It turns out that In 2009 Keystone applied to The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), for special permission to operate the pipeline at slightly higher pressure than allowed under existing regulations.

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The Winnipeg Free Press reported that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned Obama the U.S. will have to pay market prices for its Canadian oil after Obama's de facto veto of the Keystone XL pipeline. Canada is preparing to sell its oil to China.

Until now, NAFTA had shielded the U.S. from having to pay global prices for Canadian oil. That's about to change.

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"YOU are going to hear of wars and reports of wars; see that YOU are not terrified. For these things must take place, but the end is not yet."

Since Shell began its journey to drill in the Arctic seven years ago, the company has negotiated an inefficient thicket of federal agencies, dealt with federal delays, and fended off numerous lawsuits from conservation groups. That should change, he said.

“To put it bluntly, the regulatory process for drilling in Alaska is broken; it is not efficient, it results in unnecessary and costly delays, and it needs to be fixed,” he wrote.

Shell has spent $4.7 billion — including $2.2 billion buying its original leases — to meet federal requirements associated with exploratory drilling. It expects that federal approval would follow in an orderly manner, but that hasn’t happened, Slaiby said.

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The administration has already put 85 percent of offshore acreage off limits through its 2012-2017 OCS leasing plan, placed Federal lands in the west off limits, imposed and proposed more regulation on energy production, and called for more taxation of the domestic oil and natural gas industry. - Institute For Energy Research
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Obama shut down all Alaska Arctic ocean oil drilling in http://beforeitsnews.com/tea-party/2012/10/what-did-obama-say-about-increasing-drilling-2460506.html"target=blank>April 25, 2011 and then temporarily relented in June 26, 2012 in time for the campaign season. It doesn't matter how much exploration you allow, how much interest you show in regulatory agency reform, how much posing you do as a friend of energy, when you are just going to slap an EPA air pollution ban on the project at the end.
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Solar, Wind Account For All New US Electricity in September

Of course it does so at sky high premium prices and inefficiency and at the expense of the technologies that are proven to work affordably.
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I'd think about America, and about how the history of the place would come to life, and how my very path would be the rolling parchment onto which our history has been scribed. I'd felt the ghost of the Pawnee horseman at my shoulder. I'd seen the arms of the pioneer building his homestead. I'd heard the laughter of the Creole Cowboy. I'd admired the craftsmanship of the pipeliner, and marveled at the genius of the engineer.

When I think of the men and women of North America, I don't think we need this pipeline. A pipeline is built to send a resource from a place that has a lot of something to a place that doesn't. But civilization won't collapse without oil; it'll collapse without clean water, healthy soil, and a stable climate. What we ultimately need, it seems, is what no pipeline can bring because it's already here. Walk across America, and view the paths that were once been blazed by hand tool, the wilderness tamed by pluck, the tree roots yanked out by grit, and see, within us all, the deep reservoirs of goodness, the wellsprings of love, and you can't help but believe that -- with our nimble hands, inventive minds, compassionate souls, and a good pair of feet -- we can go far.