Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) insists that the GOP-led House will fight for the cash-rich oil industry at the expense of the middle-class payroll tax cut. “If that bill comes over to us,” he told reporters, “I will guarantee you that the Keystone pipeline will be in there when it goes back to the United States Senate.” Project advocates, who include Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, misrepresent its economic benefits to favor the oil industry, throwing out claims that Keystone XL creates “tens of thousands of jobs.”

However, studies conducted independently of TransCanada find much smaller jobs numbers, far from “tens of thousands.” An oil contractor hired by the State Department reported it would create between 5,000 and 6,000 temporary jobs, while an independent study by Cornell University found it would create only 500 to 1,400 temporary jobs. Once the costs of the increased pollution and risk of oil spills is factored in, Cornell found, the jobs impact is likely to be negative. The “118,000 spin-off jobs” number used by TransCanada received two Pinocchios from the Washington Post Fact Checker:

As opponents have documented, if the capital costs are lower than predicted, and if the multiplier is smaller, then the number of “spin-off jobs” can shrink dramatically. The same goes for the estimates of “permanent jobs,” which depend also on the price of oil.
….
Among the list of jobs that would be created: 51 dancers and choreographers, 138 dentists, 176 dental hygienists, 100 librarians, 510 bread bakers, 448 clergy, 154 stenographers, 865 hairdressers, 136 manicurists, 110 shampooers, 65 farmers, and (our favorite) 1,714 bartenders.

How did a grossly exaggerated number become the prevailing argument to build the pipeline? The reason is the oil lobby is in overdrive. At least 42 companies have lobbied on Keystone XL since 2009, and 33 actively campaigned in the most recent quarter.

Congress’s best salesmen for the pipeline are conveniently the top beneficiaries of Big Oil donations. McConnell, who said he will oppose any payroll bill that doesn’t include the pipeline, is Senate’s biggest recipient of oil and gas money, receiving $199,000 this year. Boehner is one of the top 10 recipients in the House this year, and has taken in $434,050 from the industry over his career.

Pipeline supporters Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), Judy Biggert (R-IL), and Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) even own TransCanada stock.

If the numbers weren’t enough, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been bragging about its lobbying spree and influence on the Hill.

UPDATE 12/22:  “House GOP Cave on Tax Cut Extension Paves Way for Obama to Deny Keystone XL Permit.”

GOP Threaten to Kill Tax Relief and Unemployment Extension Over Keystone XL, Forcing a Quick Decision that Likely Dooms Pipeline — as GOP Intends!

JR:  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said today he will not support a payroll tax cut extension if he is not allowed to shoot this dog (or at least the climate the dog lives in) TPM reported today.  Apologies to “National Lampoon” and canine aficionados.

UPDATE:  Obama and the Dems caved to the GOP, agreeing to a decision in 60 days on Keystone in return for a 2-month (!) extension of tax relief and unemployment.  Reuters reports:

An administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the administration hadn’t changed its earlier stance that it would reject the application for Keystone if forced to act within a 60-day window.

That, I believe, is what the GOP wants.  I was on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night and explained why:

By Kate Gordon and Daniel J. Weiss in a CAP repost

As Congress attempts to finish its 2011 work, the House leadership continues to push hard to speed up the permitting process for the Keystone XL pipeline. Today Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) threatened to add a Keystone provision to a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, scheduled to expire on December 31. Boehner told reporters:

These rumors that are floating around here about a two-month extension, I’ll just say this: If that bill comes over to us, we will make changes to it, and I will guarantee you that the Keystone pipeline will be in there when it goes back to the United States Senate.

Ironically the State Department said Monday that such legislation would prevent it from approving the Keystone permit:

Should Congress impose an arbitrary deadline for the permit decision, its actions would not only compromise the process, it would prohibit the Department from acting consistently with National Environmental Policy Act requirements by not allowing sufficient time for the development of this information. In the absence of properly completing the process, the Department would be unable to make a determination to issue a permit for this project.

Nonetheless, on Wednesday House leadership—and some Democrats—passed a tax extender package that included a sped-up permitting process for the Keystone XL pipeline. In explaining why on earth this controversial 1,700-mile oil pipeline should be appended to a tax package focused on unemployment insurance and payroll taxes, Rep. Boehner argued that the pipeline private-sector infrastructure project “would create tens of thousands of American jobs.”

But as The Washington Post pointed out Wednesday, the Keystone project would do no such thing.

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Following the mandate set by Newt Gingrich at last night’s Republican presidential debate, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has taken a hard line on including the Keystone XL tar sands poison pill in payroll tax legislation. As Republicans dig in, Democrats have already conceded their call for a millionaire tax to pay for the middle class support. A spokesman for McConnell told Talking Points Memo that he will oppose any tax cut legislation that does not include the tar sands rider:

The Leader will not support any bill without the Keystone XL language as part of the agreement.

“What should the Congressional Republicans do? They should attach it to the middle class tax cut, send it to the president, force him to veto it, send it a second time,” Newt said last night. “I’d say to the president, ‘You want to look like you are totally out of touch of the American people? Be my guest, but I’m not backing down when we’re right and you are totally wrong.’”

Watch Newt’s mandate to Congressional Republicans:

Last Sunday, McConnell indicated flexibility on the poison pill, saying that the extension of payroll tax cuts for 160 million Americans was “obviously” going to pass no matter what. However, in the last week, Republicans have shown increasing willingness to embrace the style of brinkmanship that Newt Gingrich displayed as Speaker of the House of Representatives, who shut down the federal government repeatedly on behalf of a radical right-wing agenda.

The shutdown-averting budget bill will block federal light bulb efficiency standards, giving a win to House Republicans fighting the so-called ban on incandescent light bulbs.

You’ll find that misleading lede filed in the Politico under “GOP wins light bulb fight” with the even more misleading blurb, “The budget bill gives a victory to House Republicans fighting the ban on incandescent bulbs.”

Except, of course, there was no “ban on incandescent bulbs.”  As a leading manufacturer explained to Climate Progress in July:

“The reality is, consumers will see no difference at all. The only difference they’ll see is lower energy bills because we’re creating more efficient incandescent bulbs.”

The only victory is for the right wing media that kept lying about the issue (see “Led by Murdoch Outlets, Conservative Media Misled Light Bulb Consumers 40 Times In 7 Months“).

Oh, and there was a victory for the extremist Tea Party wing of the party, which opposes all government standards, even ones that the lightbulb industry itself wants and that would save households an average of $100 annually — which is to say it would save consumers $12 billion a year.

As E&E News (subs. req’d) reports, the non-deluded majority understand how nonsensical this “victory” is:

“In the real world, outside talk radio’s echo chamber, lighting manufacturers such as GE, Philips and Sylvania have tooled up to produce new incandescent light bulbs that look and operate exactly the same as old incandescent bulbs and give off just as much warm light,” Republicans for Environmental Protection Policy Director Jim DiPeso said in a statement. “The only different is they produce less excess heat and are therefore 30 percent more efficient. What’s not to like?”

Blocking the standards effectively serves as a slap in the face to light bulb manufacturers, who have been working since 2007 to produce the new bulbs.

“Eliminating funding for light bulb efficiency standards is especially poor policy as it would leave the policy in place but make it impossible to enforce, undercutting domestic manufacturers who have invested millions of dollars in U.S. plants to make new incandescent bulbs that meet the standards,” a coalition of dozens of lighting manufacturers, efficiency groups and environmentalists said in a letter this week to senators.

And it would disrupt the marketplace, supporters of the standards say, because individual states could still implement the standards. California, in fact, already is enforcing them.

“It would create a patchwork of enforcement that would be nightmarish for the industry,” said a lighting industry executive.

Nightmarish for the industry.  Costly for consumers.  Undercutting U.S. competitiveness.

So how did this inane provision stay in the final deal?

The rational folks turned wobbly and the extremist dim bulbs stood their ground.  Sound familiar?  Politico  spells it out:

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Republican House of Representatives Put Profits over Public Health 191 Times and Counting

By Jackie Weidman

To no one’s surprise, the new Republican-led House of Representatives has proven to be the most anti-environmental in the history of Congress.  Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA), Edward Markey (D-MA), and Howard Berman (D-CA) released “The Anti-Environment Record of the U.S. House of Representatives 112^th Congress, 1^st Session,” detailing the many recorded anti-environmental votes that members of the House took this year.

As of December 15, 2011, the House voted a record 191 times on bills or amendments that would undermine public health or environmental safeguards.  The House Republicans averaged more than one anti-environmental vote for every day that the House was in session – a total of 165 days in 2011.   These reckless proposals attempt to dismantle clean air and clean water safeguards, stop protection for some of our last wild places, and make it easier for big energy companies to  drill, mine and pollute.

As the report describes, the Environmental Protection Agency was the target of 114 – or three of every five  of these votes, while the Department of Interior and Department of Energy were targeted by 35 and 31 votes, respectively.

House Republicans voted to reduce the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency by nearly thirty cents for every dollar used for environmental protection. The Department of Energy’s investment in clean technologies — renewable energy and energy efficiency – was slashed by 35 percent in 2011.  The House also proposed to cut funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which acquires new lands for recreation and wildlife protection, by 78 percent in 2012.

Rep. Waxman noted that there is huge disconnect between the House Republicans’ agenda and the views of the American people.

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Long-delayed rules to limit toxins like mercury and arsenic from coal-burning power plants will be approved today, after twenty years of delay that protected coal utility profits at the expense of American health. The Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will finalize its mercury rule today, marking the end of an era of deliberate pollution despite the scientific knowledge that pregnant women and small children were being poisoned:

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to approve a tough new rule on Friday to limit emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxins from the country’s power plants, according to people with knowledge of the new standard. Though mercury is a known neurotoxin profoundly harmful to children and pregnant women, the air toxins rule has been more than 20 years in the making, repeatedly stymied because of objections from coal-burning utilities about the cost of installing pollution control equipment.

In 1990 the bipartisan legislation that amended the Clean Air Act ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to set standards for the emission of mercury, arsenic, and other toxic air pollution from power plants. Although a court decree mandated EPA standards by 2000, the rules were repeatedly delayed again. In 2006, the Bush administration released rules that were thrown out by the courts for failing to protect the public health. The health risks of mercury and arsenic are enormously well-documented. In the 21 years since the EPA was ordered to issue these rules, 17 states have independently acted to limit mercury emissions from power plants. Coal-fired power plants alone produce 772 million pounds of airborne toxins every year—2.5 pounds’ worth for every American.

Even with this finalized Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule, power plants will have years to comply. Upgrading power plants to cut air toxics is expected to create 31,000 construction jobs to 158,000 jobs installing pollution controls. “Jobs are created” when power companies are forced to clean up their plants, Mike Morris, CEO of American Electric Power has recognized.

Of course, the primary economic benefit of the mercury rule comes from its life-saving impact. Methylmercury from coal pollution accumulates in fish, poisoning pregnant women and small children. Mercury can harm children’s developing brains, including effects on memory, attention, language, and fine motor and visual spatial skills. Upgrades to the aged and dirty coal plants will also significantly reduce harmful particle pollution, preventing hundreds of thousands of illnesses and up to 17,000 premature deaths each year. “The ‘monetized’ value of these and certain other health benefits would amount to $55–146 billion per year,” the Economic Policy Institute states.

By Chris Mooney in a DeSmogBlog repost

Recently, I sat in on an off-the-record meeting about political fact-checking. I can’t report or quote from the event, but it spurred along some general thoughts that had already arisen in the context of writing The Republican Brain, which focuses a great deal on fact-checking—and thus, helped propel this post.

Fact checking is a phenomenon that has really taken off over the last half decade or so as, more and more, media outlets as well as independent and/or partisan voices are busily pronouncing on the “truth” of political statements. The reason? Well, there are many, but I would place the growing divide over reality and what is factually true, between the left and the right, as perhaps the leading one.

By far the best known fact-checking outlets are the websites PolitiFact, a project of the St. Petersburg Times, and FactCheck.org, based at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Perhaps most prominently in the mainstream media, there is also the Washington Post’s fact-checker column, which regularly bestows one to four “Pinocchios” upon politicians’ statements.

These three main fact-checking outlets are then complemented by an ever growing number of blogs and, of course, fact-checkers on both sides of the political aisle.

Here, incidentally, arises a pretty sharp divide—between those who claim to check both political “sides” equally, and those who don’t.

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It’s Key to Bringing Private Capital to the Fight Against Global Emissions

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon gives a speech prior to the Durban climate conference, urging world leaders to create a multibillion-dollar fund to fight the effects of climate change.  AP photo.

Richard W. Caperton in a CAP repost

The Green Climate Fund created at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, meeting in Durban, South Africa, last week will go a long way toward reducing ever-increasing emissions in developing countries by broadly distributing investment risks and encouraging an increased flow of private capital into the fight against climate change. Thanks to the American delegation at the conference, the fund has the right design in place to support projects effectively around the globe that will help avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change and help developed countries meet their pledges for the climate finance needed in the years to come.

In fact, the only way developed countries will fulfill their pledge made in Copenhagen in 2009—to mobilize $100 billion per year in adaptation and mitigation funding by 2020—is through a sophisticated Green Climate Fund that uses public money to leverage large amounts of private capital. Negotiators at Durban succeeded in making this fund a reality, and their work is a critical step forward in battling climate change.

This international action to bring private investors to the table in solving the climate problem is regrettably in marked contrast to the United States, where policymakers continue to thwart efforts to build the clean energy economy.

Before getting into how the fund should work, it’s important to understand why it’s necessary in the first place.

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At an Iowa debate last night, Republican presidential front-runner Newt Gingrich bashed the decision to extend review of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Spurred by intense, bipartisan opposition in Nebraska to the pipeline’s proposed route over the Ogallala Aquifer, the State Department decided that alternate routes needed to be assessed. After an emergency legislative session called by Republican governor David Heineman, the state of Nebraska has begun its own environmental review. The Canadian tar sands company behind the pipeline, TransCanada, has said it will redirect the pipeline away from the sensitive Sandhills.

However, Gingrich dismissed the will of the people of Nebraska, attacking President Obama for threatening a veto of the Republican Keystone XL poison pill in the payroll tax cut bill:

The president of the United States cannot figure out that it is — I’m using mild words here — utterly irrational to say, “I am going to veto a middle-class tax cut to protect left-wing environmental extremists in San Francisco,” so that we’re going to kill American jobs, weaken American energy, make us more vulnerable to the Iranians, and do it in a way that makes no sense to any normal rational American.

Watch it:

The farmers and ranchers of Nebraska who stood up to the foreign tar sands company TransCanada might not agree that their opposition to unlimited foreign oil greed means they aren’t a “normal rational American.”

In fact, it’s the decision to rush Keystone XL that Nebraskans think is “utterly irrational.” “We do not even have a new route out of the Sandhills yet, and they want to rush the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline,” said Bruce Boettcher, landowner and rancher in the Sandhills, in a statement to ThinkProgress Green. “It makes absolutely no sense.”

“Not only will this pipeline risk jobs of our farmers and ranchers, it is built as an export pipe sending tarsands to Latin America and Asia. If Newt wants a real education on this issue, we invite him to work just one day on a ranch in the Sandhills,” Nebraska activist Jane Kleeb tells ThinkProgress Green.

by Eric Boehlert & Jeremy Schulman, in a Media Matters repost