More Job Building Economic Recovery Obama Style
Aug 25, 2011 13:26:33 GMT -5
Post by shann0 on Aug 25, 2011 13:26:33 GMT -5
dailycaller.com/2011/08/25/northern-red-tape-congressman-warns-alaska-pipeline-could-be-dismantled-within-10-years/
FAIRBANKS, AK - JUNE 21: A buried section of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline emerges a few miles north of the Yukon River on July 21, 2002 in Fairbanks, Alaska. The 800 mile pipeline carries crude oil from Prudhoe Bay to the ice free port of Valdez, Alaska. (Photo by Barry Williams/Getty Images)
Northern red tape: Congressman warns Alaska pipeline could be dismantled within 10 years
Read more: dailycaller.com/2011/08/25/northern-red-tape-congressman-warns-alaska-pipeline-could-be-dismantled-within-10-years/#ixzz1W4Bdt5lW
The Obama administration is setting the stage for the dismantling of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and poses the greatest threat to its existence today, according to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings.
The 800-mile pipeline cost $8 billion to construct in the 1970s, and has moved more than 18 billion barrels of crude oil. Three oil companies constructed it, in the face of significant opposition from environmentalists, in response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo.
The federal government approved the pipeline as part of a strategy to secure domestic alternatives to oil from the Middle East. But the Natural Resources Committee notes that the law authorizing the then-controversial pipeline’s construction came with a caveat: If the pipeline should ever cease being viable, it must dismantled.
That day could come within the next decade.
Hastings told The Daily Caller the Trans-Alaska Pipeline remains an important national-security asset today just as it was in the 1970s, because it helps reduce Americans’ dependence on foreign oil.
According to Hastings, the Obama administration has shown a greater interest in appealing to “far-left environmentalists” than in preserving a pipeline that carries approximately 10 percent of the nation’s daily oil output and is responsible for one-third of Alaska’s economic output. (RELATED: Study links El Nino climate to civil wars, unrest)
“Basically, what they’re doing is allowing the pipeline to dry up,” Hastings said. “The bottom line is, you need to have a certain flow of oil through the pipeline to keep it viable, especially when it’s wintertime … because [then] you have some infrastructure problems within the pipeline.”
The flow of oil from Prudhoe Bay along Alaska’s Northern Slope down to Valdez on the state’s southern coast has steadily declined from its peak of 2.1 million barrels per day in 1988 to approximately 650,000 barrels today.
Published estimates from the federal Energy Information Agency suggest that number could decline to 490,000 barrels per day by 2015, a number low enough to endanger the pipeline’s continuing viability. The agency’s estimate for the year 2030 is just 270,000 barrels per day.
Alaska’s deputy commissioner of the its Department of Natural Resources, Joe Balash, told a congressional subcommittee in June the declining flow of oil through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline threatens to physically clog it, endangering the environment.
Read more: dailycaller.com/2011/08/25/northern-red-tape-congressman-warns-alaska-pipeline-could-be-dismantled-within-10-years/#ixzz1W4BMLGqP
FAIRBANKS, AK - JUNE 21: A buried section of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline emerges a few miles north of the Yukon River on July 21, 2002 in Fairbanks, Alaska. The 800 mile pipeline carries crude oil from Prudhoe Bay to the ice free port of Valdez, Alaska. (Photo by Barry Williams/Getty Images)
Northern red tape: Congressman warns Alaska pipeline could be dismantled within 10 years
Read more: dailycaller.com/2011/08/25/northern-red-tape-congressman-warns-alaska-pipeline-could-be-dismantled-within-10-years/#ixzz1W4Bdt5lW
The Obama administration is setting the stage for the dismantling of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and poses the greatest threat to its existence today, according to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings.
The 800-mile pipeline cost $8 billion to construct in the 1970s, and has moved more than 18 billion barrels of crude oil. Three oil companies constructed it, in the face of significant opposition from environmentalists, in response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo.
The federal government approved the pipeline as part of a strategy to secure domestic alternatives to oil from the Middle East. But the Natural Resources Committee notes that the law authorizing the then-controversial pipeline’s construction came with a caveat: If the pipeline should ever cease being viable, it must dismantled.
That day could come within the next decade.
Hastings told The Daily Caller the Trans-Alaska Pipeline remains an important national-security asset today just as it was in the 1970s, because it helps reduce Americans’ dependence on foreign oil.
According to Hastings, the Obama administration has shown a greater interest in appealing to “far-left environmentalists” than in preserving a pipeline that carries approximately 10 percent of the nation’s daily oil output and is responsible for one-third of Alaska’s economic output. (RELATED: Study links El Nino climate to civil wars, unrest)
“Basically, what they’re doing is allowing the pipeline to dry up,” Hastings said. “The bottom line is, you need to have a certain flow of oil through the pipeline to keep it viable, especially when it’s wintertime … because [then] you have some infrastructure problems within the pipeline.”
The flow of oil from Prudhoe Bay along Alaska’s Northern Slope down to Valdez on the state’s southern coast has steadily declined from its peak of 2.1 million barrels per day in 1988 to approximately 650,000 barrels today.
Published estimates from the federal Energy Information Agency suggest that number could decline to 490,000 barrels per day by 2015, a number low enough to endanger the pipeline’s continuing viability. The agency’s estimate for the year 2030 is just 270,000 barrels per day.
Alaska’s deputy commissioner of the its Department of Natural Resources, Joe Balash, told a congressional subcommittee in June the declining flow of oil through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline threatens to physically clog it, endangering the environment.
Read more: dailycaller.com/2011/08/25/northern-red-tape-congressman-warns-alaska-pipeline-could-be-dismantled-within-10-years/#ixzz1W4BMLGqP