Slow-Rolling the Keystone XL

CNN headline story:  Gas prices have risen for 32 days straight, according to AAA. That means that the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline has increased more than 13% over that period to $3.73.

Minnesotans want to see the price of gasoline higher. Apparently Minnesotans feel farmers should pay more for diesel. [For a response to this article, click here.]

Critics of a booming silica sand mining industry will ask lawmakers to hit the pause button Tuesday when the Minnesota Legislature holds its first-ever hearing on a subject that has so far been left up to local governments. 

Activists chartered two buses from southeastern Minnesota to the Capitol for a joint hearing of the Senate and House environment committees. They hope to convince legislators that sand mining is a regional issue that needs broader regulation than it now gets in Minnesota or neighboring Wisconsin, where the "sand rush" has been roaring for several years.

Their top goal is a hold on new mines, processing plants and transportation facilities so that Minnesota can do a broad study of the environmental, health and other effects of digging up silica sand and shipping it to the oil and gas fields of North Dakota and other states. The sand is a crucial component in hydraulic fracturing, a process also known as fracking, that has unlocked vast new energy supplies. 

CBS is reporting: $5.00 gasoline "returns" to the Southland. Predictable.

CNS reports: price of gasoline doubles under President Obama.

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Don alerted me to a Billings Gazette story that Nebraska won't get the power lines in place for the Keystone XL before the end of 2015.

A Nebraska utility says the new route for a proposed oil pipeline that would carry Canadian crude oil through the state will delay work on electric transmission lines for the pipeline.

Nebraska Public Power District officials said they won't be able to build the transmission lines by the deadline TransCanada set for the end of 2014.

NPPD Chief Operating Officer Tom Kent said there's no way the transmission lines will be ready by 2015.

The most interesting part of the story: the spokesman only says when it won't be completed; no idea when it will be completed.

More on the Keystone XL 1.0 here.