Elizabeth Warren to Obama Admin: "Are you pushing the EU to take Keystone XL oil?"

[MannyGoldstein]

Last edited Mon Dec 23, 2013, 02:50 PM - Edit history (2)

Democrats Demand Clarity On Trade Representative's Position On Tar Sands Oil

I *love* that the Obama Administration is concerned about the "lack of adequate transparency and public participation in the [EU's] process" of creating environmental law. LOL!

WASHINGTON –- A group of Democratic Senators and House members expressed concern Friday that trade negotiators are trying to undermine fuel standards in the European Union so that the U.S. can export tar sands oil from the Keystone XL pipeline.

The EU has a policy known as the Fuel Quality Directive, which calls for a 6 percent reduction in emissions from transportation fuels like gasoline and diesel by 2020. As part of that, the EU wants to assign values to different types of fuel based on the emissions they generate. Tar sands oil, which has much higher emissions than conventional crude, would be assigned a higher value under the system. A letter from 21 Senators and House members cites "troubling" reports that the U.S. might be working to undermine those rules as part of the negations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

...

Six senators and 16 House members, all Democrats, wrote a letter to Froman on Friday asking him to elaborate on his position on the matter. "If these reports are accurate, [the U.S. Trade Representative's] actions could undercut the EU’s commendable goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its transportation sectors," the lawmakers wrote. "This would be contrary to the principles of the Obama Administration’s Climate Action Plan and would reflect a short-sighted view of the United States’ economic interests. Given the importance of the issues at stake, we believe clarification of USTR’s position is necessary."

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the co-chairs of the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change created earlier this year, led the letter-writing effort.

It's not mentioned in the article, but Warren was one of the signatories.

[Scuba]

1. Foreign policy experience: Check.

[pscot]

2. The President's specialty is mixed messaging

AKA the old thimble rig.

[n2doc]

3. Its his Jobs program

[progressoid]

4. "This Is The Most Transparent Administration In History"

It's true because I heard the President say so.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Certainly, this administration has pushed hard for transparency

Secret NSA programs have made our "private" lives quite transparent, both in the US and abroad. And now they want the EU's governmental organizations to be just as transparent; seems fair.

[Proud Public Servant]

6. Don't worry, it'll all get better

under Hillary.

[pangaia]

26. It is because we can see right through his lies.

[Jester Messiah]

7. She would be the best president.

If necessary, Hillary can be her veep.

[mitty14u2]

8. Elizabeth Warren to Obama Admin:

I dont see Elizabeth Warren in this title or in the Article, what am I missing?

[MannyGoldstein]

9. She was one of the signers - good catch

Here's the article I originally read, but I figured it was a bit too inflammatory to be an OP:

Elizabeth Warren Comes Down Hard Against Global Warming, Separates Herself From Hillary Clinton On Climate Change

[Mass]

10. That she is ONE OUT OF 26 people signing this letter, but the OP wants you to believe

she was the leading force (or at least the article the OP read did).

Ms Warren is my senator and I am happy she is. Good for her to have signed this letter. Good to my junior senator to have signed this letter too. Good to the other 4 senators to have signed this letter.

But the attempt of making Liz Warren responsible of everything good that happens in this world is just as embarassing as the fawning over Barak Obama.

This said, this is a good letter, so they should all be congratulated to have signed it,

[MannyGoldstein]

11. It's posted in the *Elizabeth Warren* group

So I'm pointing out what *she* did. I was planning on posting a thank you to all of them later when I'm home from work and can write something more thoughtful.

[L0oniX]

12. I "want you to believe" too...

[MannyGoldstein]

13. Will you be my Psychic Friend? LOL!

It's the personal attacks that get tiring for me.

A bit too much of it these days, I think.

[cascadiance]

19. I'm also glad that my good senator, Senator Merkley was one signing this letter...

... but don't mind Ms. Warren getting special note. That kind of note is really needed to get through the media onslaught that is trying to push Hillary as the predetermined nominee. We need everything we can get to have an alternative voice in 2016 representing us.

That being said, I also want to encourage many here to support Senator Merkley's reelection campaign in 2014. We really need to keep people like him in the Senate and add more over time too. Senators like he and Ms. Warren will help us get the corporatist influence out of our party later on. Can't let them down like Feingold got let down earlier in Wisconsin.

[hopemountain]

20. merkeley and defazio are my reps

and i agree… hillary would take this country two steps BACK to the benefit of the 1% … elizabeth warren will lead our country 2 steps forward to benefit everyone else.

[Enthusiast]

14. They should vote against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

It is against the best interests of the citizens of the world.

[MannyGoldstein]

17. IIRC, Warren was one of only 3 senators to vote against Obama's new Trade Representative

I suspect she'll vote the right way.

[Enthusiast]

18. If Senator Warren doesn't vote the right way, God help us.

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[bvar22]

15. DURec, and thanks for the other link.

Elizabeth Warren Comes Down Hard Against Global Warming, Separates Herself From Hillary Clinton On Climate Change

On Friday, December 20th, Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren finally separated herself clearly from former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, regarding the issue of climate change and global warming. Here is the story:

TransCanada Corporation wants to build the Keystone XL Pipeline to carry oil from Alberta Canada's tar sands to two refineries owned by Koch Industries near the Texas Gulf Coast, for export to Europe; and Hillary Clinton has helped to make that happen, but Elizabeth Warren has now taken the opposite side.

Secretary of State Clinton, whose friend and former staffer Paul Elliot is a lobbyist for TransCanada, had worked behind the scenes to ease the way for commercial exploitation of this, the world's highest-carbon-emitting oil, 53% of which oil is owned by America's Koch Brothers. (Koch Industries owns 63% of the tar sands, and the Koch brothers own 86% of Koch Industries; Elaine Marshall, who is the widow of the son of the deceased Koch partner J. Howard Marshall, owns the remaining 14% of Koch Iindustries.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/elizabeth-warren-comes-do_b_4483753.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Devastating.

[MannyGoldstein]

16. No worries

Once her "Don't worry, I need to pretend I'm Liberal for the next few years but once i'm inaugurated... " tour of Wall Street is over, we'll get to see the new, improved Hillary. Liberal, but with a steely dose of realism that only 1,000,000 miles of diplomacy can bring.

[hopemountain]

21. are you aware hillary

"admires" the president of brazil who sanctions the genocide of the indigenous of the amazon trying to stop the corporate forest and jungle resource exploiters?

[BelgianMadCow]

22. Thanks for the heads-up about this backroom ugly oil deal

I need to contact some parliament critters over here asap.

[MannyGoldstein]

23. See if you can get me a work visa while you're at it

This place is getting crazy. Today I explained the US health insurance nightmare to our teenager, he said "Why don't we move to Europe?" Good question!

[BelgianMadCow]

24. Can do

in a bygone era, I once extended an open invitatation to DUers who could not stomach the Bush* years anymore to come and stay at my place('s outhouse), so...

Just looked around a bit, looks like anyone can stay in Belgium for 90 days, if you want to stay longer, you have to apply for a visum via your employer. Many US corporations have operations in Belgium, Tyco and Caterpillar come to mind. We're short engineers, nurses, technical graduates and teachers.



on edit: more info about visa for employees : https://dofi.ibz.be/sites/dvzoe/EN/Application-guides/Pages/Employees.aspx

[questionseverything]

27. is there anything good for "we the people" in any of these trade agreements?

TPP represents only one-half of this ongoing, attempted, global corporate coup d'état. The second half finds its embodiment in the equally secretive TAFTA, which may prove a greater threat to our nation's sovereignty than the TPP in light of the fact that, as Public Citizen notes, "European-based corporations own more than 24,000 subsidiaries in the United States."

Like the TPP, they explain, TAFTA is also being secretly negotiated by some 600 U.S. corporate trade advisers and contains many of the very same threats to nation-state sovereignty…



Both TAFTA and TPP would supplant U.S. sovereignty through the extreme private investor tribunal system in which the "extrajudicial tribunals would be authorized to order taxpayer compensation for public policies that European corporations claim undermine their TAFTA investor rights," according to Public Citizen.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10437