MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: Keystone XL

Interview

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SCHULTZ: Get your cellphones out. I want to know what you think. Tonight`s
question, are you happy President Obama is sticking it to the Republicans
over the Keystone XL pipeline? Text A for yes, you can text B for no to
67622, you can always go and leave a comment at our blog at ed.msnbc.com.
We`ll bring you the results later on in the show.

Let me bring in Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Senator, great
to have you with us tonight.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, (D) RHODE ISLAND: And you End.

SCHULTZ: How do you view this? Where are we legislatively right now?
This is when the minutiae (ph) starts isn`t it?

WHITEHOUSE: This is where it begins. I don`t know what effect the
President`s veto treat is going to have, I suspect very little because they
had to have seen it coming, although he hadn`t made it quite this clearly
before. They`ve said that there`s going to be an open amendment process
and we look forward to take advantage of that open amendment process. To
do everything we can to highlight the different between where the fossil
fuel funded Republican Party is and where most average Americans now are on
climate change.

This is kind of a turning point and I hope that we can take full advantage
of it.

SCHULTZ: Do you think the President is really connecting this to climate
change? That this could be a benchmark moment in American history, that
this could separate him from other presidents turning the tide and staying
with the science and saying, we have to show the world that we`re serious
about this? Do you think that`s it, or is it about maybe negotiating and
getting a better deal somewhere else legislatively?

WHITEHOUSE: I hope it`s the former and not the latter. The increment of
extra greenhouse gas, extra carbon that the tar sands create is enough to
put the equivalent of nearly 6 million cars on the road for 50 years. It
virtually wipes out the vast majority of the President`s initiative to
increase milage. So, I would doubt that he would want to take an
initiative that he works so hard for that`s been successful and wipeout 70
percent of it with one fell swoop with this pipeline.

The damage from it, if you look at the current social cause to carbon is
about $128 billion in damage. That`s a pretty big hammer over this
country. And if we can turn that around, that`s a big thing to bargain
away. This isn`t just a little pipeline with...

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

WHITEHOUSE: ... you know, 42,000 jobs and all that good stuff the
Republicans are saying. This is a very big hammer that a very responsible
scientist who at (ph) Grantham (ph) Institute says it`s game over for
climate if we don`t bring it to an end.

SCHULTZ: And what do you think the Republican reaction is going to be? Of
course Mitch McConnel released that statement that I just read a moment
ago, but their legislative response, what will it be?

WHITEHOUSE: Well, I think that they`re in a bit of a bubble. They are
funded by fossil fuel interest so much that I don`t think they really see
beyond the fossil fuel funding that surrounds them. So, I think that
they`re going to be a little bit surprised by the discrepancy between where
they think they are and where the American public already is on climate
change.

So, I think they`ll go ahead with it, I think they got a point that they
want to prove here. But why on earth this new Republican Congress would
want to introduce itself for the first time to the American people...

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

WHITEHOUSE: ... by doing something that`s blindly serves the interest of
the fossil fuel industry and has -- I mean 42,000 jobs, OK, temporary,
great. They killed Shaheen-Portman, the clean energy bill which had
190,000 jobs.

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

WHITEHOUSE: So, this isn`t about the jobs and everybody can see that,
that`s pretty transparent.

SCHULTZ: Senator, good to have you with us tonight. I appreciate you
being the only Senator who did the real homework and went to Nebraska to
talk to the folks on the ground and get the story about what it means to
run a pipeline over our aquifer, why should we take that risk? And, oh by
the way, every pipeline leaks. Why we would want to do that, I don`t know,
the President making a big statement today.
Thank you Senator, I appreciate your time.

WHITEHOUSE: Thank you Ed.

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