John Abraham challenges Monckton to put his money where his mouth is

Dear Mr. Monckton,

I understand that you’ve claimed Earth’s temperatures will likely decrease by 0.5 ^oC in two years, but most certainly by 2020.  Specifically, you stated this on a website:

“Meanwhile, enjoy what warmth you can get. A math geek with a track-record of getting stuff right tells me we are in for 0.5 Cº of global cooling. It could happen in two years, but is very likely by 2020. His prediction is based on the behavior of the most obvious culprit in temperature change here on Earth – the Sun.”

Here is the link: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/27/the-200-months-of-the-pause/

I am calling your claim.  I challenge you to a $1000 bet on both.  Specifically,

1.      I challenge you to a $1000 bet that the Earth temperature will not drop 0.5 C in two years

2.      I challenge you to a second $1000 bet that the Earth temperature will not drop 0.5 C by 2020

Let’s keep stipulations as few as possible.  My only requirement is that any major volcanic eruptions would make the bet void.  I will let you choose the temperature dataset (NASA GISTEMP, NOAA, HADCRUT4).  Any reputable data set of land-ocean surface temperatures.  I will let you choose the starting year of 2012 or 2013.  Obligations to pay can be based off our word and the publicity of this challenge.  If you require payment to be sent to a third party ahead of time, I will gladly oblige.

Please respond at your earliest convenience, I am anxious to finalize this agreement.  Please be assured that if you decline this wager, I will make your declination public.

Can we agree to donate the money to a charity that deals with climate issues. Selected by the winner of the wager.

Cheers, As Always

Dr. John Abraham

Professor

University of St. Thomas

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Why is Obama Administration Appointing Another Big Oil and Gas Executive to DOE?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, August 27, 2013

Contact: Kate Fried, Food & Water Watch, (202) 683-4905, kfried@fwwatch.org 

Why is Obama Administration Appointing Another Big Oil and Gas Executive to DOE?

Statement of Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter

Washington, D.C.—“Paula Gant’s appointment to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy for Oil and Natural Gas, Office of Fossil Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy further highlights that the Obama Administration values the interests of the oil and gas industry over those of U.S. communities.

“As an executive for the American Gas Association, Ms. Gant has played a key role in influencing federal regulations on behalf of the oil and gas industry. This is not a professional track record that suggests objectivity in regards to shale gas development.

“Gant’s appointment mirrors that of Dr. Ernest Moniz, another ardent natural gas supporter who now oversees our nation’s energy agenda.

“Just as drilling and fracking for oil and natural gas should have no role in policies designed to curb 

climate change, oil and gas industry executives should not be entrusted to write our nation’s energy rules.

“Backlash against fracking builds by the day, as evidenced by the one million comments submitted last week that rejected the administration’s industry-friendly approach to fracking on public lands.

“Ms. Gant’s appointment is a serious misstep, one that leads us to question the Obama Administration’s commitment to protecting its constituents and the vitality of their natural resources.

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Reuters' Ingrassia suppresses climate change news and favors false balance with discredited skeptic views

Reuters Boss Accused Of Climate Scepticism Denies Agency Has Cut Climate Reporting

by Graham Readfearn, DeSmogBlog, August 27, 2013

“At Thomson Reuters, we’re in the business of turning change into opportunity,” say the owners of one of the world’s biggest and most influential news agencies.

But the commitment of Reuters to reporting on arguably the most pressing issue in human history – climate change – is now being questioned.

In January, after almost 20 years working for Reuters, the agency’s Asia climate change correspondent David Fogarty was told his role was being axed, but that he could be the correspondent for the shipping industry. He resigned. While Fogarty’s position has apparently not been filled, the agency in late July appointed a dedicated “Gaming Correspondent” to “drive casino coverage in Asia.”

Fogarty had spent four and a half years as the agency’s climate change correspondent for Asia. But things started to change in early 2012. He was told that climate and environment stories were “not a priority” and as time went on, he says it became harder and harder to get climate change stories published.

In a blog post for the Reuters-focussed The Baron website, Fogarty recalled meeting Reuters boss Paul Ingrassia, who at the time was deputy editor-in-chief and is now managing editor.

He told me he was a climate change sceptic. Not a rabid sceptic, just someone who wanted to see more evidence mankind was changing the global climate. Progressively, getting any climate change-themed story published got harder. It was a lottery. Some desk editors happily subbed and pushed the button. Others agonised and asked a million questions. Debate on some story ideas generated endless bureaucracy by editors frightened to take a decision, reflecting a different type of climate within Reuters – the climate of fear.

Research by Media Matters, reported in The Guardian, found climate change coverage at Reuters had almost halved since Paul Ingrassia was hired in April 2011.

The Columbia Journalism Review’s Alexis Sobel Fitts spoke to “several” Reuters journalists, who, Fitts wrote, “said that since Ingrassia was hired, they’ve felt pressure from management to add 'balance' to climate change stories by including the views of global-warming sceptics."

“I’m really glad someone outside the company is looking into this,” said one staffer who did not wish to be identified. “I think this is the most worrying thing any of us have seen here.”

Reuters still retains some respected climate change writers, including the experienced reporter Alister Doyle and columnist Gerard Wynn. But Fogarty told DeSmogBlog:

Reuters remains one of the great names, a trusted brand, for news unbiased coverage. That hard-earned reputation has immense value because clients, the public and staff know they can trust the accuracy of Reuters news and that major issues will be covered fully and insightfully. So when there’s a major policy shift on coverage of an issue of global importance, it is fair to ask for an honest explanation. Reuters management has not done this and it is a fair question to ask why.

The Baron has also reported that a senior editor had clashed with Ingrassia over the way a climate change story was being covered. DeSmogBlog asked Ingrassia if there had been a policy shift at Reuters, if he classed himself as a climate science sceptic and if the agency would be hiring a replacement climate correspondent for Asia. Responding for the first time to the accusations that climate change has been pushed down the editorial pecking order, Ingrassia emailed DeSmogBlog:

My side of the story is that there is no story. On all issues that we cover, Reuters covers all sides and takes none, as our Trust Principles require. Just a few days ago Reuters exclusively broke the need [sic] of the latest IPCC climate report.  Other major news organisations credited us with the scoop. That fact speaks louder than the claims of a disgruntled former employee.

The Trust Principles operate across the Thomson Reuters business. Reuters’ news agency service accounted for only three per cent of the company’s $12.4 billion revenue base in 2012. But the reach and influence of the agency is large.

According to Thomson Reuters, its news service employs more than 2,700 journalists in almost 200 offices writing 2.1 million unique news stories a day. “Reuters news and insight reaches over 1 billion people each day,” the company claims.

Ingrassia was hired by Reuters in April 2011 from Dow Jones where he had been the president of Dow Jones Newswires from 1998 to 2006. Ingrassia had held various positions, including an editor and journalist with the Wall Street Journal, which was owned by Dow Jones. He won a Pulitzer Prize 20 years ago for his reporting on the auto industry while in the Detroit bureau of the WSJ.

Also during his time at Dow Jones, Ingrassia served as an unpaid director for several years with the free market think tank the Property and Environment Research Center. Tax forms and PERC newsletters suggest Ingrassia was on the PERC board from 2004 until around September 2006.

PERC, one of many think tanks to have accepted funds from ExxonMobil and Koch foundations, advocates environmental protection based on property rights and argues “the market process can be used to improve environmental quality.” PERC fellows have taken a number of positions on climate change, including citing scientists who claim climate impacts may be manageable and in some cases beneficial.

The think tank generally downplays the impacts of rising greenhouse gas emissions, opposes any subsidies for environmental protection and opposes regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Ingrassia has also voiced beliefs that the free market should be preferenced over government intervention when it comes to solving environmental issues.

In a September 2008 interview on National Public Radio, Ingrassia was asked if it was in the US government’s interest to invest in ways to make cars greener. He answered: “Well, why is government investment going to make it happen more quickly and more efficiently and more effectively than the free market?”

Earlier this year, PERC’s long-standing president Terry Anderson argued renewable energy would have little impact on reducing climate change impacts, so people should take out insurance instead.

Two PERC associates have also written climate change books aimed at schoolchildren – one published in 2002 and another in 2007 - and which both cited several climate science denial groups as reference material.

More recently, PERC fellow Jonathan Adler appeared to attack climate change deniers in conservative ranks, arguing it was possible to oppose regulating greenhouse gases while still acknowledging that human-caused climate change was a “serious problem.”

If the claims of David Fogarty and others within Reuters are right, then perhaps Adler might be the right person to make a phone call to fellow free marketer Paul Ingrassia.

http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/08/27/reuters-boss-accused-climate-scepticism-denies-agency-has-cut-climate-reporting

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Name hurricanes after your favorite climate change denier: Marco Rubio, Michelle Bachmann, John Boenher

Link:  http://climatenamechange.org/

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Hudson shoreline faces threat from Greenland thaw and sea level rise

An icy warning for the Hudson Valley: Greenland's ice sheets are melting at record paces, meaning higher sea-levels and higher tides and storm surges in the Hudson River Valley.

by John Ferro, Poughkeepsie Journal, August 25, 2013

After Tropical Storm Irene brought 4 feet of Hudson River water into the Beacon Sloop Club two years ago, its members made sure the damage would be less next time. 

The members of the club, which offers free sails on the sloop Woody Guthrie and sponsors annual strawberry and corn festivals, replaced ruined Sheetrock with exterior-grade siding.

“So when it flooded,” longtime club member Tom LaBarr said, “we wouldn’t have to replace it. And sure enough, last year it flooded again” during Superstorm Sandy.

Up and down the Hudson River, and along Long Island and the New Jersey shoreline, many communities are preparing for one of the most consistent trends reflecting the world’s changing climate: sea-level rise. The impacts range from higher tides that may inundate some riverfront areas of the Hudson, to more devastating storm surges.

More than 9,000 acres in the Hudson River Valley and as many as 3,600 households could be inundated by 2100 just at high tide, if global sea levels rise by as much as 6 feet, according to a recent report from Poughkeepsie-based nonprofit Scenic Hudson.

“Every waterfront community in the Hudson Valley has to be planning for sea-level rise and more violent storms,” Judith Enck, the Environmental Protection Agency’s local administrator, said during a visit to Poughkeepsie this month. “And that affects land-use decisions — where we put things, how close to the water and whether or not we want buffers.”

In Rockland County, scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory returned recently from a trip to Greenland, where they continued testing the IcePod. The device contains infrared, laser, radar and photographic sensors that will provide greater insight into the biggest driver of sea-level rise: the melting of on-land ice.

“Any time we talk about the status of the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, we talk about the concern of sea-level rise,” said Peter West, spokesman for the National Science Foundation’s Division of Polar Programs, which contributed $4.1 million to the five-year IcePod project.

When the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its annual State of the Climate report Aug. 6, two facts were striking.

One, total sea level rose to a globally averaged record high last year at 1.4 inches above the 1993-2010 long-term average.

“That trend hasn’t ended at all,” Jessica Blunden, a scientist with NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, said during a teleconference to announce the report’s findings. “We are still seeing continued increases in sea-level rise, and we are at record levels right now.”

And second, ice melt — primarily in Greenland and Antarctica — is contributing more than twice as much to global sea-level rise compared with warming waters, which expand as the temperature rises.

The potential impacts of ice melt are vast.

One-quarter of the world’s population resides within 60 miles distance and 300 feet elevation of the coastline, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

More than 8 million people in the United States live in areas at risk of coastal flooding, according to NOAA.

More than 60% of New Yorkers live in homes that stand to be affected by future sea-level rise, according to a 2010 report prepared by the state Legislature’s Sea Level Rise Task Force.

The problem: Because conditions are changing so quickly, and so much about the complex interactions among weather, ice and ocean dynamics still need to be understood, scientists cannot say with certainty whether things will be better than expected – or much worse.

“Many of the planning models used in infrastructure planning rely on a set of assumptions that essentially count on the future being statistically a lot like the past,” NOAA Acting Administrator Kathryn Sullivan said during the agency’s teleconference. “Trends like the ones we have seen in the data certainly should lead one to question whether that will be so.”

Preliminary data suggest that 2012 will be the 22nd consecutive year the total mass of the world’s glaciers declined.

The Greenland ice sheet extends about 656,000 square miles, a little less than a quarter of the size of the continental United States. In some places it is more than two miles thick, its weight compressing the bedrock below.

Far larger is the Antarctic ice sheet, which is 5.4 million square miles, about 1.5 times the size of the lower 48 states.

Greenland’s ice sheet contains enough frozen freshwater that if it all melted — the chances of which are remote — sea levels would rise about 20 feet, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Antarctica’s ice sheet has enough frozen water to raise sea levels by 200 feet.

The mass of Greenland’s ice sheet has been declining, NOAA’s records show. From 1979 to 2006, summer melt on the ice sheet increased 30 percent. In 2012, it reached a record, with 97 percent of the surface experiencing some melting for a two-day period in July. And though the glaciers recover ice in the winter months, the winter gains have not offset the losses in summer.

The ice’s behavior correlates with other changes. Drastic and persistent reduction in the extent of the summer sea-ice cover around the coasts of places like Greenland can be linked directly to the warming of ocean surface temperatures in those open areas, said Jackie Richter-Menge, a researcher with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.

In turn, the warmer oceans can be linked directly to increases in tundra vegetation and the productivity of aquatic life in the coastal regions.

The reason these linkages are important, Richter-Menge said, is they reflect the persistence in the changes scientists are observing in the Arctic.

“In the Arctic, the records or near-records being reported from year to year are no longer anomalies or exceptions,” Richter-Menge said. “Really, they have become the norm that we see in the Arctic and what we expect to see for the foreseeable future.”

Likewise, scientists think reduced ice levels are being driven by a number of factors, not just warmer temperatures.

Satellite data show the surface reflectivity of the Greenland ice sheet in the warm-weather months has decreased. In other words, the ice is getting darker and absorbing more sunlight.

One reason may be as simple as more meltwater absorbs more light. But some theories suggest small bits of ash from western wildfires are making their way to Greenland’s ice sheet. These dark flecks of material may contribute more directly to the loss of reflectivity.

Another force that may be accelerating ice loss lies underneath, unseen and largely unstudied. Glaciers emerging from the ice sheets appear to be flowing more quickly.

“We don’t know if that is because the ocean is warming the edges, or if there is water getting underneath and making the ice flow faster,” said Robin Bell, the lead scientist on Lamont-Doherty’s IcePod project.

Indeed, Bell admits much remains to be understood.

“We don’t really understand all the processes,” Bell said, “and that is why we have been working hard to put this instrumentation suite together. Satellites let us look from a long distance. But to understand the processes, we need to get up close and personal with the ice sheet.”

Asked whether she worries about the future, Bell said she does not. Nonetheless, challenges remain.

“Change is always scary,” she said. “Humans don’t like change. But change fosters innovation. A lot of the science we see happening is innovation. And there is going to be interesting, innovative engineering and social solutions. Really, it’s about us moving past being afraid and saying, ‘OK, what can we do?’ ”

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20130825/NEWS04/308250059/Melting-ice-Hudson-shoreline-faces-threat-from-Greenland-thaw

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Barry Bickmore: Willful Blindness

by Barry Bickmore, Climate Asylum, August 24, 2013

I just watched a TED video of Margaret Heffernan talking about “The Dangers of Willful Blindness.”  (She’s also written a book called Willful Blindness, apparently.  See her official website.)  Heffernan talks about why some people turn a blind eye to glaring problems, while others choose to become “whistleblowers.”

Her introductory example was the case of Libby, Montana, where one woman, Gayla Benefield, started asking questions when both her parents died young, and she noticed an abnormal number of older men on oxygen tanks in the town.  She wondered whether the problem could have anything to do with the vermiculite mine that was the main economic engine of the town, and came to find out that the vermiculite mined there actually contains some asbestos.  [Note:  Heffernan says that vermiculite is a highly toxic form of asbestos, but that's not true.  Vermiculite is pretty harmless--it's just that this particular deposit also contained the minerals tremolite and actinolite, which are asbestos minerals.  Sorry, I'm a mineralogy teacher.]  At first, Benefield mostly just annoyed her neighbors, who didn’t want to look at the issue seriously, but that ticked her off and she kept at it.  Some of the neighbors even printed bumper stickers that said, “Yes, I’m from Libby, Montana.  No, I don’t have asbestosis.”  When the government finally stepped in and started screening the residents of the town, they found out that there was an asbestosis problem, and as a result the mortality rate in the town was 80 TIMES HIGHER THAN ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE COUNTRY.  Not 80% higher.  80 TIMES higher.  Not 80 times higher than average.  80 times higher than ANYWHERE ELSE in the country.

Now, I don’t have to tell my readers how I think this story relates to being a Republican Earth scientist who takes climate change seriously.  But watch the video and pay attention to how Heffernan describes the excuses people make for remaining willfully blind.  See if you don’t find eerie similarities with the excuses you hear coming from the “Do-Nothing-About-Climate” crowd.

Climate change wasn’t the first issue about which I had encountered willful blindness, though.  Back in 2000-2001, I worked on a project having to do with leaked nuclear waste at the Hanford Site in Eastern Washington.  This is where most of the plutonium for US nuclear weapons was produced since the 1940s, and production stopped in the late 1980s after a safety inspector blew the whistle on some of the UNBELIEVABLY unsafe things that were being done.  Since it was part of the weapons complex, all this stuff never came out before then because it was all hush-hush, national defense kind of stuff.  Maybe a couple million gallons of high-level nuclear waste have been released into the subsurface, a few miles by groundwater flow away from the Columbia River.  When I started the project, I decided to read up on the history of the site, and let me tell you, it cured quite a bit of my aversion to environmental regulation.  If you want to read a good historical account, see Atomic Harvest: Hanford and the Lethal Toll of America’s Nuclear Arsenal, by Michael D’Antonio.

This isn’t a uniquely Republican, or American problem.  It’s just the way people are.  But while I can use this fact of life to make myself feel a little more kindly toward people who brush off serious concerns about things like climate change, it also makes me want to give them a good shake and a couple backhanded slaps.  If facing the truth is going to make people fly into a panic, well maybe they just need to buck up.

http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/willful-blindness/

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Flanagan South Pipeline -- who needs the Keystone XL?

Oil sands pipeline avoids Keystone XL scrutiny

by Jeffrey Thomich, St. Louis Post Dispatch, August 25, 2013

SHELBINA, Mo. • The most valuable piece of farmland in Shelby County this summer isn’t growing soybeans or corn. It’s holding a hardier crop — steel pipe.

On a field just north of this tiny farm town along Missouri Highway 15, about 60 miles of pipe is stacked neatly in four rows that stretch almost as far as the eye can see.

In the coming months, the hundreds of pieces will be strung together as part of Enbridge Energy Co.’s Flanagan South Pipeline, a new 589-mile artery that will transport heavy Canadian oil through the nation’s midsection.

The Flanagan South line will link the Flanagan oil terminal an hour and a half southwest of Chicago with a crude oil hub at Cushing, Okla. From there, other pipelines can move oil south to the nation’s refining capital on the Texas coast.

Calgary-based Enbridge says the 36-inch diameter Flanagan South Pipeline will run diagonally across 11 Missouri counties from just north of Hannibal to Bates County, about an hour south of Kansas City. For most of the route, it will run alongside the 60-year-old Spearhead Pipeline, also owned by Enbridge.

At $2.6 billion, the project is enormous in its own right. But it represents just a piece of Enbridge’s broader plans to expand capacity for moving hundreds of thousands of additional barrels of oil a day from western Canada’s tar sands and the Bakken formation in the northern Great Plains to Gulf Coast refineries where it can be made into gasoline, diesel and chemicals.

Another Enbridge expansion, the Southern Access Extension, would connect the same Flanagan terminal with a storage hub 165 miles to the south in Patoka, Ill., about 75 miles east of St. Louis. Enbridge is also working with another company to develop a separate oil pipeline from Patoka to the Louisiana coast by converting parts of an existing natural gas pipeline.

Still, as ambitious as Enbridge’s plans are, Flanagan South and the other pipeline projects in the Midwest haven’t generated a fraction of the public backlash as the contentious Keystone XL Pipeline, which has drawn massive protests and hundreds of thousands of public comments while the oil industry and environmental groups await a decision by the Obama administration.

Pipeline supporters and critics alike say a primary difference is the 600,000 barrel-a-day Flanagan South project doesn’t cross the U.S.-Canada border and doesn’t require presidential permission.

In fact, work on the Flanagan South Pipeline is already beginning, less than two years after Enbridge formally committed to the project. By contrast, the northernmost and most controversial piece of Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Steel City, Neb., has yet to move forward five years after it was proposed.

LAWSUITS FILED

Still, for all the differences between the projects, critics say the same concerns exist with both. Among them are risks that a spill could foul water supplies; the greenhouse gas contributions of producing, processing and burning the heavy oil from Canada’s tar sands; and the destruction caused by extracting the tarlike petroleum from a mix of sand and clay beneath Canada’s boreal forest.

What’s more, environmental groups contend that the permitting process used for the Flanagan South Pipeline doesn’t require a comprehensive environmental analysis or allow for public input — a significant reason why so many who live in areas affected by the project know few details about it.

“A lot of the people we’ve talked to along the pipeline route have been pretty surprised to learn there’s a pipeline three quarters the size of Keystone XL in their backyard,” said Doug Hayes, a Sierra Club lawyer in Boulder, Colo.

Just over a week ago, the Sierra Club sued the Corps of Engineers in federal court in Washington for failing to provide access to application materials provided by Enbridge under the Freedom of Information Act. The St. Louis-based Missouri Coalition for the Environment filed a similar lawsuit a day later.

On Friday, the Sierra Club and National Wildlife Federation filed an amended lawsuit against the Corps of Engineers and four other federal agencies with responsibility for approving the pipeline for failing to analyze the project’s environmental impact.

Under the Clean Water Act, projects that involve dredging or filling of rivers, streams or wetlands require approval from the Corps of Engineers. In some cases, projects deemed to have minimal environmental impact qualify for general permits called nationwide permits that can be issued on an expedited basis.

The Flanagan South Pipeline has been authorized by three Corps of Engineers districts, including St. Louis, under Nationwide Permit 12, a general permit for utility projects that result in no greater than a half-acre of wetlands loss.

Hayes, the Sierra Club lawyer, said the use of Nationwide Permit 12 was improper for the Flanagan South Pipeline and violates the intent of the Clean Water Act by treating each of the pipeline’s 2,000 or so stream and river crossings as individual projects.

In Missouri alone, Flanagan South construction is estimated to “permanently and temporarily impact approximately 62,840 linear feet of stream equaling an area of 24.91 acres and approximately 38.23 acres of wetland,” the Missouri Department of Natural Resources said in a letter to Enbridge in April. The pipeline would also cross eight streams that already fail to meet federal Clean Water Act standards.

Lorin Crandall of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment said many of the water crossings in Missouri are also sources of drinking water, a reason why people across the state — not just landowners along the pipeline route — should be concerned about the Flanagan South project.

That’s especially true given that Enbridge is the same company responsible for the 2010 spill in Michigan that released 840,000 gallons of diluted bitumen into the Kalamazoo River. Diluted bitumen is a mix of heavy Canadian crude oil mixed with chemicals that allow it to flow through pipelines. Three years later, the cleanup from the disaster still isn’t complete.

Corps of Engineers spokesman Gene Pawlik said the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation. But, he said, oil and gas pipelines in general are among the projects authorized under Nationwide Permit 12.

But Enbridge spokeswoman Katie Lange said the company has been more than forthcoming with information about the project since making initial contact with landowners and elected officials in January 2012 when the company committed to build the pipeline. The outreach efforts included eight open houses across the pipeline route in April 2012 and four more this summer.

“We’ve been out there, we’ve been open, we’ve been transparent with this project from the get-go,” she said.

Lange also said Enbridge has faced up to its role in the Kalamazoo River spill and instituted sweeping changes.

“We walked away with egg on our face, and there are definitely lessons that have been learned from that,” she said. “The improvements that we have made to the system are more than I can even list.”

Enbridge prefers to tout what it says are the benefits of the pipeline, including additional North American oil production to the Gulf Coast, home to the majority of U.S. refining capacity, millions of dollars in property and sales tax revenue and thousands of temporary construction jobs along the pipeline route.

POLITICAL SUPPORT

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and Sens. Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt enthusiastically endorsed the pipeline. Nixon, in fact, pledged to do what he could to expedite state approval.

Local officials in rural counties where the pipeline will pass through have been equally enthusiastic.

Glenn Eagan, presiding commissioner in Shelby County, where Enbridge has staged 60 miles of pipe, said the Missouri Tax Commission estimated the pipeline will yield almost $1 million a year in new property tax revenue for the county when it’s fully operational.

That represents about a 20 percent increase from the $5 million or so the county, located about currently generates in property taxes, with 70 percent or more of the additional money going to local schools. The county’s road and bridge fund and general fund should each get an additional $60,000, money that can be used on road repairs or do work on the county courthouse.

“It’s awesome for the county, it really is,” Eagan said.

Jeffrey Tomich covers energy and the environment for the Post-Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @jefftomich.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/oil-sands-pipeline-avoids-keystone-xl-scrutiny/article_5a80dcef-44aa-5272-8451-fb4511a33522.html

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