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Republican Texas Rep. Joe Barton on Wednesday dismissed concerns that the Keystone XL pipeline could contribute to climate change, citing the biblical flood myth described in the book of Genesis as evidence that climate change was not man made.

BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski obtained video of Barton speaking to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power in support of the Northern Route Approval Act, a bill that could allow Congress to override President Barack Obama if he refuses to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline extension.

"I don't think it's a secret that I'm a proponent and supporter of the Keystone pipeline," Barton explained.

In contrast to Barton's past insistence that global warming science is "pretty weak stuff," the Texas Republican took a different tack in Wednesday's hearing.

"I don't deny that the climate is changing," he said. "I think you can have an honest difference of opinion on what's causing that change without automatically being either all-in that it's all because of mankind or it's all just natural. I think there's a divergence of evidence."

"I would point out if you're a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change. And that certainly wasn't because mankind overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy."

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Republicans have been having a hissy fit over the potential nomination of Ambassador Susan Rice for Secretary of State, and I agree with Rachel Maddow, Karoli and others' assessment that the likely reason we're seeing the "three amigos" and company on television screaming about her being unqualified, is they want Sen. John Kerry nominated instead so Scott Brown can potentially make his way back into the Senate.

What has been ignored by all of them and by the better part, but not all of our corporate media, is a real reason to have issues with her nomination, and that's her conflict of interest over the Keystone XL pipeline.

From Democracy Now's headlines this Thursday: Report: Susan Rice Holds Stock in Keystone XL Oil Firm:

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice is receiving criticism of a different kind after it was revealed she holds up to $600,000 worth of stock in the firm behind the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline. TransCanada is seeking federal permission to transport Canadian tar sands oil to the U.S. Gulf Coast. If confirmed as secretary of state, Rice could play a key role in determining the fate of the pipeline.

I think if Ambassador Rice would like the job as Secretary of State, she needs to be divesting herself of those stocks, and if she doesn't and is nominated, she may find herself having problems with more Senators than just McCain, Graham and Ayotte, who look like they've all lost their freaking minds over this Benghazi nonsense.

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House Democrats pushed back this week at Republican obstruction and the likelihood of a transportation bill having any chance of being passed, something that used to receive bipartisan support and at the Republican Party's unwillingness to do anything to solve the problems with job creation in the United States if it might mean that heaven forbid President Obama is reelected.

House Democratic leaders blame poor jobs numbers on GOP obstructionism:

Blaming GOP obstructionism for the lingering jobs crisis, Democratic leaders on Friday called on House Republicans to bring a long-term highway bill to the floor.

The Democrats — led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) — noted that Friday's dismal jobs numbers included a steep decline — by 28,000 jobs — in construction employment. Reauthorizing transportation spending for two years, they argued, would help put those workers back on payrolls and stabilize the economy.

"With today's jobs report, it's clear that we have work to do," Pelosi said at a press briefing in the Capitol. "We have an answer to this, and that is to pass the [Senate] transportation bill."

Hoyer echoed that message, noting that the Senate-passed highway bill was supported by 75 senators — a rare show of bipartisanship in an upper chamber that's practically defined by gridlock.

"That bill has the votes on the floor of the House of Representatives," Hoyer said. "But unfortunately the Republican leadership won't put it on the floor."

The Senate approved a two-year transportation reauthorization proposal in March, but a number of House conservatives have objected to its size, and GOP leaders have declined to consider it on the floor. Instead, House Republicans passed a short-term extension to authorize highway funding through Sept. 30 — a bill President Obama has vowed to veto because it would automatically approve the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline that's currently under environmental review. [...]

Both Pelosi and Hoyer noted that the Senate bill was backed by a broad range of senators, highlighted by its sponsors, the liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and the conservative Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.).

"You'd almost have to be a contortionist in order to cover the expanse of opinion between Sen. Boxer and Sen. Inhofe, and yet they've come together in a bipartisan way," Pelosi said.

Full remarks of their statements in the clip above via Pelosi's site:

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The Republican Party decided to bring out the author of the controversial Blunt Amendment, that thankfully was killed in the Senate last month, which would have allowed employers to deny coverage of health services to their employees on the basis of personal moral objections, to give their weekly address this Saturday.

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt continued with the GOP's series of attacks on the Obama administration for the rising price of gas, of course conveniently omitting the fact that they soared to record heights after Republicans deregulated oil speculation back in 2008.

Blunt was also still flogging the Keystone pipeline project as some great "job creator" even though, as Media Matters' Political Correction noted, the numbers given by Republicans on the number of jobs created have been highly inflated and a lot of those jobs would be temporary or go to workers in other countries.

And like his buddy John Boehner over in the House, Blunt was calling the Buffett rule a "gimmick" because we all know that anything a Democrat proposes that might lower our deficit but doesn't fix the problem completely is a cheap trick, but when Republicans propose to go after the funding for Planned Parenthood, they're being completely serious about reducing the deficit and not just playing partisan politics.

Transcript of Blunt's remarks below the fold.

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It's so nice to see Republicans shilling for big oil and insisting that trying to move to other forms of energy is "ridiculous" but that's what we got from the head of the RNC, Reince Priebus, on Face the Nation this Sunday. And of course Priebus also trotted out the Republicans' "big lie" that Obama wants higher gas prices.

Elon Green over at Steve Benen's old blog, The Washington Monthly took that one on today after Mitt Romney repeated it on Fox News Sunday -- The Zombie Lie That Won't Die: Gas Prices Edition:

The claim that Obama consciously tried to hike the price of gas isn’t a new one. Last month, Mitch Daniels said the president “wanted higher gas prices, and he got them.” And earlier this month, a Fox News reporter was widely mocked, including by the president himself, for asking if Obama yearned for high has prices.

The Washington Post looked into the allegation (which, it’s worth noting, makes no sense whatsoever), and found that “the president never said he wanted the cost of gasoline to rise.”

What’s new, and immensely dispiriting, is that Romney — who, if nothing else, understands how the economy works — chose to pick up the mantle. The problem for him is he can’t very well acknowledge where the blame truly lies without eroding his support. If Romney calls out the oil speculators, he risks being labeled anti-capitalist, and if suggests ratcheting down the talk of attacking Iran, he will be labeled anti-Semitic.

The Washington Post also took on one of Priebus' other lies during this interview, which is that the building the Keystone pipeline will somehow lower the price of gas as well -- Will the Keystone XL pipeline lower gasoline prices?.

And Think Progress has more on Priebus' claim that the Keystone pipeline would create 20,000 jobs -- Myth That Keystone XL Creates Jobs Perpetuated By Oil Lobby, Parroted By Congress’s Oil Recipients:

Project advocates, who include Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, misrepresent its economic benefits to favor the oil industry, throwing out claims that Keystone XL creates “tens of thousands of jobs.”

However, studies conducted independently of TransCanada find much smaller jobs numbers, far from “tens of thousands.” An oil contractor hired by the State Department reported it would create between 5,000 and 6,000 temporary jobs, while an independent study by Cornell University found it would create only 500 to 1,400 temporary jobs. Once the costs of the increased pollution and risk of oil spills is factored in, Cornell found, the jobs impact is likely to be negative. The “118,000 spin-off jobs” number used by TransCanada received two Pinocchios from the Washington Post Fact Checker.

I'm also not sure how building a pipeline for Canadian oil which will end up on the world oil market would "get us a step closer to energy independence" but Schieffer let Priebus get away with that one as well. Schieffer for his part did at least challenge Priebus on the fact that Republicans were the ones that actually killed the pipeline by rushing the approval date, but after Priebus lied in response he didn't challenge him and just moved on to the next topic. But that's par for the course with these Sunday shows where Republicans are regularly allowed to lie with impunity and are seldom taken to task for it, with Schieffer being one of the worst offenders.

Transcript below the fold.

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Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says that Republican claims that the Keystone XL pipeline will create tens of thousands of jobs and lower the price of oil just aren't true.

"This is something Republicans have raised as an issue to lower the price of oil," Reid told CNN's Candy Crowley on Sunday. "It won't lower the price of oil. Construction won't be complete for a long, long time. And under the way it's constructed now, all the oil would be sold elsewhere. We can't have that."

The Nevada Democrat also noted that there had been "many exaggerations about tens of thousands of jobs."

The conservative-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce has insisted that the pipeline would create "more than 250,000 permanent jobs," while House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has estimated "over 100,000 indirect jobs."

The U.S. State Department, however, calculated last year that the number was actually in the 5,000 to 6,000 range.

Many activists oppose the pipeline because of environmental concerns.

(H/T: The Hill)

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During this week's Republican response to President Obama's Weekly Address, we got more of the same with their solutions on energy and gas prices, which is "drill baby drill", pretending that the Keystone XL pipeline is going to create tons of jobs, and pretending that they're for an "all of the above" energy policy when they've been completely dismissive of President Obama for pushing a move to new sources of energy like solar, wind and geothermal.

Hastings also completely ignored the fact that domestic oil production is up in the United States and it hasn't lowered gas prices, that it's a global market that President Obama doesn't have a lot of control over if they're unfairly going to try to blame him for the costs of gas rising and that oil speculation has a good deal to do with the price of gasoline going up which his party doesn't seem to be too interested in confronting since they don't want any regulation of Wall Street or anyone else for that matter. Let the 'free market" rule.

Hastings was also still pushing the GOP's old "jobs plan" which Jon Perr already took apart for us here at C&L, not to be confused with their "new" jobs plan which he also debunked for us as well.

Transcript of Hasting's remarks and their description of the video from their You Tube posting below the fold.

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It seems Republicans can't quit lying about how President Obama is somehow responsible for the cost of gas going up, or that the Keystone pipeline is somehow going to result in any significant job creation in the United States. That's exactly what we got from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison during the Republican's weekly response to President Obama's weekly address this week.

I'd just refer everyone to these posts where Hutchison's talking points have already been rebutted.

What Reporters Are Getting Wrong About Gas Prices

Brent Bozell Now Making Up Oil Statistics

It seems the Senator and Bozell are reading their talking points off the same script. Imagine that? I don't have to wonder too greatly about who they might have came from.

Transcript via the GOP's You Tube channel below the fold.

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On ABC's This Week, we were treated to another interview by Speaker of the House John Boehner where he did a bit of history revision on what went on with Republicans and their recent mucking up the works on allowing an extension of the payroll tax cut to be extended. He also repeated his lie that the Republicans passing thirty "jobs bills" with no challenge from host Jake Tapper.

And of course they're not done trying to get that Keystone pipeline extension jammed through by any means possible, this time with Boehner promising to attach it to the upcoming American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act.

Transcript via This Week:

TAPPER: So I want to get to presidential politics in a second, but let's start with the State of the Union address, President Obama spoke this week, and you said that his message is, quote, "running on the politics of division and envy," and to you, it's almost un-American. What do you mean by that?

BOEHNER: Well, the president doubled down on the same failed policies that have not worked. Matter of fact, they have made the economy worse, higher taxes, more spending, more regulation. What I'm talking about here is the politics of dividing America, the politics of envy. This is not the American way.

And, you know, if the president won't work with us to help create jobs, I'm sure the American people will elect someone who will.

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House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said on Sunday that he may block an extension of the payroll tax holiday if President Barack Obama does not approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

"We're going to do everything we can to make sure that this Keystone pipeline is in fact approved," the Speaker told Fox News host Chris Wallace.

"Are you saying you may link the Keystone pipeline to extending the payroll tax holiday?" Wallace asked.

"We may," Boehner admitted. "As I say, all options are on the table."

"Why not demand that if he wants the payroll tax cut, he has to approve it?" Wallace urged. "In other words, it comes with it. You want the payroll tax cut, the pipeline goes with it."

"All options are on the table," Boehner repeated.

Wallace also noted that during his upcoming annual State of the Union speech, Obama would ask for more help for the middle class, propose that the wealth pay more taxes and suggest a "grand bargain" to cut the deficit and raise the nation's debt limit.

"It sounds to me like the same old policies that we've seen," Boehner complained. "And if that's what the president's going to talk about Tuesday night, I think it's pathetic."

Last week, the Obama administration rejected TransCanada Corp.’s plan to pipe Canadian oil sands through sensitive environmental areas to Gulf Coast refineries. The 2 percentage point payroll tax cut for 160 million workers expires in February.