It is insane for anyone to be supporting the excavation and transportation of some of the dirtiest fuel on earth. As someone who has led the opposition to the Keystone pipeline from Day 1, I strongly applaud the president’s decision to kill this project once and for all,” Sanders said.

 

 

Hillary Clinton signed non-disclosure agreement to protect classified info while secretary of state

On January 22nd, 2009, Hillary Clinton signed a Non-Disclosure agreement, or NDA, where she agreed to protect highly classified information, and a failure to do so could result in criminal prosecution.
"I have been advised that any breach of this Agreement may result in my termination of my access to SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) and removal from a position of special confidence,"  the NDA reads.
"I have been advised that any authorized disclosure of SCI by me may constitute violations of United States criminal laws, including provisions of Sections 793, 794, 798 and 952, Title 18 United States Code..."  These are provisions of the Espionage Act, and as Fox recently reported, 18 USC 793 subsection (f) is of special interest to the FBI investigation as it includes "gross negligence" in the handling of national defense information.
The NDA was first obtained through a federal lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, or CEI, which says on its website that it is a "...non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty."
The NDA signed by Mrs. Clinton as Secretary of State is significant because the State Department has never publicly acknowledged that she signed documents, confirming she was "advised that the unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling" of top secret material was a punishable offense.  
The use of a private server for government business, on its face, is a clear violation of the NDA agreement.
The NDA goes on to say -- "I have been advised that the unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of SCI by me could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by foreign nationals."
This summer the intelligence community's inspector general or ICIG reviewed a random sample from Clinton's server used for government business. The rules are straight forward:  the agencies that obtain the intelligence have final say on classification matters, and the affected agencies confirmed to the ICIG that four emails contained classified information that did not originate with the State Department.  Two of the emails contained Top Secret/SCI material -- the most highly classified. "Sensitive Compartmented" material has limited access, and requires security clearance holders to sign additional paper work, "to be read in, and off" the project. This second NDA is designed to reinforce how important it is to protect the information as well as sources and methods.
On Friday, based on anonymous sourcing, Politico reported that "the U.S. intelligence community has retreated from claims that two emails in Hillary Clinton’s private account contained top-secret information,"
A spokeswoman for the ICIG, Andrea. G. Williams, told Fox the classification had not changed, and no formal notification had been received by her office.  The State Department requested a second review of the emails by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who oversees the 17 agencies. A statement was expected Friday from the ODNI, that no such determination had been made and the review was ongoing.
The Clinton campaign seemed quick to seize on the Politico report, in light of the now public NDAs.   A second NDA for classified information, not specific to special programs, signed by Mrs. Clinton also became public.
Clinton aides had countered the NDA by referring to the Politico report.
The NDAs played a significant role in the prosecution of former CIA Director David Petraeus for wrongly providing highly classified information to his mistress and biographer Paula Broadwell.  Petraeus, like Clinton, signed NDAs and a statement of fact filed in his case with the federal court stated that his "criminal conduct" was based on violations of the NDAs signed with the Defense Department and CIA.

Candidates ramp up attacks on Rubio’s finances -- but will it work?

Critics may think Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has some explaining to do over an old Republican Party-issued charge card with a load of his personal expenses on it, but whether this rises to the level of “scandal,” is still up for debate.  
It’s more like a tempest in a teapot, argue campaign strategists who spoke with FoxNews.com on Friday.
“If this is all (the other campaigns) are coming at him with, then he is going to be in good shape,” offered Republican media analyst Pete Snyder.
This week, Donald Trump raised the question of Rubio’s finances in a scrum with the press, calling out his old “credit card” with the Florida GOP specifically.
“All you have to do is look at his credit card. I mean, he is a disaster with his credit cards,” Trump said during a news conference in New York. “And I’ll tell you what: I love Florida. I’m in Florida all the time, and for years I’ve been hearing that his credit cards are a disaster.”
Trump is referring to claims that Rubio charged thousands of dollars worth of personal expenses on his Republican Party-issued American Express card during the time he was a GOP leader in the Florida House of Representatives from 2005 to 2009. The party released detailed records of his expenses from 2007 to 2009 years ago, but there remains a gap in what he expenses he might have put on the party’s tab in 2005 and 2006. His campaign has promised to release those records in the coming weeks, according to The Washington Post.
For his part, Rubio has told the press that the party “never paid a single personal expense of mine,” noting that since it was an American Express card, he was required to pay the balance of his personal charges back each month.
“If there was a personal expense, I paid it. If it was a Party expense, the Party paid it. Now I recognize in hindsight I would do it different to avoid confusion. But the Republican Party never paid a single personal expense of mine,” he told Good Morning America Nov. 4.
Those charges, according to the Tampa Bay Times, which reviewed the available records in 2010, ranged from meals and beverages to “supplies” at the local Apple store and a lumber company. Rubio was questioned in 2010 about the $1,000 charge to fix his family’s minivan -- he said it had been damaged at a political event. He was also asked about charging travel expenses for a family reunion on the card -- he explained he paid with the American Express by accident.
In total, records show he made $16,052 in personal charges.
The Florida Ethics Commission, looking into his expenses in 2012, found no cause to charge him with a violation, but one inspector had strong words. "The level of negligence exhibited by Respondent's confusion between the (Republican Party of Florida) American Express card and his personal MasterCard, together with his failure to recognize the error when reviewing the months' statements, and his signature on the reimbursement requests, is disturbing," the commission’s prosecutor wrote.
It is not entirely clear whether Rubio’s spending ways were sanctioned by the party or not. As the Washington Post’s Fact Checker points out, the Florida GOP has made conflicting statements over the years. On one hand, party spokesman Katy Gordon told the Tampa Bay paper in 2010 that, "the RPOF American Express card is a corporate card and is meant to be used for business expenses" and not personal expenses, but a month later, she seemed to dial back, saying that personal expenses were expected to be “paid through a reimbursement, or in some cases directly to American Express."
Which is exactly what Rubio did, he claimed this week, lashing out at Trump in the process. “I find ironic,” he said to Fox Friday morning,  “Donald Trump had four bankruptcies in his businesses … who is he to talk to anyone about finances?”
Former Republican Rep. Joe Scarborough, who also served in the Florida state house, said Friday that there were no “clear lines” in the way Republican leaders were spending taxpayer money and the party’s money in Florida in those days. Lawmakers were investigated, and at least one of his friends went to jail. However, he doesn’t think the Rubio story has legs in 2015.
“I’ve been hearing since 2010 that the other shoe was going to fall,” Scarborough said in regards to Rubio’s charge card. “If the other shoe is even going to fall, I have to say this is the longest five-year step I’ve ever seen in my life. There is a lot of smoke but you never really find the fire.”
That doesn’t mean that Rubio should ignore his critics, says Craig Shirley, conservative strategist and Reagan biographer.
“It will hurt him if he allows it to hurt him,” Shirley told FoxNews.com. “Questions about your finances are inevitable. So if he allows it to define him that is a problem. If he changes the subject and mounts a counter offensive, it won’t become an issue.”
GOP strategist Mark Corallo says short of Rubio spending the party’s money on luxuries, or worse, not repaying it, he doesn’t think the voters will care much. If anything, they may empathize with Rubio as another American debt holder.
“This is just typical political opposition research stuff,” said Corallo. “And it’s being dumped early enough that it won’t have much chance of hurting his chances of winning the nomination.”

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Fox News Poll: Voters approve of Obama plans in Syria, Afghanistan

A 54-percent majority of American voters approves of President Obama’s decision to send a small number of U.S. troops to Syria to help in the fight against the Islamic extremist group ISIS. 
That’s according to a Fox News poll released Thursday.
In addition, by a 49-38 percent margin, voters approve of Obama’s decision to delay withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
CLICK TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
Last week, Obama announced he was sending about 50 Special Operations forces to Syria, marking the first time U.S. boots will be on the ground there to fight ISIS.  That decision came on the heels of the president reversing himself on leaving U.S. troops in Afghanistan and delaying withdrawal until after 2016.
Voter support for these military actions is buoyed by a higher level of bi-partisanship than is the norm for the administration’s policies.
Majorities of Democrats approve of Obama’s actions:  62 percent on Syria and 59 percent on Afghanistan.  Among Republicans, nearly half favor both sending troops to Syria (48 percent) and leaving troops in Afghanistan (45 percent).
Overall, 45 percent of voters approve of the job Obama is doing as president, while 50 percent disapprove.  Last month, it was 42-53 percent (October 10-12, 2015).
Here, partisanship is on full display: 84 percent of Democrats approve of Obama’s job performance, while 86 percent of Republicans disapprove.
Approval of Obama has been mostly steady for the last two years -- and voters have almost always been more likely to disapprove than approve of his job performance during that time.  His approval hit a record low 38 percent in September 2014.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,230 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from November 1-3, 2015. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters.

GOP candidate line-up announced for Fox Business Network/WSJ debate

Fox Business Network on Thursday announced the candidate line-up for the Nov. 10 Republican presidential debates.
The candidates qualifying for the prime-time, 9 p.m. ET debate are:
Billionaire businessman Donald Trump; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; former HP CEO Carly Fiorina; Ohio Gov. John Kasich; and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
The candidates qualifying for the earlier, 7 p.m. ET debate are:
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.
The criteria were different than for past debates. In a change, Christie and Huckabee ‎did not qualify for the prime-time event, while former New York Gov. George Pataki and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham did not qualify for either; neither did ex-Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore.
Christie brushed it off on Twitter, saying: "It doesn't matter the stage, give me a podium and I'll be there to talk about real issues."
To qualify for the prime-time debate, a candidate had to score 2.5 percent or higher in an average of the four most recent national polls. Candidates scoring under that had to receive at least 1 percent support in at least one of the four most recent national polls to qualify for the 7 p.m. debate.
The four polls used were conducted by: Fox News; Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP; Quinnipiac University; and The Wall Street Journal/NBC News.
The candidates head into the next debate at a time when Trump and Carson are battling for the lead in most polls.
While several recent state and national surveys have shown Carson climbing into the top spot, the latest Fox News poll released Wednesday showed Trump with the edge, 26-23 percent.
The next tier in that poll included just two candidates: Cruz and Rubio, with 11 percent each.
Bush, Huckabee, Kasich and Paul registered with 4 percent.
Pataki called debate organizers' reliance on national polls "a disservice to voters everywhere" and "a clear boost to the worship of celebrity over accomplishment and ideas."
"The voters — not networks driven by ratings or national polls that are statistically irrelevant — should decide our next president," he said after Fox Business Network announced the lineup.
The Fox Business Network debate, presented in partnership with The Wall Street Journal, will focus on jobs, taxes and the economy, as well as other issues. It will be held at the Milwaukee Theatre in Milwaukee, Wis.
FBN and Fox News Channel announced Thursday that cable and satellite providers have joined to make the debate available to all their subscribers.
DIRECTV, Suddenlink, Mediacom, Frontier, Wide Open West, and Cable One, and some National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) companies, plan to “unbundle” FBN so all subscribers can watch it during the debate. The debate can also be viewed at FoxBusiness.com and FoxNews.com.
The two debates start at 7 p.m. ET and 9 p.m. ET.
The race of late has been marked by sparring among Trump and several other candidates. Earlier this week, he challenged Carson over his readiness for office, saying “Ben can’t do the job.”
Overnight, Carson posted a lengthy defense on Facebook in response to those questioning his political inexperience.
"You are absolutely right -- I have no political experience," Carson wrote. "The current Members of Congress have a combined 8,700 years of political experience. Are we sure political experience is what we need."
He, instead, pointed to his lifetime of experience in medicine and other fields, and drew a sharp contrast between that and Trump’s business experience. In a rare jab at a primary rival, the retired pediatric neurosurgeon said he wouldn't trade his experience treating children for "Trump's money."
Trump and Rubio also have sparred in recent days, as Rubio has surged past former front-runner Bush in the polls. Trump has described Rubio’s handling of his personal finances and credit cards as a “disaster.”
Rubio, who faced ethics questions as Florida’s House speaker for using his state GOP charge card for personal reasons, has always maintained he repaid his personal expenses. Rubio answered Trump’s criticism by saying his rival “always gets weird when his poll numbers get a little down.”

California governor ordered state workers to research oil drilling on family land

SAN FRANCISCO –  Gov. Jerry Brown last year directed state oil and gas regulators to research, map and report back on any mining and oil drilling potential and history at the Brown family's private land in Northern California.
After a phone call from the governor and follow-up requests from his aides, senior staffers in the state's oil and gas regulatory agency over at least two days produced a 51-page historical report and geological assessment, plus a personalized satellite-imaged geological and oil and gas drilling map for the area around Brown's family ranchland near the town of Williams.
Ultimately, the regulators told the governor, prospects were "very low" for any commercial drilling or mining at the 2,700-acre property, which has been in Brown's family for more than a century.
Through the state's open records law, The Associated Press obtained the research that state regulators carried out for Brown, and the emails among senior oil and gas regulators scrambling to fulfill the governor's request.
Brown spokesman Evan Westrup declined to discuss the work for the governor, referring the AP to California's Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources. That agency said the work was a legal and proper use of public resources -- and no more than the general public would get. But oil industry experts said they could not recall a similar example of anyone getting that kind of state work done for private property.
Brown's request points to the complex way that the governor, an internationally known advocate of renewable energy, approaches oil and gas issues in his own state. While spearheading ambitious programs to curb the use of climate-changing fossil fuels, Brown also has sought to spur oil production in California, the country's No. 3 oil-producing state.
Nine days after Brown appointed Steve Bohlen to lead the state oil and gas regulatory division, the governor called him with his research request.
Brown wanted to find out about the "geology, past oil and gas activity, potential for future oil and gas activity in the vicinity of his long-time family ranch," Bohlen related in an email to senior agency staffers that same day, June 11, 2014. Bohlen set noon the next day as a target for getting the research done for delivery to Brown.
After Brown's initial call, his aides called back within hours to ask regulators to look at what minerals might lie under the Brown ranch and also emailed to make sure the regulators were doing a map for the governor.
In an email to the AP, an attorney for the oil and gas agency, Graham St. Michel, said Brown had been compiling documents that "shed light on the fauna, flora, rock formations and geology of the area where his great-grandparents ... first homesteaded in the 1870s."
California law bars elected officials from using public employees or other public resources for personal purposes, with limited exceptions for things like occasional personal calls from work phones.
Regulators say the personal work they did for Brown was legal and appropriate.
"We field similar requests for public, historical information ... and responding is one of the division's public service responsibilities," said Don Drysdale, a spokesman for the oil and gas agency.
Drysdale said the satellite-imaged geological and drilling map prepared by the state for Brown's land took a "few hours."
Regulators and Brown's office declined to provide examples of any similar geological assessments and maps that oil gas regulators had done for anyone else who was curious about any oil and gas potential of their private land. The AP has filed a public records request for them.
Petroleum-industry professionals contacted by the AP said they never heard of regulators carrying out and compiling that kind of research, analysis and mapping for private individuals. The AP told the oil-industry professionals only that state regulators did the work for a state official.
Assessing a private property's oil and gas and mineral potential is not something that state regulators typically do, one oil industry executive said. "There's no evaluation. That's not a service they provide at all," said Rick Peace, president of a Bakersfield, California, company that helps manage oil exploration and production.
Roland Bain, a petroleum geologist based in Northern California, said he was struck by the report's "beautiful map." It was labeled "Oil and Gas Potential In West Colusa County," and the PDF said "JB--Ranch."
"Anyone calling in for help is not going to get that," Bain said. "The division of oil and gas has never been in a position to give you detailed geological mapping."
Historical oilfield records that made up much of the documents are available to the public, and ordinary people can get them by searching on the agency's website, or by visiting one of the agency's offices, which charge for photocopies, Peace noted.
But, as for regulators preparing and compiling assessments, reports and maps for someone's private purposes, "I've never heard of that," said Jean Pledger, a Bakersfield oil and gas attorney.
Typically, landowners find out their land has unrealized oil and gas potential only if oil industry agents scout out the property and approach the owners, said Sacramento-based oil and gas attorney James Day.
Alternatively, individuals can hire an independent petroleum geologist at $200 to $400 an hour, Day said.
Drysdale of the oil and gas division said state law allows state officials to access public records on the same basis as any member of the public.
Jessica Levinson, a governance expert and professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said that if state regulators had done that kind of work before for private landowners, they should be able to provide examples.
Of Brown's request, Levinson said, "if no other private individual is able to avail himself of this opportunity, and it's clearly just for personal gain instead of public benefit, then it's clearly problematic."
Brown told the Sacramento Bee in 2013 that he and his family owned a controlling interest in the acreage near Williams and that he planned to put a house on the property. The state research done on the ranch was first disclosed in a lawsuit by attorney Patricia Oliver on behalf of a group of Kern County farmers who allege the Brown administration worked with the oil industry to circumvent laws meant to protect groundwater from contamination.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has faulted state oil and gas regulators for failing to enforce federal laws meant to prevent oilfield pollution of the state's reserves of water for drinking and irrigation. Last month, Bohlen blamed his "dramatically understaffed" labor force for the state's failures to enforce those federal codes.

Obama faces Dem fury over newly released trade deal

President Obama faced deep skepticism from fellow Democrats over the hard-fought Pacific Rim trade deal after it was released early Thursday morning, with critics calling it a "job-killing" agreement as the administration argued it's an economic win. 
The Trans Pacific Partnership, after spending months under wraps, was posted online Thursday morning. The debate over the deal has cut across party lines, with Obama enjoying some support from Republicans yet facing fierce resistance from congressional Democrats.
Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., said Thursday the deal may be "worse than we thought," predicting the agreement would lead to American job losses and calling on lawmakers to stop the deal.
The text of the agreement between the U.S. and 11 other countries including Japan and Mexico runs to 30 chapters and hundreds of pages. It is dense in its detail, laying out plans for the handling of trade in everything from zinc dust to railway sleepers and live eels.
The documents show the pact reached Oct. 5 in Atlanta after several years of talks is full of lofty goals. Negotiators agreed to promote environmental sustainability, respect the rights and needs of indigenous peoples, and temper protections for drug patents with safeguards for public health and access to medicines.
It also emphasizes the intention of the trading bloc to abide by earlier commitments made under the World Trade Organization and other international treaties.
But critics see abundant potential for the agreement to expose more American workers to low-wage competition, giving multinational corporations excessive power.
Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., echoed Edwards in saying "it appears that the agreement is even worse than expected, and the auto industry is among the biggest losers."
She specifically complained, in a statement, about the "lack of any meaningful protections against currency manipulation," predicting that would continue to threaten U.S. jobs.
New House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., meanwhile, said he was reserving judgment. "But I remain hopeful that our negotiators reached an agreement that the House can support because a successful TPP would mean more good jobs for American workers and greater U.S. influence in the world," he said.
The early reaction sets the stage for an intense debate likely to drag well into next year.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on Thursday urged Congress to act, saying "there's no reason it should take a year to get that done."
Under a trade law passed earlier this year, President Obama must give the public time to review the text before he signs the agreement and turns it over to Congress for approval.
Obama on Thursday  formally notified Congress of his intent to sign the deal. When it comes to them, lawmakers can't add amendments. They must simply vote yes or no. Congress is likely to take up the issue next year in the heat of the presidential election campaign.
Among the political complications for Obama is that Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton already has said she's against it.
If all 12 countries have not ratified the agreement within two years, provisions allow for it to take effect if six countries comprising 85 percent of the GDP of the bloc have signed. That means U.S. ratification as the world's biggest economy is essential.
Apart from the U.S., Japan and Mexico, countries in the trade pact are New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Peru, Canada, Brunei, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia.
The White House says the deal eliminates more than 18,000 taxes that countries impose on U.S. exports. The agreement also calls for labor protections such as ensuring that workers in member countries have the right to form unions.
Those opposed to the deal contend it will force American workers to compete even more directly than they do now with workers in low-wage countries such as Vietnam.
They also complain that the agreement goes beyond traditional trade issues such as tariffs and import quotas and includes giveaways to powerful business lobbies.