Green Socialists Block Expansion Of Oil Refineries: Updated

This is getting ridiculous as fuel prices soar, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council blocked the expansion of a Conoco-Philips refinery in Illinois that processes Canadian crude and are greenmailing/blackmailing a Chevron expansion of a refinery here in California.

The Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, successfully pressured the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to block ConocoPhillips’ expansion of its Roxana, Ill., gasoline refinery, which processes heavy crude oil from Canada, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The project would have expanded the volume of Canadian crude processed from 60,000 barrels per day to more than 500,000 barrels a day by 2015. After the Illinois EPA had approved the expansion, the green groups petitioned the federal EPA to block it, alleging ConocoPhillips wasn’t using the best available technology for reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

Apparently, the plant’s planned 95 percent reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions and 25 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides wasn’t green enough. NRDC’s opposition is quite ironic since ConocoPhillips and the activist group actually are teammates in the global warming game. Both belong to the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of eco-activist groups and large companies that is lobbying for global warming regulation

I am embarrassed to admit that I was once a member of the Sierra Club, I thought it was more a social networking group that liked to hike and climb mountains but boy was I mistaken. They are moonbat socialists and I left as soon as I realized that.
This appears to be the second level of the greenbats efforts to prevent gas prices from being reduced through the expansion of domestic oil production, after all raw crude is of little use without refining it. So they want us to drive electric cars, fine, but what about the evironmental concerns about all those batteries and the mining of the materials that make them like nickel and cadmium or what goes into producing those batteries? Where will the power to recharge those batteries come from since they also block the expansion of nuclear power plants? I guess they really want us to get around in Flintstones style pedal cars, live in caves and eat nuts. When are Americans with a modicum of common horse sense left going to stand up to the greeno pinkos and just say no more?
Update: Newt lays it out.