Carly Pope

The Keystone XL Export Pipeline is the next move in a complicated chess game by the oil and gas industry to assure sky-high future prices for its products -- and unaffordable fuel for the rest of us. (In their minds the devastating environmental legacy is collateral damage -- but the economic hit is a key ingredient in their model. They want us to pay too much.) American natural gas and Canadian oil producers have cartel envy; they can't get the outrageous prices that gas and oil...

It looks overwhelmingly likely that in a few days, a huge chunk -- $85 billion -- of current federal spending will stop. Those cuts are likely to be partly restored as a result of the fall-out and public reaction as they begin to be felt, so the odds that the budget which takes effect on March 1 will remain in effect are low. But other cuts, or a combination of cuts and revenue increases, will take their place. While this "sequester" is a moving target, and not a final result, it...