Keystone: Exporting Canadian Oil Across America’s Backyard

Cross-posted from Huffington Post

Given the relentless “all of the above” energy strategy pursued by the Obama Administration, the release this past Friday of a positive environmental impact report for the proposed Keystone oil pipeline was no big surprise. The U.S. State Department essentially declared that since the extra-dirty tar sands oil designated for the pipeline was going to be shipped and burned one way or another, building the pipeline down from Canada to Gulf coast refineries would not have that much impact on the environment — despite warnings from climate scientists that burning all the tar sands oil would be “game over” in the fight to stop climate change.

This conclusion by the State Department was a laughable bit of self-fulfilling logic. But perhaps the biggest surprise in the report was the tacit admission that the tar sands oil isn’t going to be burned in the U.S. at all. Instead, it is destined for refining and export overseas.

The State Department report details how Gulf Coast oil refineries will use the tar sands crude oil delivered by Keystone to replace supplies from Venezuela and Mexico, refine the crude into high-end products like gasoline, and then export the refined fuel overseas. Meanwhile, as if to add insult to injury, fuel prices paid by U.S. consumers in the Midwest are expected to jump as the pipeline will siphon off crude oil supplies that are currently landlocked in America. The U.S. State Department did not, of course, highlight these findings at the top of its report but instead buried them down in the “market analysis” section, where it left a clear trail of breadcrumbs.

Interestingly, the State Department went way out of its way to argue that the pipeline won’t be used to export unprocessed crude oil. (Though the industry clearly expects otherwise: see here.) Yet at the same time, the State Department admits, using painstakingly disconnected phrasing, that the crude oil delivered by the pipeline will be processed by Gulf coast refineries and then exported, in a shell game whereby export refineries replace declining crude oil supplies from Venezuela and Mexico with Keystone Canadian tar sands oil.

Regarding the pipeline’s impact on the export of refined crude, the State Department report says: “…future refined product export trends are also unlikely to be significantly impacted by the proposed Project.”

And what exactly are those trends? The State Department reports that: “In 2005, exports began increasing… Export volumes have increased to over [3 million barrels of oil per day] in the first half of 2012. This increased volume of refined products is being exported by refiners as they respond to lower domestic gasoline demand and continued higher demand and prices in overseas markets.”

And why use the extra dirty crude oil to be delivered by the Keystone Pipeline? The State Department says: “Gulf Coast refiners’ traditional sources of heavy crudes, particularly Mexico and Venezuela, are declining and are expected to continue to decline. This results in an outlook where the refiners have significant incentive to obtain heavy crude from the oil sands.”

And there you have it, a shell game, with Keystone as the lynchpin for the whole effort. Gas prices go up for Midwesterners, big oil refineries profit from the overseas export of fuel processed from dirty tar sands oil, and the rest of us are that much further in the hole in our fight to stop climate change. The environmental impact statement appears to be a clear signal that the Obama Administration is headed down the road to approval. However, the growing backlash against the pipeline creates a headache for the president who just made a very public commitment to protect the climate. A fight is clearly in the works.

– Hunter Cutting is a consultant and writer.

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First Lady Michelle Obama Praises Change Happening Across the Nation

The White House

Office of the First Lady

From new school lunches to states like Mississippi where the childhood obesity rate is decreasing, Mrs. Obama lauds changes and encourages the nation to keep working for our children’s health

Clinton, MS – As part of the celebration of the third anniversary of Let’s Move!, First Lady Michelle Obama today highlighted change happening across the country to keep our children healthy, from new school lunches nationwide to localities where the childhood obesity rate is declining. Mrs. Obama praised these changes, and called on leaders from across the nation to keep working to improve our children’s health.

            The First Lady joined TV personality and child nutrition advocate Rachael Ray to highlight the new healthy school lunches that are now being served across the nation. Thanks to the bi-partisan Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, championed by Mrs. Obama and Ray, and signed into law by the President in 2010, the 32 million students who eat lunch provided by their school are now seeing more fruits, vegetables, low-fat or fat-free milk varieties, and whole grains; less saturated fat and sodium; and proper portion size on their lunch trays. Mrs. Obama and Rachael Ray hosted a cooking competition between school chefs to highlight the new healthier school lunches, and over the next several weeks, LetsMove.gov will feature school lunch success stories from across the nation.

Mrs. Obama and Rachael Ray chose to highlight school lunches in Mississippi, which was rated the most obese state in the nation for several years, because the state’s childhood obesity rates have declined by 13% among elementary school students in recent years.  According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Mississippi is one of several states and cities to show decreases in childhood obesity, including Philadelphia, New York City and California. Mrs. Obama praised Mississippi’s efforts and called on other states and cities to follow suit.

“We’ve seen real, measurable declines in the rates of childhood obesity right here in Mississippi, and in places like Philadelphia, New York City and California. And there is no reason why this success can’t happen in cities and states all across this country, if we’re willing to work for it,” said First Lady Michelle Obama. “So now is truly the time to double down on our efforts. We know what works, we know how to get results, now we just need to step up, and put in the energy, and effort and imagination.”

Growing evidence suggests comprehensive efforts such as making healthy foods available in schools and communities and integrating physical activity into people’s daily lives are making a difference and contributing to these declines.  The Clinton Public School District (CPSD) in Mississippi, where the First Lady visited, is an example of such a comprehensive effort. CPSD mobilized the entire community to make their schools healthier to support their children’s physical wellness and academic achievement. With leadership from the Superintendent, Board of Education, parents, students and community leaders, Clinton made healthy schools a top priority and implemented district-wide changes to bring physical activity and nutritious choices to students – all without additional funding.

In 2008, the Clinton School District performed a district-wide assessment of all aspects of school wellness through school health councils and the child nutrition director for the district. From the assessment, the district formed a plan to provide healthier school environments across the district through coordinated school health programming, which encouraged each school to form a school health council with students, parents, faculty, and community members.

Clinton then implemented a district-wide wellness policy that paved the way for its community to get involved in the effort to build healthier schools.

•          Clinton school cafeterias offer Grab-N-Go lunches in school cafeterias as a healthy, affordable alternative to lunches brought from home.
•          The district held a “Taste of CPSD” healthy recipe contest for students and brought in a professional chef to train child nutrition employees to get kids, parents, and employees excited about cooking and eating healthy foods.
•          Clinton also partnered with the Mississippi Department of Education and the Bower Foundation on the statewide “Move to Learn” campaign with the goal of increasing physical activity in classrooms.

In 2011, a health and wellness goal was added to Clinton Public School District’s strategic plan, making the health and wellness of its students and employees one of the district’s top five strategic plan goals, as important as academic achievement, recruiting and retaining great teachers and providing safe, technology friendly facilities. Today there are a number of programs and activities in place throughout the school district to encourage healthy lifestyle choices. Clinton’s schools were able to increase fruits and vegetables for student meals, ensure that nutrition education was taught in the classroom, and incorporate physical activity throughout the school day.

President Obama is on hand for the unveiling of the new Rosa Parks statue in the U.S. Capitol

February 27, 2013 12:00 PM EST

To mark African American History Month, as well as the 150th anniversary of the year the Emancipation Proclamation, we talked with White House Curator Bill Allman about a painting called Watch Meeting--Dec. 31st 1862--Waiting for the Hour that hangs near the Oval Office in the West Wing.

President Obama strongly believes we need to replace the arbitrary cuts known as the sequester with balanced deficit reduction, and today he was at a shipyard in Newport News, VA to talk about what failing to do so will mean for middle class families.

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How to Get High School Dropouts Into 'Recovery'? Ideas Bloom Across US

Six classes shy of the credits she needed, she thought that she could skip getting a diploma and still find a college that would train her to be a medical assistant.

"I've been doing nothin' for a whole year," Ms. Quinones says. Actually, she's been running into walls – spending hundreds of dollars on in-person and online programs that made false promises to get her a high school credential. Meanwhile, her friends graduated and went on to college, including her boyfriend. This fall, she says he told her, " 'I can't have a girlfriend that didn't do nothin' in life.' " So she decided, "OK ... I have to do it for myself and for everybody else.... I have to get my diploma."

Nationally, about 600,000 students drop out of high school in a given year. And more than 5.8 million 16-to-24-year-olds are "disconnected" – not in school and not working. In 2011, governmental support (such as food stamps) and lost tax revenues associated with disconnected youths cost taxpayers more than $93.7 billion, according to Measure of America, an initiative of the Social Science Research Council, a nonprofit based in New York.

"Education has become so key to getting into the labor market [that] we call dropping out 'committing economic suicide' at this point," says Kathy Hamilton, youth transitions director for the Boston Private Industry Council, which partners with the school district to run the Boston Re-Engagement Center (REC), a hub for helping dropouts like Quinones complete their education.

Dropout prevention has been in the spotlight in recent years. But increasingly, school districts are also realizing that they can do more to bring young adults back into the fold.

It's called "dropout recovery," with districts deploying a host of strategies – from door-to-door searches for dropouts to alternative schools where people earn free college credits while taking their final high school courses. The efforts are taking place in dozens of cities ranging from Camden, N.J., to Alamo, Texas.

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America has "long had a forgiving education system, where people can come back at any time to complete a diploma or finish a degree, but we haven't been structured to reach out and reengage youth who have dropped out," says Elizabeth Grant, chief of staff in the US Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. "As educators across the country saw more-accurate graduation and dropout numbers and recognized the size of the challenge, our school systems started to get more responsive."

The US Department of Education launched the High School Graduation Initiative in 2010 to support school districts doing dropout prevention and recovery work. Competitive grants were given out to 27 districts and two states, for a total of just under $50 million.

A Personalized Approach

At least 15 cities have organized stand-alone reengagement centers. They offer a one-stop, personalized case-management approach – bringing together schools, private businesses, workforce-development experts, and other partners to try to reconnect young adults with a promising future.

Since 2008, New York City's centers have reenrolled about 17,000 students, and the centers in Newark, N.J., have brought back 3,900, according to the National League of Cities.

Staff members at Boston's REC listen to each student's story, share struggles from their own school days, help them find the right school or alternative program to fit their needs, and stay in touch once they've reenrolled.

That's what won the trust of Quinones. In November she started coming every weekday to take online credit recovery courses at the REC, a bare-bones set of offices and computer labs with inspirational posters.

In just a month – keeping normal school hours, though that's not required – Quinones finished four courses and is on track to earn her diploma in February. Although she feels "stuck" in geometry, a teacher is on hand to guide her.

"In high school, teachers never really sat with me.... Having teachers take out their time ... to go through one problem for four hours, that means a lot," she says.

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The REC "has expertly directed students toward options that are best suited to their needs, rather than falling into the habit of putting them back in the school where they were previously unsuccessful," says Chad d'Entremont, executive director of the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy in Cambridge, Mass.

Since 2010, the REC has re-enrolled more than 1,300 students. About 7 out of 10 persist for at least a year. The tracking system for the total number of graduates is still being developed, but at least 160 earned their diploma within about a year, Ms. Hamilton says, and she predicts many more will do so over a longer time frame.

Dropouts are a diverse and difficult group to get across the finish line. About 1 in 5 says he or she lacks parental support, and another fifth are parents themselves, according to the 2012 High School Dropouts in America survey by Harris Interactive. Other reasons for dropping out include mental illness, the need to work, too many school absences, and uninteresting classes. Some dropouts have spent time in prison or on the streets.

Settings that offer flexible schedules and sustained personal attention are often required to help them master the skills they need.

"I'm always very honest with them: 'It's going to be tough, but it doesn't mean it's going to be impossible. And I'm going to help you envision yourself with a cap and gown a year from today, or two years from today,' " says Carolina Garcia, a dropout recovery specialist at Boston's REC.

An 'Early College' Approach

In Texas, an "early college" approach to dropout recovery is gaining national attention.

At least 10 districts are motivating dropouts to come back not just to finish high school, but also to take community-college courses free of charge – sometimes enough to earn an associate's degree or a training certificate.

The most notable is the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo district (PSJA), where 90 percent of the population is Hispanic and about a third is low income.

When Daniel King became superintendent there in 2007, he faced a dropout rate of about 18 percent. Nearly half the dropouts that year were seniors – 237 of them. "I felt I needed to immediately do something ... [because] the more time that went by, the harder it would be to find them and reengage them," he says.

In a matter of weeks, he had teamed up with South Texas College to launch the College, Career, & Technology Academy (CCTA) for 18-to-26-year-olds – in leased space in a former Wal-Mart.

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He put up banners around town with the message: "You didn't finish high school. Start college today." That, combined with a door-to-door search for students who had dropped out, resulted in 223 of those seniors coming back to school.

By May 2008, about 130 had earned their diplomas. To date, more than 1,000 students have graduated from CCTA, more than half of them with college credits.

Along with core academic courses, former dropouts start with a college-success course that solidifies their study skills. Then they move on to career and technical-education courses such as welding or medical terminology.

The state allows both the school district and the community college to receive per-pupil funding, so the education at CCTA is free to students. Texas is also unique in funding high school students up to age 26. (Most states stop at around 21.)

"Before I came to this school, I had zero drive in me," says CCTA student Edgar Rodriguez. He was out of school for a semester and a summer while being "reckless" and "irresponsible," he says.

At CCTA, teachers tutored him for exams that had previously stumped him. The college-success class, taught by his former English teacher, inspired him to want to pursue teaching.

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