Thursday, September 04, 2008

Sarah stretches the truth: The natural gas pipeline lies

Joe Sudbay (DC)

This really is vintage Bush/Rove. Just make things up and hope the media doesn't cover it. NBC's Chuck Todd said last night, "The speech was very thin on substance." What we're learning is that the thin substance Palin did discuss -- including the Bridge to Nowhere -- just wasn't fact-based. She lied. From the Anchorage Daily News, this one is a whopper:
PALIN: "I fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history. And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly forty billion dollar natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence. That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.

THE FACTS: Palin implies that construction has begun on a major natural gas pipeline from the top of Alaska into Canada. That is not correct.

In fact, no building has begun and actual construction is years away, if it ever happens. This summer the Alaska Legislature, at Palin's request, passed a bill under which the state will issue a "license" to a Canadian energy company, TransCanada Corp., and pay it up to $500 million as an incentive to someday build this enormous project, which Alaska politicians have long sought with little success. The license is not a construction contract, and federal energy regulators have not yet approved the project.

Palin also puts the price tag for the project at $40 billion, an exaggeration. This is roughly $10 billion more than most cost estimates industry players and consultants have made to date.
Just make up a lie and repeat over and over and over. That's the GOP strategy. We'll be hearing about this pipeline ad nauseum. Although, in the next incarnations, Sarah will tell us how she was out there building the pipeline herself -- with Todd, of course.

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