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Home » News » Obama administration rejects Keystone pipelinePipelines will fuel plenty of talkObama, Congress begin 2012 in oil pipeline disputeMike Klink: Keystone XL pipeline not safe‘Secret’ Environment Canada presentation warns of oilsands’ impact on habitatPipeline Politics: How an Oil Sands Project Has Become Key to EnvironmentalismChiquita joins companies avoiding oilsands fuelsBig Oil and Canada thwarted U.S. carbon standardsEnvironment monitor says oilsands industry cut fundingState Department says GOP bill could kill pipelineCullen backs Gitxsan chiefs on EnbridgeNo ‘credible information’ to support claims oilsands are green, says Environment CanadaCanada’s tar sands lobbying gets murkyNEB decides Enbridge’s Line 9 Reversal application will go to an oral public hearingKill the pipeline: A path to real energy securityShell accused of lowballing environmental impacts of oil sands expansionLegitimacy of Gitxsan deal with Enbridge questionedAthabasca Chipewyan First Nation sues Shell for tar sands destructionNew report highlights dangers associated with tar sands pipeline to British ColumbiaCanada’s ‘ethical oil’ push gets tarred in British papersUK secretly helping Canada push its oil sands projectStockpiled Keystone pipes troubling, NDP MP saysCOASTAL FIRST NATIONS REAFFIRM OPPOSITION TO ENBRIDGE PIPELINEExposing the Blind Side of the Ethical Oil CampaignThe return of Alykhan VelshiNY Times Editorial: The Right Move on Keystone XLU.S. delay could spell end for Keystone XLNYT Editorial: The Right Move on Keystone XLKeystone XL pipeline unites left and rightKeystone XL Do-Over Likely a Lethal BlowStatement by the President on the State Department’s Keystone XL Pipeline AnnouncementStatement from Environmental Defence Executive Director Dr. Rick Smith on U.S. government’s decisionPresident Obama sides with the “many over the money” by effectively rejecting Keystone XLPembina reacts to additional review of proposed Keystone XL pipelineDakota Rural Action Applauds Decision to Delay PipelineVideo: Alberta premier blasts pipeline delayU.S. talks on Keystone route could push project past 2012 electionEU capitals should hold firm, send signal to Canada on dirty fuelsLocal View: No one forced TransCanada to take riskGovernments urged to put science first in oilsands monitoring plansRobert Redford video op-ed Keystone XLThe stranded oil sandsPipeline plan meets growing resistanceGreen donors warn Obama: ‘Do the right thing’ on Keystone pipelineNebraska Lawmakers Could Challenge Pipeline RoutePipeline politics trump sisterhood of the premiersCanada fighting EU plans to label oilsands world’s dirtiest crude sourceHillary’s legacy rests on fixing tainted pipeline approval processEminent Domain Fight Has a Canadian TwistCompanies use fuzzy math in job claims; candidates still buy inSlippery pipeline: The Keystone XL project deserves closer scrutinyCanada’s Environment Succumbs to Oil SandsWhy Keystone XL is not in the national interest“Oil Orgy” invades Energy SummitPipeline Review Is Faced With Question of ConflictKeystone XL: The wrong questionKoch Subsidiary Told Regulators It Has ‘Direct and Substantial Interest’ in Keystone XLConservation groups sue to stop groundwork on Keystone pipelineEnvironmental groups target Democratic lobbyists on Canadian oil pipelineKeystone XL: More about the politics than the petroleumOilsands high on Alison Redford’s agendaOil sands imports could be banned under EU directiveOliver vows fight if EU smacks oil sands with pollution penaltyKeystone pipeline e-mails show friendly exchangesB.C. municipalities demand closer scrutiny of proposal to expand oil shipmentsMedia roundup for Ottawa ProtestsState Department Considered 2-Year Keystone Pipeline Delay—BrieflyAnti-oilsands activists stage huge Hill protest (photos and video)Ottawa sit-in to protests federal support of oilsandsPipelines to the B.C. coast more important than Keystone: HSBCKeep Alberta oil off your hands, environmentalists warn British PM‘Ethical oil’ ad sparks war of words between Ottawa, SaudisNo new oil sands emissions rules this year: Peter KentPipeline to prosperity or channel to catastrophe?Former premier Peter Lougheed raises job fears over Keystone pipeline planDaryl Hannah’s ‘dirty’ talk has Brad Wall evangelizing ethical oilEnbridge misses river cleanup deadline as more oil discoveredAlberta must clean up oilsands or risk U.S. markets: MortonPipeline Spills Put Safeguards Under ScrutinyFirst nations group rejects pipeline ownership offerOilsands losing PR war, says energy pioneerWho’s Behind New Pro-Oil Sands Ad Blitz?Landowners: DEQ is “Last Hope” for Keystone XL Safety PlanGovernment promise to restrict bitumen exports falls by waysideNobel laureates ask Obama to block Keystone pipelineNobel Peace Prize Laureates Urge Obama: Reject Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil PipelineCanadian author Naomi Klein arrested at White House pipeline protestFirst Nations and American Indian Leaders Arrested In Front Of White House To Protest Keystone XLHeineman urges federal government to deny Keystone XL permitThe Keystone XL Pipeline: Oil for Export, Not for U.S. Energy SecurityPlan to protect oilsands region falls shortHensarling postpones town hall meeting amid tar sands pipeline furorFirst Nations leaders join Keystone pipeline protestVermont group says pipeline may carry tar sands oil through stateState Dept. Endorses Dirty Tar Sands MonstrosityOklahoma Family Fights Keystone Pipeline And WinsTransCanada gets Keystone green lightNation’s Largest Environmental Organizations Stand Together To Oppose Oil PipelineDogwood Initiative reacts to Enbridge Northern Gateway shipper agreementsYinka Dene Alliance reacts to Enbridge announcement of commercial agreements for proposed pipeline

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Obama administration rejects Keystone pipeline

News Articles Featured | Washington Post | January 18, 2012

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President Obama, declaring that he would not bow to congressional pressure, announced Wednesday that he was rejecting a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate the Keystone XL pipeline, a massive project that would have stretched from Canada’s oil sands to refineries in Texas.

Obama said that a Feb. 21 deadline set by Congress as part of the two-month payroll tax cut extension had made it impossible to do an adequate review of the pipeline project proposed by TransCanada.

“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people,” the president said in a statement.

The decision and the language that accompanied it made clear that the White House, far from deflecting a political issue until after the election, was fully engaged in a battle with pipeline proponents. Obama said that his administration had worked to improve energy security through higher fuel-efficiency standards, and that it would explore ways to relieve the pipeline bottleneck slowing oil shipments between a major terminal in Cushing, Okla., and the nation’s gulf coast refineries.

The administration will allow TransCanada to reapply for a permit after it develops an alternate route around the sensitive habitat of Nebraska’s Sandhills. The administration’s decision includes language making it clear that TransCanada can reapply, stating, “The determination does not preclude any subsequent permit application or applications for subsequent projects.”

Industry officials and analysts said they expect TransCanada to submit a new route proposal for the Nebraska leg of the pipeline within two weeks. TransCanada declined to comment on the matter Wednesday.

The effect of the administration’s move will probably be to delay the politically sensitive pipeline decision until after the presidential election, though the issue itself could help define the campaign fight between Republicans and Democrats. Environmental groups have lobbied against the project, arguing that the difficult extraction of oil sands contributes to climate change and that the pipeline itself poses leak risks. Supporters of the pipeline say it will create jobs and enhance U.S. energy security by increasing oil supplies from a friendly neighbor.

“President Obama is about to destroy tens of thousands of American jobs and sell American energy security to the Chinese,” Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said in a statement. “The president won’t stand up to his political base even to create American jobs. This is not the end of this fight.”

GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney issued a statement even before the administration’s formal announcement, accusing Obama of putting “politics ahead of sound policy,” and adding that the move illustrates why unemployment has been consistently above 8 percent.

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Pipelines will fuel plenty of talk

News Articles Featured | Vancouver Sun | January 02, 2012

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Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway pipeline project began life nearly a decade ago as a market study on how to open up Alberta's oilsands resources to ocean trade with Asia.

And now, public hearings on the $5.5-billion dual-pipeline proposal are set to begin Jan. 10.

The company and the federal government are pushing for approval, characterizing the project as a national imperative worth $270 billion to the Canadian economy over its lifetime.

In the eyes of many environmentalists and first nations communities, however, the project represents the risk of a major oil spill - either from pipeline rupture or a tanker accident off British Columbia's pristine north coast.

Aboriginal concerns are a key issue in the project's progression, with 130 first nations vowing to block the development, including a large number whose land claims cover a huge swath of the pipeline route.

"[Enbridge's] objective is to outline the credibility of the application," company spokesman Paul Stanway said in an interview.

"We have detailed engineering and environmental studies to prove [the pipeline] can be operated safely, and we're confident at this point we can make a very good argument," for its regulatory approval, Stanway said.

Bitumen from the oilsands near Fort McMurray is now shipped through a network of pipelines to Bruderheim, Alta. Enbridge's Northern Gateway bid is to build two pipelines from Bruderheim, 60 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, along a 1,172-kilometre route to Kitimat on the B.C. coast.

One would be a 36-inch pipe, which would deliver to Kitimat for export up to 525,000 barrels per day of mostly diluted bitumen - the raw product extracted from oilsands - or synthetic crude oil - the product produced after the first stage of refining bitumen.

The other would be a 20-inch pipe that would carry up to 193,000 barrels a day of imported condensates - a kerosene-like fluid used to dilute bitumen so it flows more easily - back in the opposite direction.

The pipeline's route travels through Alberta, over the Rocky Mountains just east of Tumbler Ridge, then takes a path across B.C.'s northern interior through Fort St. James, Burns Lake and Houston before piercing the Coast Mountains with two six-kilometrelong tunnels before reaching the Kitimat terminus.

The condensate and bitumen will be imported and exported by giant tankers, between 190 and 250 per year, which will dock at Kitimat.

And while Enbridge initially had difficulty securing firm commitments from potential users of the pipeline, the company has enlisted a roster of 10 supporters, each of which has put up $10 million to back its development during the regulatory process.

So far, the only named supporter is state-owned Sinopec, China's second largest oil producer and refiner. Enbridge has not identified the others, though in August announced it had reached commercial agreements with shippers that want to use the pipeline.

Stanway said Enbridge has also committed $100 million to developing the project's design and carrying it through the regulatory process, the price of which could rise to $300 million before it is over.

The job of weighing the project's benefits and risks is about to hit the public phase. The National Energy Board - which has been charged with conducting a joint review of the project under NEB regulations and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act - is holding community hearings in the Haisla First Nation of Kitamaat Village on Jan. 10, near the project's proposed terminus on the Douglas Channel on British Columbia's north coast.

Under NEB rules, the review will determine Canada's need for the project and decide whether it is in the national interest, while the CEAA review will assess environmental safety.

The three-member joint review panel that will conduct the assessment will be chaired by Sheila Legget, a biologist and the NEB's vice-chairwoman. The other two are energy lawyer and NEB member Kenneth Bateman, and geologist Hans Matthews, who is also experienced in aboriginal community development and consultation. Matthews is a member of the Wahnapitae First Nation of Ontario.

Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver, in an emailed statement to The Sun, has said the federal government is "committed to a thorough environmental assessment and consultation with aboriginal groups," about the project.

However, in recent months Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made it clear the federal government considers it a priority to break Canada's dependence on the United States market for oil exports, something Oliver repeated in his statement.

The project has the potential to generate "hundreds of thousands of new jobs, trillions [of dollars] in economic benefits," as well as billions of dollars in taxes and royalties to support government services, Oliver said.

The NEB anticipates the public process will run through 2012 and end in June 2013 while it considers oral submissions from 53 of the 216 registered interveners to the project and more than 4,000 public comments.

CEAA spokeswoman Annie Roy said most of the interveners giving evidence are first nations communities, and the initial community hearings give their members a chance to present evidence that doesn't lend itself to written submissions, such as traditional stories spoken by elders.

Interveners range from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers to environmental organizations such as ForestEthics and aboriginal communities to individual citizens.

After Kitamaat Village, the first round of community hearings picks up in Terrace then moves to Smithers, Burns Lake, Prince George, Edmonton, Fort St. James, Bella Bella, Prince Rupert, Masset and Queen Charlotte City on Haida Gwaii, Grand Prairie and Courtenay.

Dates for hearings in Hartley Bay, the Gitga'at First Nation community at the mouth of the Douglas Channel, Bella Coola, Kitkatla and Klemtu have yet to be finalized, but the NEB expects to complete the hearings by mid-March.

Then, Roy said, there will be another round of community meetings expected to last until mid-July, allowing some of the 4,000 members of the public who have registered to make public statements to the panel.

Enbridge's Stanway said the company won't play a role in those initial rounds, "except to listen, and we'll be there listening to what people have to say."

Interveners will have a chance to cross-examine Enbridge representatives or others who have presented evidence, in formal hearings scheduled for September and October.

"We'll be required to provide panels of technical people who can be crossexamined under oath," Stanway said. "So it is extremely rigorous."

Stanway said Enbridge has already responded to almost 4,000 written questions through two rounds of written requests.

Stanway said the company fully supports the process.

"We want to deal with it in a very respectful way," he added.

"The bulk of interveners in this first round will be first nations and Metis organizations. That's something we take very seriously and want to listen to what they have to say."

CONCERNS

Haisla First Nation Chief Councillor Ellis Ross said his group's evidence will focus on demonstrating how their people still use the land and harvest wildlife resources, and how the consequences of an oil spill would interfere with that.

"We have had enough of environmental degradation at the expense of the Haisla," Ross said, referring to the effects from industrial development on the Kitimat River Valley, including the original Alcan aluminum smelter, a now-closed pulp and paper mill and defunct methanol production plant.

From the Haislas' perspective, there is enough future development, in the form of natural gas pipelines and natural gas liquefaction plants, destined for the West Coast that they don't need to risk an oil spill which would be difficult to clean up.

"I don't think they can justify the infringement to our rights and title, based on what I've read through the [joint review panel]," Ross said.

Infringement of aboriginal title is a cornerstone of the opposition voiced by more than 130 first nations communities.

Environmentalists are somewhat skeptical of the NEB process, according to Nikki Skuce, senior energy campaigner for the group ForestEthics.

"The process is biased toward approving this project," Skuce said in an interview.

Skuce said that assumption is based on the NEB's past record with similar reviews and the makeup of the three-member panel, which has no representation from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and no members from B.C.

"However, I do think that it offers a process that allows for community participation and for people to vocalize alternative points of view," she added.

ForestEthics will be out to prove Northern Gateway "is not in the national interest" by highlighting the effect oil exports could have on climate change, and by arguing that Canada's existing pipeline network has enough capacity to handle planned expansions in oilsands production without any new routes.

Skuce said ForestEthics has spent decades working to preserve the central coast region known as the Great Bear Rainforest, the area where Northern Gateway's shipping routes would carry tankers, and she doesn't want to entertain any possibility of an oil spill.

"This is an incredible area that is not worth the risk, no matter what it is," she said.

ECONOMIC RATIONALE

Stanway said it is wrong for project opponents to talk about the inevitability of a major pipeline rupture or tanker spill.

"Those things are not inevitable," Stanway insisted, "and we need to explain why that's the case and the safety measures that we have in place."

In 2010 an Enbridge pipeline ruptured in Michigan, spilling 23,000 barrels of oil into the Kalamazoo River, but Stanway said the company "[takes] lessons from that situation and [will] use that information to ensure nothing similar to it can happen again."

The U.S. Transportation Safety Board has not yet released the results of its investigation into the cause.

Stanway added that the proposal has a strong economic case to make, starting with an estimated $2.4-billion-per-year increase in revenue to Canada's oil industry through higher prices producers would be able to generate from selling into wider markets.

"The real driving force behind Northern Gateway is the strategic argument for Canada having access to world markets for its most valuable export product," Stanway said.

In its application, Enbridge noted that existing production from Alberta's oilsands totalled about 1.3 million barrels per day of oil, with an additional 2.1 million barrels per day of production in some form of development or planning.

The company estimates Northern Gateway would create about 3,000 jobs at the peak of its construction, then support 1,150 jobs - including 560 in B.C. - over an anticipated 30-year period after completion.

Enbridge is also forecasting an $81-billion boost over 30 years to provincial and federal coffers through resource royalties and taxes.

Canada does ship a small amount of oil off B.C.'s coast through Vancouver via Kinder Morgan Canada's Trans Mountain pipeline, noted David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), so "it's not a brand new idea."

CAPP is an official intervener to the Northern Gateway regulatory process, but Collyer said the organization, which represents Canada's oil producers, is only doing so to speak generally in support of expanding West Coast exports.

"The importance, or significance of West Coast market access is going to continue to grow," Collyer added.

DECISION

The National Energy Board panel has a long way to go before completing its assessment of all the evidence and arguments. On the schedule as it exists now, the joint review panel will not hear the final arguments from Enbridge, government departments and interveners until April 2013, and it doesn't anticipate releasing its environmental assessment report until that fall, with a final decision due by the end of the year.

NORTHERN GATEWAY

A nine-part series examining Enbridge's Northern Gateway project, the regulatory process surrounding the $5.5 billion dual-pipeline design and those who have the most to gain or lose.

Today: An overview of the players, the issues and the public process.

Jan. 2: About Enbridge.

Jan. 3: The impact on the First Nations.

Jan. 4: Environmentalists weigh in.

Jan. 5: The business community.

Jan. 6: The risk of pipeline spills.

Jan. 7: The risk of tanker spills.

Jan. 9: The politics of the project.

Jan. 10: The view from Kitimat

Online: Read the entire series at vancouversun.com

depenner@vancouversun.com

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Pipelines+will+fuel+plenty+talk/5932441/story.html#ixzz1iPfMAQif

Tagged with: pipeline, enbridge, northern gateway, british columbia, joint review panel, hearings

Obama, Congress begin 2012 in oil pipeline dispute

News Articles Featured | Washington Times | January 02, 2012

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and Congress are starting the election year locked in a tussle over a proposed 1,700-mile oil pipeline from Canada to Texas that will force the White House to make a politically risky choice between two key Democratic constituencies.

Some unions say the Keystone XL pipeline would create thousands of jobs. Environmentalists fear it could lead to an oil spill disaster.

A law Obama signed just before Christmas that temporarily extended the payroll tax cut included a Republican-written provision compelling him to make a speedy decision on whether to build the pipeline. The administration is warning it would rather say no than rush a decision in an election year.

It’s a dicey proposition for Obama, who enjoyed strong support from both organized labor and environmentalists in his winning 2008 campaign for the White House.

Environmental advocates, already disappointed with his failure to achieve climate change legislation and the administration’s decision to delay new smog standards, have made it clear that approval of the pipeline would dampen their enthusiasm for Obama in the upcoming November election.

Some liberal donors even threatened to cut off funds to Obama’s re-election campaign to protest the project, which opponents say would transport “dirty oil” that requires huge amounts of energy to extract.

If he rejects the pipeline, Obama risks losing support from organized labor, a key part of the Democratic base, for thwarting thousands of jobs.

Obama appeared to have skirted what some dubbed the “Keystone conundrum” in November when the State Department announced it was postponing a decision on the pipeline until after this year’s election. Officials said they needed extra time to study routes that avoid an environmentally sensitive area of Nebraska that supplies water to eight states.

The affected area stretches just 65 miles through the Sandhills region of northern Nebraska, but the concerns were serious enough that the state’s governor and senators opposed the project until the pipeline was moved.

Republican Gov. Dave Heineman, who opposed the initial route, says he supports efforts to accelerate the project, noting that provisions in the payroll tax bill allow the project developer to find a new route avoiding the Sandhills.

The new route would have to be approved by Nebraska environmental officials and the State Department, which has authority because the pipeline would cross an international border.

The pipeline would carry oil from tar sands in western Canada to refineries in Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. The project’s developer, Calgary-based TransCanada, says the pipeline could create as many as 20,000 jobs, a figure opponents say is inflated. A State Department report last summer said the pipeline would create up to 6,000 jobs during construction.

The payroll tax cut law gives the Obama administration 60 days to decide whether to allow construction of the pipeline.

An “arbitrary deadline” for the permit decision would compromise the process, short-circuiting time needed to conduct required environmental reviews and preventing the issuance of a permit, the State Department warned in a written statement on Dec. 12. Obama administration officials confirmed that view after the payroll tax bill was approved.

Republicans call the threat little more than an excuse that allows Obama to placate environmental groups while not rejecting the pipeline outright.

“The only thing arbitrary about this decision is the decision by the president to say, ‘Well, let’s wait until after the next election,’ ” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Boehner and other Republicans say the pipeline would help Obama achieve his top priority — creating jobs — without costing a dime of taxpayer money. They hope to portray Obama’s reluctance to approve the pipeline as a sign he favors environmentalists over jobs.

Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive, said his company would do whatever is necessary to make sure the project is approved.

“We’ve had more than enough surprises on this,” said TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard.

In Nebraska, where the pipeline faces strong resistance, state officials are awaiting an environmental study that will determine a new route. Officials have said the review will take six to nine months.

Some landowners in the Sandhills celebrated the decision to reroute the project, but the pipeline’s strongest opponents say they still have concerns about the prospect of the government using its power of eminent domain to seize land, as well as liability issues in case of a spill.

“Republicans have bullied their way to get a reckless rider attached to a bill that was supposed to be about helping middle-class families,” said Jane Kleeb, executive director of the group Bold Nebraska, which opposes the pipeline.

With the bill signed into law, Obama “must do the right thing for our land, water and families’ health by denying the pipeline permit,” Kleeb said.

Project supporters say U.S. rejection of the pipeline would not stop it from being built. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said TransCanada could pursue an alternative route through Canada to the West Coast, where oil could be shipped to China and other Asian markets.

“Canada is going to develop this no matter what, and that oil is either going to come to the United States or it’s going to go to a place like China. We want it here,” said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Opponents call the West Coast option farfetched, noting that Canadian regulators have announced a one-year delay for a similar project that would carry tar sands oil to British Columbia, on Canada’s western coast.

Native groups strongly oppose both the Keystone XL and the Northern Gateway pipeline proposed by TransCanada rival Enbridge. Canada’s First Nations have constitutionally protected treaty rights and unsettled land claims that could allow them to block or significantly delay both pipelines.

Unions are watching closely. Unemployment in construction is far higher than other industries, with more than 1.1 million construction workers jobless, said Brent Bookers, director of construction at the Laborers’ International Union of North America.

“For many members of the Laborers, this project is not just a pipeline, it is a lifeline,” Bookers said, adding, “Too many hard-working Americans are out of work, and the Keystone XL pipeline will change that dire situation for thousands of them.”

Roger Toussaint, international vice president of the Transport Workers Union, opposes the pipeline.

“The dangers of the pipeline are compelling, and no one should believe the claims of either the Republican leadership or the energy companies, with respect to the project being shovel ready or with respect to the number of jobs it’s going to produce,” he said.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, obama, congress

Mike Klink: Keystone XL pipeline not safe

News Articles Featured | JournalStar.com | December 31, 2011

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There has been a lot of talk about the safety of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

I am not an environmentalist, but as a civil engineer and an inspector for TransCanada during the construction of the first Keystone pipeline, I've had an uncomfortable front-row seat to the disaster that Keystone XL could bring about all along its pathway.

Despite its boosters' advertising, this project is not about jobs or energy security. It is about money. And whenever my former employer Bechtel, working on behalf of TransCanada, had to choose between safety and saving money, they chose to save money.

As an inspector, my job was to monitor the construction of the first Keystone pipeline. I oversaw construction at the pump stations that have been such a problem on that line, which has already spilled more than a dozen times. I am coming forward because my kids encouraged me to tell the truth about what was done and covered up.

When I last raised concerns about corners being cut, I lost my job — but people along the Keystone XL pathway have a lot more to lose if this project moves forward with the same shoddy work.

What did I see? Cheap foreign steel that cracked when workers tried to weld it, foundations for pump stations that you would never consider using in your own home, fudged safety tests, Bechtel staffers explaining away leaks during pressure tests as "not too bad," shortcuts on the steel and rebar that are essential for safe pipeline operation and siting of facilities on completely inappropriate spots like wetlands.

I shared these concerns with my bosses, who communicated them to the bigwigs at TransCanada, but nothing changed. TransCanada didn't appear to care. That is why I was not surprised to hear about the big spill in Ludden, N.D., where a 60-foot plume of crude spewed tens of thousands of gallons of toxic tar sands oil and fouled neighboring fields.

TransCanada says that the performance has been OK. Fourteen spills is not so bad. And that the pump stations don't really count. That is all bunk. This thing shouldn't be leaking like a sieve in its first year — what do you think happens decades from now after moving billions of barrels of the most corrosive oil on the planet?

Let's be clear — I am an engineer; I am not telling you we shouldn't build pipelines. We just should not build this one.

Pipelines can and do stand the test of time, but TransCanada already has shown that they cannot. After working on engineering projects all over the world, I can tell you that a company that cared about safety would not follow these types of practices.

If it were a car, the first Keystone would be a lemon. And it would be far worse to double down on a proven loser with Keystone XL.

The stories of how TransCanada has bullied landowners in Nebraska rings true to me. I am living it, as well. After repeatedly telling the contractor and TransCanada about my concerns, I lost my job.

But I couldn't watch silently as a company put innocent people at risk with a haphazardly built pipeline. I am speaking out on behalf of my children and your children.

Oil spills are no joke. We need to do all we can to protect our water and our food. I am glad the Nebraska Legislature stepped up to protect Nebraskans. I can only hope that they stand up to TransCanada. We should all take a hard look at the damage that this pipeline will do. I should know; I've seen it in person.

Please do not sell out to foreign oil and foreign suppliers. There is no guarantee the product will stay in the United States, only the toxic waste. God bless the United States and those of us who still believe in the fact that her people matter.

Mike Klink of Auburn, Ind.., is seeking whistleblower protection from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, pipeline safety, mike klink, whistleblower

‘Secret’ Environment Canada presentation warns of oilsands’ impact on habitat

News Articles Featured | Vancouver Sun | December 22, 2011

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Contamination of a major western Canadian river basin from oilsands operations is a "high-profile concern" for downstream communities and wildlife, says a newly-released "secret" presentation prepared last spring by Environment Canada that highlighted numerous warnings about the industry's growing footprint on land, air, water and the climate.

The warnings from the department contrast with recent claims made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Environment Minister Peter Kent that the industry is being unfairly targeted by environmentalists who exaggerate its impacts on nature and people.

The presentation noted figures from the Canadian Energy Research Institute, a collaboration among industry, government and academics, that estimate the oilsands sector is responsible for more than 100,000 direct and indirect jobs in Canada, and will contribute more than $1.7 trillion to the country's economy over the next 25 years.

But it warned that Alberta and other parts of Western Canada are facing a steep economic and ecological price tag for failing to crack down on the industry's collateral damage.

"Contamination of the Athabasca River is a high-profile concern," said the presentation, marked secret, but released to Postmedia News through access to information legislation.

"Recent studies suggest elevated levels of pollutants near mining sites including hydrocarbons and heavy metals . . . (It) raises questions about possible effects on health of wildlife and downstream communities."

The presentation was produced in May as a governmentwide oilsands task force continued to develop a new science-based monitoring program to get specifics on the impacts of oil extraction from the bitumen deposits in Western Canada that are also known as tarsands because of their tar-like appearance and odour. The deposits are considered to hold one of the largest reserves of oil in the world, but existing technology forces producers to use large quantities of water and energy, while disrupting natural ecosystems to extract the fuel from the ground.

"Bitumen extraction uses between one (in situ) and three to four (mining) barrels of fresh (i.e. Not recycled) water per barrel of oil recovered," said the document. "Industry demand for water is expected to increase."

A related Environment Canada document, also produced in May and released earlier this month to Postmedia News, warned the government that the industry's economic future was in jeopardy because of a lack of "credible scientific information" required to counter campaigns and foreign regulations or legislation that crack down on products and industries with poor environmental performance.

In recent years, Harper's government has repeatedly pledged to deliver new regulations for the sector, but has subsequently delayed those plans.

The latest document singles out the oilsands sector as the main obstacle in Canada's efforts to reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gases that warm the atmosphere and cause climate change.

"The oilsands are Canada's fastest growing source of GHGs," said the document.

It estimated that the industry's annual greenhouse gas emissions would rise by nearly 900 per cent from 1990 to 2020. By the end of that period, the oilsands — with an estimated annual footprint of 90 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent gases in 2020 — would exceed the carbon footprint of all cars and SUVs on Canadian roads from 2008, according to the Environment Canada document.

The document also warns of other rising air pollutants that could cause acid rain or other forms of acidification to damage lakes in Saskatchewan and Alberta, along with particulate matter that could be toxic to rivers, the landscape and wildlife.

"Oilsands development will continue to put pressure on vulnerable species (e.g. Woodland Caribou)," said the document. "Removal of landscape features for mining reduces available habitat."

It also said that changes to existing habitat prompted by industrial activity would also threaten forest species, as well as water-dwelling species that are already seeing major changes to their own habitat.

"Low flow conditions could damage fish habitat, especially during winter," said the document. "River flow has decreased over (the) past thirty years (and the) trend is expected to continue."

Graham Saul, executive director of Climate Action Network, a coalition of environmental, faith-based and labour groups, said the warnings from Environment Canada suggest that Harper and Kent should stop trying to defend the environmental record of the oil and gas industry, making claims that the oilsands represent a "responsibly and sustainably developed resource."

"It's clear that there's nothing ethical about this level of environmental destruction and greenhouse gas pollution," said Saul. "The government seems to know the level of destruction associated with the tarsands and yet they're presenting a very different face to the public and in reality, there seems to be a massive gap between what they know to be an extremely destructive project and a policy agenda that is essentially seeking to promote the rapid expansion of the tarsands."

Environment Canada has been working on improving its monitoring programs on impacts of development on land, air and water as part of a process launched by former minister Jim Prentice, in collaboration with Alberta.

Kent unveiled details of the plan in July, suggesting at the time that industry should be able to pick up the estimated $50 million annual costs since they were expected to generate $80 billion in the next year.

Janet Annesley, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, an industry lobby group, said she didn't see any "new" information in the statements from the Environment Canada document, but noted that the industry "generally agrees" with a report released last year by the Royal Society of Canada that also concluded there was a need for further monitoring, research and review of impacts.

Tagged with: athabasca river, environment canada, peter kent, environmental impact

Pipeline Politics: How an Oil Sands Project Has Become Key to Environmentalism

News Articles Featured | TIME | December 19, 2011

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Given that there are already more than 2.3 million miles of pipelines in the U.S.—carrying petroleum products, chemicals and natural gas—it might seem odd that so much political energy has been expended on a proposed 1,700-mile pipeline. Yet the controversial Keystone XL pipeline—which would cross the upper Midwest to carry crude from Canadian oil sands down to refiners in the U.S.—has become the single biggest environmental issue facing America. Green groups—pushed hard by activists like 350.org’s Bill McKibben—are using the proposed pipeline as a litmus test for President Obama’s often-questioned commitment to the environment. They argue that Keystone XL would pose a threat to valuable aquifers in Nebraska, but more than that, they believe that allowing the pipeline to go forward would open the path to the increased development of carbon-intensive oil sands, and keep the U.S. committed to fossil fuels, with disastrous consequences for climate change.

President Obama seemed to defuse the Keystone question back in November, when he decided to delay a decision on the proposed pipeline until 2013—conveniently after next year’s elections. But Keystone XL isn’t just an environmental issue—it’s now a central political one as well, with ramifications for the U.S. economy and for President Obama’s reelection hopes.

That’s because Congressional Republicans—nearly all of whom support the pipeline, citing the potential for new jobs and more oil from a friendly North American ally (and petrostate)—have moved to tie approval for a continued payroll tax cut to an expedited decision on Keystone XL. The House passed a measure last week that keeps payroll tax cut through next year, and the Senate passed a bill that would continue the payroll tax for the next two months—important to keep a faltering recovery going. It’s not clear how the bills will be reconciled, but both would require President Obama to make a final decision on the pipeline within 60 days, as House Speaker John Boehner put it on Meet the Press on Sunday:

Read more

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, obama, congress

Chiquita joins companies avoiding oilsands fuels

News Articles Featured | CTV.ca | December 15, 2011

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A major American food company is promising to avoid using fuel from Alberta's oilsands.

Chiquita Brands, which sells hundreds of millions of dollars of fruit, juice and snacks around the world, says it has joined 13 other companies and one city in trying to reduce its carbon footprint.

"We are committed to directing our transportation providers to avoid, where possible, fuels from tarsands refineries," says a letter from Chiquita vice-president Manuel Rodriguez to Aaron Sanger of the environmental group ForestEthics.

"We will identify all fuel providers for these (Chiquita-)owned or dedicated trucking fleets and work with ForestEthics to identify any connection between Chiquita's fuel providers and tarsands refineries toward the goal of eliminating fuel from these providers that is connected with tarsands refineries."

Other companies that have joined the ForestEthics campaign have taken a variety of actions.

Cosmetics giant Avon and U.S. drugstore chain Walgreen's have both made commitments similar to Chiquita's.

Others, such as Gap, Levi Strauss and Timberland, have only said they are trying to reduce the environmental impact of transporting their products. The city of Bellingham, Wash., has guidelines minimizing fuel purchases that take oilsands feedstock.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers will challenge Chiquita's position, said spokesman Travis Davies.

"We are asking Chiquita to prepare a social and environmental report on the alternatives to Canadian crude and then explain its decision. We believe our record of continuous improvement of environmental and social performance stands up very well to anyone."

Davies said companies described as "boycotting" the oilsands have later denied that stance.

Sanger responded that ForestEthics has never overstated a company's support.

"No company has changed its position as stated by ForestEthics," he said.

Sanger said that Chiquita came on board after a year-long effort that began with a formal letter and ended with full-page ads in a major U.S. paper and an online write-in campaign so large it crashed the company's Facebook site.

ForestEthics wants oilsands producers to clean up their operations.

"We want to see things change on the ground both in Alberta and in the United States," said Sanger.

"We want to see forest destruction in Alberta minimized, water pollution dramatically reduced and air pollution dramatically reduced in Alberta. And in the United States, we want to see safeguards to the continued threatening of community health that comes directly from the processing of tarsands in U.S. refineries."

Davies pointed to a report issued Thursday that detailed the industry's environmental progress.

Both nitrous oxide and sulphur dioxide emissions per barrel of oil have dropped. Water use per barrel is at its lowest rate ever, with 90 per cent of water from the Athabasca being recycled.

However, the report acknowledges greenhouse gas emissions per barrel are increasing, largely because of a shift in the way the resource is mined.

The ForestEthics campaign is one of a number of efforts that could threaten how oilsands-derived products are welcomed in the marketplace.

Both California and the European Union are committed to low-carbon fuel initiatives. As well, approval for the Keystone XL pipeline into the U.S. has been delayed over concerns it will carry oilsands bitumen.

Tagged with: forestethics, fuel, chiquita, bananas, market campaign

Big Oil and Canada thwarted U.S. carbon standards

News Articles Featured | Salon.com | December 15, 2011

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When President Barack Obama decided in early November to delay a decision on TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline until after the next election, America’s environmental movement celebrated one of its biggest victories in recent memory. And no doubt the news came as a blow to Alberta’s tar sands industry, and to Canada’s oft-stated dream of becoming the next global energy superpower.

But behind activists’ jubilation lurked a somber reality, an untold story with much wider implications. The broader fight to reform Alberta’s tar sands, the one which actually stood a chance of breaking America’s addiction to the continent’s most polluting road fuel, has been quietly abandoned over the past several years. For that we can thank the planet’s richest oil companies and their Canadian government allies, who’ve together waged a stealthy war against President Obama’s climate change ambitions.

Their battle-plan is revealed in more 300 pages of personal emails obtained through a Freedom of Information request to the Alberta government. The story in the emails, reported for the first time here in Salon and The Tyee, Canada’s leading independent online news site, traces a year in the relationship of Michael Whatley, a GOP-connected oil industry lobbyist and his friend, Gary Mar, a smooth-talking and ambitious diplomat at the Canadian embassy in the Washington, DC.

The messages lay bare a sophisticated and stealthy public relations offensive, one designed to manipulate the U.S. political system; to deluge the media with messages favorable to the tar-sands industry; to sway key legislators at state and federal levels; and most importantly, to defeat any attempt to make the gasoline and diesel pumped everyday into U.S. vehicles less damaging to the climate. The goal of it all? “Defeat” Obama’s effort to reduce carbon consumption and keep America hooked on Canada’s $441 billion tar sands industry, no matter what the cost to our planet’s future.

That campaign has largely succeeded too, with only a small group of players any the wiser.

Read more at Salon.com

Tagged with: alberta, obama, california, lobbying, consumer energy alliance, carbon standard

Environment monitor says oilsands industry cut funding

News Articles Featured | Calgary Herald | December 13, 2011

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CALGARY — A group charged with designing environmental monitoring programs in the oilsands region says industry has chopped its funding contributions for 2012.

The Cumulative Environmental Management Association or CEMA said in a news release Monday that the Oil Sands Developers Group, representing oilsands companies, has agreed to give only $5 million in 2012, down 15 per cent from $5.9 million in 2011.

But the executive director of the industry group said its overall spending on five monitoring associations is actually rising next year to a total of $24 million and three of the five are getting every dollar they asked for.

CEMA executive director Glen Semenchuk said in an interview that it would “aggressively” seek out other funding to make up the difference.

“According to the stakeholders, the job isn’t done — there’s still a lot of work to be done and if our traditional funder is not going to fund the majority of it, we’re either going to have to cut programs or go find other funders,” he said.

He added the group is hoping to get funding from the federal government, which hasn’t given any grants since giving $350,000 in 2008.

“One of the things (industry) has told me is they feel someone else should be bearing part of that load and that someone should be government,” he said.

Ken Chapman, executive director of the developers group, said funding is being trimmed for CEMA because its government-mandated list of research projects is getting shorter and because federal and provincial governments are calling for a revamped and consolidated oilsands monitoring system.

“CEMA has more work to do but they’re nearing the end of their 1999 mandate from the province of Alberta on cumulative impacts,” he said.

“We’re moving to the next stage of environmental monitoring which no doubt will be more environmental monitoring, still science-based, still independent but more integrated and more comprehensive,” he said.

The Wood Buffalo Environmental Association, a group that monitors air, earth and human impacts of oilsands, will receive its entire $10.7 million request for 2012, Chapman said.

The group that covers water, the Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program, will also be fully funded to the tune of $5.2 million, he said, as will the Environmental Monitoring Committee at $750,000.

The fifth group, the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, is having $2.3 million of its $2.9 million request funded, Chapman said.

Doubts about results from the aquatics program prompted the formation of federal and provincial review panels who last summer issued reports recommending a step change in how environmental monitoring is done in the oilsands.

Governments have yet to decide the details of implementation but the federal government suggested a proper monitoring system could cost $50 million per year, without saying where the funds would come from.

Semenchuk said CEMA wanted to do $9.6 million worth of work in next year’s budget, an increase from the 2011 work plan of $8.9 million.

He said CEMA has actually been spending about $7 million per year for the past three years because of cost-saving or failing to complete certain projects in the year.

Asked for clarification, spokesman Corey Hobbs said CEMA will actually spend $6.45 million in 2011, of which $235,000 came from government and $6.215 million has been contributed by industry.

The difference between that and $5.9 million as written in the news release is a carry-over from the previous year.

He provided a funding chart which shows that CEMA’s requested funding, received funding and expenditures matched from 2000 to 2006 but have not in any of the five years since then.

Funding jumped from $567,000 in 2000 to $2.9 million in 2006.

In 2007, CEMA asked for $8 million and got $6.3 million; in 2008, it asked for $10.3 million and got $7.5 million; in 2009, it requested $8.8 million and got $7.3 million; and in 2010, it asked for $7.2 million and got $6.2 million, according to the chart.

Semenchuk said CEMA has a full-time “facilitation staff” of 10, who work with groups made up of stakeholder representatives to design working plans to present to the board for approval. About half of the research concerns reclamation of land disturbed by oilsands.

“We do a lot of the research that ends up designing what our monitoring programs should be. So we’re actually out there first,” he said.

In 2012, for example, CEMA has proposed updating manuals and policies on wetlands and lakes that have been situated on former oilsands mine pits.

CEMA doesn’t deal with tailings ponds, where mining companies store water after it has been contaminated in the oilsands transportation and upgrading process.

Tagged with: alberta, monitoring, cumulative environmental management association

State Department says GOP bill could kill pipeline

News Articles Featured | Rapid City Journal | December 12, 2011

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WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration says a Republican bill to fast-track approval of an oil pipeline from Canada could lead to the project's demise.

In a statement Monday, the State Department warned that congressional interference with the Keystone XL pipeline could backfire. The State Department has authority over the project because it crosses an international border.

The statement said that if Congress imposes an arbitrary deadline for a permit decision, it could prevent the administration from meeting environmental laws that govern the approval process.

In that case, officials say the department would be unable to make a determination to issue a permit.'

GOP lawmakers back a bill to require approval of the pipeline within 60 days. They say the Canada-to-Texas pipeline will help create jobs without taxpayer money

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, state department, congress

Cullen backs Gitxsan chiefs on Enbridge

News Articles Featured | Vancouver Sun | December 10, 2011

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An NDP leadership hopeful has thrown his support behind the hereditary chiefs of the Gitxsan Nation, voicing his opposition to the controversial Enbridge pipeline.

Nathan Cullen, member of parliament for the riding of Skeena-Bulkley Valley, said in a news release issued Friday the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline has almost torn the first nations community apart.

"It is very important to me to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the hereditary chiefs and the nation, virtually all of whom clearly do not support the false promises of environmental protection and economic development that Enbridge is selling to northerners," Cullen said.

"It is unbelievable that Enbridge would try to pull such a stunt."

Elmer Derrick, the Gitxsan Treaty Office's chief negotiator announced Dec. 2 the Gitxsan First Nation had reached an agreement with Enbridge for an equity stake in the project. However, hereditary chiefs and other Gitxsan members said the deal was unsanctioned. They unsuccessfully called for the resignation of Derrick, as well as executive director Gordon Sebastian and negotiator Beverly Clifton Percival.

"Enbridge is obviously a company that will throw around money to push this pipeline through," Cullen said.

"It's deplorable. Clearly this kind of conquer-and-divide approach is not going to work."

Meanwhile, the B.C. Supreme Court issued an injunction on Tuesday telling the Gitxsan protesters to stop their blockade outside the treaty office in Hazelton.

The opposing leaders and members are now collecting written declarations from other hereditary chiefs supporting their position and have until Sunday to respond [to the injunction], hereditary chief Norman Stephens said Thursday.

Tagged with: pipeline, first nations, enbridge, northern gateway, british columbia, nathan cullen, gitxsan

No ‘credible information’ to support claims oilsands are green, says Environment Canada

News Articles Featured | Canada.com | December 09, 2011

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DURBAN, South Africa — Canada lacks "credible scientific information" to support its claims that oilsands development is environmentally responsible, putting the industry's economic future in jeopardy, says newly-released briefing material prepared for Environment Minister Peter Kent and senior management in his department.

The background notes, emailed to Environment Canada's top bureaucrat, Paul Boothe, cast doubt on the integrity of environmental assessments on new projects exploiting Alberta's natural bitumen deposits, also known as the oilsands.

They also noted that the regulatory shortcomings have left the industry ill-prepared to defend itself from foreign environmental policies, such as proposed climate legislation in Europe to reduce pollution from transportation fuels, as well as criticism on the international stage at events such as the global warming summit in this coastal resort town.

"National and international concern over the environmental footprint of oilsands production represents a growing threat to the economic future of the industry," said the briefing material, sent on June 4 by Assistant Deputy Minister Michael Keenan and released to Postmedia News on Thursday evening through access to information legislation. "Governments need to provide assurance that oilsands production is environmentally responsible in order to secure the industry's social license to operate."

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver drew criticism from environmental groups Thursday, for announcing the approval of a new oilsands project, in the midst of the Durban summit which was scheduled to wrap up on Friday.

Environment Canada has been working on improving its monitoring programs on impacts of development on land, air and water as part of a process launched by former minister Jim Prentice, in collaboration with Alberta.

Kent unveiled details of the plan in July, suggesting at the time that industry should be able to pick up the estimated $50 million annual costs since they were expected to generate $80 billion in the next year.

Dave Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, an industry lobby group, had said he welcomed the prospect of better scientific information, but questioned whether industry should foot the bill since it is already picking up some monitoring costs.

Kent has also acknowledged the industry needs evidence from the monitoring program to defend itself, but suggested this week after arriving at the international climate change summit that the oilsands operations, which require huge amounts of land, water and energy to separate the synthetic crude from clay in the ground, are environmentally friendly.

"There is a disproportionate amount of criticism of the oilsands which is a responsibly and sustainably developed resource, of which we are proud," Kent said on Monday.

Separate briefing notes prepared on June 3, also suggested that Environment Canada bureaucrats were at odds with a government-wide lobbying campaign in partnership with industry stakeholders and the Alberta government, exposed in the media last year, to polish the oilsands' international reputation.

"Getting the science right is important," said the Environment Canada document. "We are committed to managing the environment in the oilsands based on science, not politics or PR."

The briefing notes also said Alberta and the federal government must work together "to provide assurance of environmentally-responsible production that the industry needs," for a number of priorities including the completion of environmental assessments on new projects.

"Implementing this new monitoring system is an urgent priority to head off threats to the industry, which needs credible scientific information on its environmental performance as soon as possible.

"Environment Canada also advised that the absence of scientific evidence supporting their claims was affecting the industry's ability to raise capital from and sell into (the) foreign market," in the face of low carbon fuel standards in Europe and the U.S.

Tagged with: environment canada, peter kent, environmental impacts, joe oliver

Canada’s tar sands lobbying gets murky

News Articles Featured | EurActiv.com | December 07, 2011

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A row has broken out over a Canadian lobbying mission to the British Foreign Office that opposes the EU’s proposed Fuel Quality Directive. The dispute involves apparently inaccurate information about California’s fuel quality regulations and threats of legal action.

In an internal UK Foreign Office e-mail reporting the meeting and seen by EurActiv, Canada’s trade commissioner in the UK, Sushma Gera, reportedly told British officials that “lawyers were looking at a potential WTO case” against the EU. 

She said Canada had support from Spain, Estonia and Poland in its opposition to the EU’s proposed default fuel values for the oil sands – also known as ‘tar sands’ – and that the Dutch would propose an alternative option.

Yesterday (6 December), Ottawa also announced that it would not renew its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.

According to the letter, Canada has ruled out linking the tar sands issue to discussions with Brussels on an EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) that have been ongoing since 2009.

But environmentalists contacted by EurActiv expressed outrage at Canada’s backdoor lobbying efforts, particularly a claim in the emailed minutes that a Californian attempt to implement a comparable low carbon fuel standard (LCFS), had collapsed.

Gera is quoted in the e-mail as saying that “the US consideration of similar measures had just failed, as it was ‘unimplementable.’”

This is not the case, and on 30 November, California's Air Resources Board sent a reaction letter to the EU Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, seen by EurActiv, explaining that their fuel standard had not failed and was indeed ongoing.

'Robust' regulation

“We believe that a robust greenhouse gas (GHG) regulation to address transportation fuels like LCFS must account for differences in the carbon intensity of crudes,” the letter says.

“The principle of accounting for the lifecycle GHG emissions of transportation fuels, including those associated with the production and transportation of crude oil continues to be an important feature of the LCFS,” it says.

California’s LCFS, which was implemented at the beginning of this year, obliges a 10% reduction in the carbon intensity of the state’s transport fuels by 2020.

“With time running out to reverse global greenhouse emissions, the world needs high-emitting crude pushers like Canada about as much as a hole in the head,” Mark Johnston, a senior policy advisor for the World Wildlife Fund, told EurActiv.

“Canada should stop interfering in a European decision on pollution standards here in Europe, particularly if some its claims are false or misleading,” he added.

The EU has proposed assigning fuel from Canada’s tar sands a default value almost 20% higher than for average crude oils, to help meet Europe’s target of reducing the carbon intensity of its fuel by 6% by 2020.

“The oil industry has been trying to give European policymakers cold feet by spreading misinformation about California's law,” said Nusa Urbancic of the environmental group Transport and Environment. “But they've been caught red-handed.”

Heavy crudes

EurActiv understands that British diplomats feel frustrated that what they see as a routine meeting to set the backdrop for a Cabinet decision is causing public relations blowback for the Foreign Office.

A Foreign Office spokesperson told EurActiv: “We want to see all heavy crudes dealt with using a robust, scientific methodology, which takes into account the greenhouse gas emissions associated with all sources, and not solely highlighting the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with oil sands.

“We regularly raise our concerns over the environmental impact of oil sands extraction with the Canadian authorities,” she added.

According to one study, the exploitation of oil reserves in Canada and North America could increase global atmospheric CO2 levels by as much as 15%.

However, the tar sands are central to Canada's energy strategy.

In 2009, Canada’s then natural resources minister, Lisa Raitt, complained that the fuel could be “discriminated against as a high [carbon-intensity] crude oil, while other crude oils with similar upstream emissions are not singled out.”

Ottawa has raised the same objection about the EU’s Fuel Quality Directive, implicitly arguing that the move is a barrier to free trade, and even hailing the fuel as "a great Canadian development."

But a Stanford University report for the EU found that greenhouse gas emissions from the tar sands production were “significantly different enough from conventional oil emissions that regulatory frameworks should address this discrepancy with pathway-specific emissions factors that distinguish between oil sands and conventional oil processes.”

Between September 2009 and July 2011, Canadian government and oil industry representatives organised more than 110 lobby events in Brussels – over one per week – to promote the tar sands industry.

Tagged with: united kingdom, lobbying, european union, fuel quality directive, kyoto, ceta

NEB decides Enbridge’s Line 9 Reversal application will go to an oral public hearing

News Articles Featured | Canada NewsWire | December 05, 2011

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CALGARY, Dec. 5, 2011 /CNW/ - The National Energy Board (NEB or the Board) announced today its decision to assess the Line 9 Reversal Phase I application (the Project) submitted by Enbridge Pipelines Inc. (Enbridge) in an oral public hearing.

The Board considers the Line 9 Reversal Phase I application to be a standalone project because it does not depend on any future facilities to proceed.

In its application, which was filed on 8 August 2011 under section 58 of the National Energy Board Act, Enbridge is asking the NEB to approve the additions and modifications required to allow the reversal of crude oil flow within a segment of Line 9 - a 762-millimetre (30 inches) outside diameter crude oil pipeline - from the Sarnia Terminal to the North Westover Station in southwestern Ontario.

All proposed work would take place on existing Enbridge facilities and surface leases, with no planned ground disturbance along the pipeline right-of-way.

The shift in flow direction from west to east would see the pipeline revert back to the direction that was originally approved in 1975. The current westward flow has been in place since 1999.

The Board's Draft List of Issues and Draft Scope of the Environmental Assessment (EA) are currently available for comment. Suggestions from parties inviting the Board to consider amendments to these documents should be filed with the Secretary of the Board, and a copy should be served on Enbridge and its counsel no later than noon (MST), Thursday, 12 January 2012.

The Draft List of Issues includes the need for the project; the engineering design and integrity of the pipeline, including the potential effects of flow reversal; contingency planning for spills, accidents or malfunctions, during construction and operation of the pipeline; the potential environmental and socio-economic effects of the project; the project's potential impacts on Aboriginal interests; and its potential impacts on affected landowners.

Following the release of the final List of Issues and the final Scope of the EA, the Board will provide detailed information on the various means of public participation and invite interested persons and parties to register their interest.

Public Information Sessions will be held beginning in January 2012 to provide information on the hearing process and public participation. A Process Advisor will be assigned to provide support to the members of the public who participate in the NEB's hearing process.

The oral portion of the hearing will likely take place in the fall of 2012 at a location to be determined.

The Board also notes that financial assistance through the Participant Funding Program (PFP) will be made available to applicants who meet the criteria and can demonstrate a need to support their timely and meaningful involvement in the proceeding. Specific information about PFP and how it will apply to this proceeding will be announced separately.

The NEB is an independent federal regulator of several parts of Canada's energy industry. Its purpose is to regulate pipelines, energy development and trade in the Canadian public interest.

This news release and Hearing Order OH-005-2011 are available on the NEB's Internet site at www.neb-one.gc.ca under What's New!

The following resources are also available on the NEB's Internet site:

Under Major Applications and Projects, select Enbridge Line 9 Reversal Phase I

Draft List of Issues
Draft Scope of the Environmental Assessment

Tagged with: pipeline, canada, enbridge, ontario, public hearing, line 9

Kill the pipeline: A path to real energy security

News Articles Featured | The Hill | December 05, 2011

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By Nancy E. Soderberg

President Obama’s decision to delay approval of the Keystone XL pipeline is a clear demonstration of U.S. leadership on both the domestic and international stage. It demonstrates that the U.S. is moving away from an insecure energy pathway. Resisting the pipeline, and future projects like it, will be critical for ensuring that the security of the United States is not compromised by reliance on oil and that the U.S. plays a global leadership role in building a renewable energy economy.

But the arguments and interests in favor of such projects are not going away. Recently, 37 Republican senators sponsored a bill urging President Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. He should resist, and not just on environmental grounds.

One of the major messages in support of the pipeline is that it would “strengthen our national security” and reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

That’s simply not true.

The oil market is global and volatile and we can’t drill our way out of it. If anything, projects like Keystone XL increase our dependence on oil and hurt our national security.

First, given the realities of a global market, most of the oil in question would be slated for export. As retired Army Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson noted in a recent blog, the pipeline’s biggest client, Valero Energy Corp., informed investors that the refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, would be focused on exports. In short, very little of that oil would actually make it to U.S. households, keeping American consumers just as vulnerable to global oil price fluctuations.

Second, in terms of supply, Canadian tar sands — the source for the Keystone XL pipeline — are a drop in the bucket compared to OPEC supplies. If OPEC decides to turn off the spigot, oil prices will skyrocket, no matter how much oil we extract in Canada or the U.S. Indeed, in its 2010 World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency demonstrates that a better way to reduce our dependence on OPEC would be to reduce global demand for oil consistent with combating climate change. This could lead to OPEC losing $5 trillion over the next couple of decades —a real impact on OPEC dominance.

Third, the Keystone project would primarily be for the benefit of very specific, short-term special interests, not the American public and long-term energy security. The idea behind the proposal was to give Canadian businesses access to the ocean and global market, not to help America reduce its dependence on foreign oil. TransCanada, the company that wishes to build the pipeline, is beholden to Canadian interests, global demand and its shareholders. Its Texas partners, including Valero, also serve their shareholders and global demand. None of them are driven by U.S. national interests. If the U.S. wants to enhance its national advantage and lead the world’s energy future, we would do better to invest in building a 21st century renewable energy infrastructure.

Fourth, the project would be antithetical to our national security objective of getting off our addiction to oil. Committing ourselves to projects like Keystone XL would further lock us into a global oil market that aids and abets tyrants and terrorists, and holds American consumers hostage. Clearly, this is not in the interests of the United States.

Lastly, approving such a project would severely diminish U.S. global leadership in building a world based on renewable energy, combating growing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and reducing dependence on a volatile oil market. Clear and concrete signals that we are transitioning away from oil dependence will demonstrate that the U.S. is serious about its role as a global leader.

The president’s decision to delay the Keystone XL pipeline is an important step in reducing our dependence on oil and enhancing our national security. That delay should become the end of it and similar projects in the future. The best path to real energy security — combating price volatility, shielding the American public from the whims of Middle Eastern states, and living up to our role as leaders on the world stage in building a renewable energy economy and combating climate change — is to break our addiction to oil. Holding the line on Keystone XL is a good start.

Soderberg is a former deputy national security adviser and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She is president of the Connect U.S. Fund, and a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of North Florida. This article is written in her personal capacity.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline

Shell accused of lowballing environmental impacts of oil sands expansion

News Articles Featured | Winnipeg Free Press | December 05, 2011

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EDMONTON - Newly filed documents say Shell Canada's environmental study of its proposed oilsands expansion should be rejected because it is woefully out of date and lowballs probable industrial development by a factor of 12.

A report to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency by the Oilsands Environmental Coalition points out that Shell's (NYSE:RDS) look at the cumulative effects of development in the region doesn't include anything proposed since 2007.

Since then, says the report, there have been 11 new projects proposed within the study area and more than a billion dollars has been spent acquiring oilsands leases.

"It strains credulity that more than $1 billion in lease sales ... will result in no reasonably foreseeable development of any kind," says the document.

The report, derived from industry and government figures, also accuses Shell of ignoring the extent of forestry as well as recent forest fires that have swept through the region.

While Shell maintains that only five per cent of the area around the Jackpine expansion is likely to be affected by development, the coalition maintains the real figure will be closer to 60 per cent.

The discrepancy between overall industry plans and what individual companies list in regulatory filings threatens the ability of the public to make good decisions about the oilsands at a time when they are under increased scrutiny around the globe, Simon Dyer of the environmental think-tank Pembina Institute said Monday.

"It's pretty black and white that this is not a credible assessment," said Dyer, whose group is part of the coalition that wrote the report.

Shell's manager of regulatory approvals said the company will review the coalition's document.

"The regulatory review process for this project has taken four years and in this intervening period oilsands development has continued to grow," Donald Crowe said in an email.

"This assessment included all planned developments as defined by Alberta Environment at the time of filing and included the effects of forest harvest and fires."

Crowe said Alberta Environment determined the assessment to be complete in 2010.

Companies are required to look at how much development is "reasonably foreseeable" in a region where they want to work and how their proposal would add to the overall load on the environment.

That study goes to a federal-provincial review panel, which uses it to help decide if a project should go ahead. The panel for Shell's Jackpine project is expected to announce hearing dates early in the new year.

Shell filed its cumulative environmental effects assessment for the expansion, which would produce 100,000 barrels a day, in 2007. An assessment of socio-economic effects was updated the following year but environmental impact was not.

The coalition used government documents and public announcements to pinpoint seven projects that have begun the regulatory process since 2007 and another four that have been publicly announced. As well, regulatory papers show that 3,137 exploration wells have been drilled in the region in the last four years, none of which is considered in Shell's assessment.

Dyer said that while governments trumpet the continuing growth in oilsands production, regulators aren't considering the cumulative impact.

"There's a really big disconnect within governments between those departments responsible for economic development and those required for environmental protection," he said. "It only makes sense that the economic projections should be the same as the environmental projections to make intelligent decisions."

Richard Dixon, director of the University of Alberta's Centre for Applied Business Research in Energy and the Environment, said French energy giant Total was caught with a similar gap during hearings for its Joslyn project. That panel required Total to file extensive additional information on cumulative impacts.

The panel at Shell's hearing may well do something similar, he suggested.

"They're not going to shovel that under the carpet. If Shell has missed (something) and Pembina caught it, good for Pembina."

Dixon said credible cumulative impact studies are closely linked to oilsands environmental monitoring Alberta is developing with the federal government. Both are needed to make good decisions, he said.

"You compare (cumulative effects) with what you've got for good monitoring and say, 'OK, here's where the threshold is and here's where this is bumping up and...now we have to rethink this.'

"And those days are coming."

Tagged with: shell canada

Legitimacy of Gitxsan deal with Enbridge questioned

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | December 05, 2011

Read the full article on the originating site

The backlash to an announcement of Gitxsan support for Enbridge’s Northern Gateway has raised questions about the legitimacy of the pact between the native group and the company that wants to build the project.

And the backlash – voiced by community members who say the Friday announcement by hereditary chief Elmer Derrick has shamed and embarrassed the Gitxsan people – also underscores rifts among the Gitxsan, including a court battle over who has the right to represent the nation in treaty talks with the province.

“This deal that’s been announced is not supported by all the Gitxsan and Elmer does not speak for all the Gitxsan,” Marjorie McRae, an elected band chief counsellor who does not support the deal, said Sunday. “The treaty negotiators do not speak for all the Gitxsan – if they were, we wouldn’t be in litigation right now.”

Enbridge, however, says it’s confident that the agreement has majority support among the Gitxsan, who lay claim to 33,000 square kilometres of territory in northwestern B.C. The proposed pipeline does not cross that territory, but would cross streams that drain into it.

“We have spent years consulting with the Gitxsan people and working to understand and respect their traditional government,” Enbridge spokesman Paul Stanway said Sunday in an e-mail.

“Chief Derrick represents the consensus view of a majority of that leadership and is recognized as an authoritative voice of his people. As he said in interviews on Friday, this decision was reached by consensus, not everyone supports it but we are confident it is supported by a majority.”

The uproar over the agreement relates in part to disagreement over who has the authority to speak for the Gitxsan. Mr. Derrick said he was speaking on behalf of the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs, who are chosen on family and clan lines and who, along with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, pursued land claims all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada in the landmark Delgamuukw case.

Ms. McRae is an elected band chief for the Gitanmaax band, one of several bands – along with several hereditary chiefs – that are suing the Gitsxan Treaty Society, for which Mr. Derrick is a negotiator, over treaty negotiations with the province. The suit also concerns a proposal for a new governance model and is expected to go to trial in January.

As part of its Northern Gateway project, Enbridge has agreed to set aside a 10-per-cent equity stake for eligible native communities in Alberta and B.C. and to provide financing to groups that want to take advantage of the offer.

To date, however, public response from native groups has been overwhelmingly negative, including a Vancouver gathering last week at which leaders trumpeted an “unbroken wall of opposition from the U.S. border to the Arctic Ocean.”

Mr. Derrick announced his support the following day, bolstering Enbridge’s contention that native opposition was far from unanimous.

Under the agreement, the Gitxsan could expect to receive at least $7-million in profits, which would go into a trust that would be used to provide scholarships and other youth-focused programs, Mr. Derrick said on conference call with reporters.

Mr. Derrick said he had not consulted band councils but that he, in his role as negotiator, had been talking to as many people as possible over the past six years, adding that the Gitxsan youth “can’t eat rights and title” and are looking for economic opportunities in their own region.

“For too long we have watched our resources leave our territories without a say in where it goes or a share in the profits,” Mr. Derrick said. “That must change.”

Tagged with: pipeline, first nations, enbridge, northern gateway, british columbia, gitxsan

Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation sues Shell for tar sands destruction

News Articles Featured | UK Tar Sands Network Press Release | November 30, 2011

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 30th, 2011

London -  On the eve of the 17th COP of the UNFCCC, the world’s climate summit, the UK Tar Sands Network will serve papers to Shell UK executives on behalf of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN).  ACFN plans to sue Shell for failure to meet contractual agreements made between Shell and the First Nations regarding existing tar sands projects within ACFN traditional territory and Canada’s pristine Athabasca, a UNESCO heritage site. Later today, Chief Allan Adam along with the entire council of ACFN will rally outside Shell Canada corporate headquarters in downtown Calgary and hold a press conference.

After years of agreements with Shell Oil, the Athabasca Chipewyan people have decided to risk everything by challenging Shell’s practices and filing suit.  “We’re drawing the line, and taking a strong stand against Shell. ACFN wants no further developments until Shell is brought to justice and our broader concerns about the cumulative impacts in the region are addressed,” stated Chief Adam.

The agreements in question were meant to ensure Shell would provide a number of measures to lessen the impact of tar sands mines on ACFN. In addition to the lawsuit against Shell, ACFN also plans to oppose all future tar sands projects by Shell. “Tar sands have been widely recognized as the most destructive project on earth because of the serious impacts on treaty and aboriginal rights, ecological destruction and global green house gas emissions (GHG),” commented Suzanne Dhaliwal from the UK Tar Sands Network. “Shell is one of the largest players in the tar sands producing close to 20% of overall production and it needs to be held accountable for the mass destruction it is causing to communities and the environment.”

Shell Canada recently submitted proposals to expand its current tar sands operations which, if approved, would more then double its production. This would translate into further encroachment of open pit mines on ACFN traditional lands, and into the pristine wilderness of the Pierre River, a previously untouched area. Councilor Anthony Ladouceur of ACFN said, “Shell has failed to meet past commitments and governments have done nothing to mitigate the issue. Current government monitoring is inadequate, and Shell cannot be trusted to monitor itself.”

ACFN is rightfully concerned these projects will further impact the First Nations’ ability to exercise treaty rights in a meaningful way into the future. “We don’t want our community to become the next Niger Delta where Shell’s unregulated actions have left communities devastated and resulted in the need for a 30-year clean-up estimated to cost $1 billion USD,” stated Eriel Deranger, member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. “The fate of our communities and our river is at stake and we are in the crosshairs of Shell’s plans to aggressively expand tar sands in our traditional territory. We ask the public to support ACFN’s efforts to stop Shell from permanently destroying our lands and community,” stated Chief Adam in his closing remarks.

Solidarity actions against Shell Oil were also held in Durban South Africa at the UNFCCC climate negotiations. Shell is internationally renowned for human rights abuses and the ACFN suit adds weight to the plight of many groups already challenging the corporation. ACFN and the Indigenous Environmental Network plan to co‐release a release a report next week outlining Shell’s broken promises and history in the tar sands[1].

An international coalition of Indigenous and environmental groups, including Keepers of the Athabasca, Greenpeace, Indigenous Environmental Network, Sierra Club Prairie, AWA, Pembina, Council of Canadians, International Indigenous Treaty Council, AFN Regional Office (NWT), Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, Dene Nation, Platform, London Mining Network, UK Tar Sands Network, People & Planet and Shell to Sea and London Rising Tide endorsed today’s action echoing the call on Shell Oil Canada and Shell Oil International to halt any further tar sands extraction in the Athabasca region until proper environmental safeguards are put into place in accordance with the treaties between Canada and First Nations governments.

See http://www.no-tar-sands.org/get-the-shell-out-of-the-tar-sands/

Eriel Deranger (Canada) – 001 780 903 6598

Suzanne Dhaliwal (UK)  – 0 11 44 777 269 4327

Notes for editors

[1] The report will be available for download on the UK Tar Sands website.

Tagged with: shell oil, lawsuit, athabasca chipewyan first nation

New report highlights dangers associated with tar sands pipeline to British Columbia

Media Releases Featured | Pembina Institute, Living Oceans Society, NRDC | November 29, 2011

Report warns that corrosive oil, dangerous pathway and treacherous seas make Northern Gateway project an unnecessary threat

Media contact: Pembina Institute, Living Oceans Society, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

VANCOUVER — A new report released today shines a light on the dangers associated with transporting tar sands oil by Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway project, both along the pipeline pathway and on B.C.'s sensitive coast, which massive oil tankers would be navigating for the first time. The report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Pembina Institute and Living Oceans Society has also been endorsed by nine British Columbia organizations.

"While the considerable environmental impacts of bitumen production are well documented, the increased risk and potential harm from transporting bitumen is less known," said Nathan Lemphers, senior policy analyst, the Pembina Institute. "This report shows why the Northern Gateway pipeline is not worth the risk for the communities, rivers and Pacific coastline of British Columbia."

The release of "Pipeline and tanker trouble: The impacts to British Columbia's communities, rivers, and Pacific coastline from tar sands oil transport" comes as the battle over the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline project heats up in Canada and internationally. The report documents the risks that transporting tar sands oil poses to communities along the pipeline and tanker paths, to salmon-bearing rivers and to coastal ecosystems, including habitat of the Spirit Bear.

The proposed Northern Gateway pipeline would carry highly acidic and corrosive diluted bitumen from Alberta's tar sands through nearly 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) of rugged and unstable landscapes to Kitimat on British Columbia's northern coast. The pipeline would be serviced by over 220 supertankers each year sailing through B.C.'s North Coast waterways, which have been off-limits to the giant vessels due to concerns that an oil spill would ruin precious coastal natural resources.

"There is fierce opposition in B.C. to allowing oil supertankers into our coastal waters and rightly so," said Katie Terhune, Energy Campaign Manager, Living Oceans Society. "History has shown that oil tankers come with oil spills.  It is not a question of if, but when, a spill will happen."

First Nations' communities have made it clear that they will not allow the Northern Gateway project to proceed using their own laws to ban oil pipelines and tankers through British Columbia. The report also stresses their concerns while highlighting sensitive and beloved landscapes threatened by the pipeline and supertanker traffic.

"Our communities have taken a stand against the Northern Gateway pipeline because we would lose everything," said Gerald Amos, member of the Haisla First Nation and Director of the Headwaters Initiative. "This pipeline is where we draw the line. Big oil pipelines and the accompanying oil super tankers mean that life as we know it will be over."

"Pipeline and tanker trouble" also makes recommendations for provincial and federal policies associated with this project, asking for rejection of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and a ban on large oil tanker traffic off of British Columbia's coast.

"In their growing desperation to get dirty bitumen to international markets, Alberta's tar sands oil industry expects British Columbia to bear a very high cost," said Natural Resources Defense Council International Program director, Susan Casey-Lefkowitz. "We have cleaner solutions that will not devastate British Columbia's great angling rivers, the globally important Great Bear Rainforest and our climate."

NRDC has recently added its voice to growing Northern Gateway opposition, with members and activists sending almost 100,000 letters in the last month to the B.C. government and Enbridge asking that the pipeline not be built.

Contact:

Josh Mogerman, NRDC, 312-651-7909
Julia Kilpatrick, Pembina Institute, 613-265-5579
Geoff Gilliard, Living Oceans Society, 604-999-6273

Tagged with: pipeline, enbridge, northern gateway

Canada’s ‘ethical oil’ push gets tarred in British papers

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | November 28, 2011

Read the full article on the originating site

Canada made the front pages in Britain today, but not in a way that will do much for the national image.

“UK secretly helping Canada push its ‘dirty’ fuel,” reads the top-of-page headline in Monday’s Guardian. In the story picked up by several other papers, the London daily used an access-to-information request to unearth a series of memos in which Britain’s top officials promise to help Canada overturn a proposed European Union move to label Alberta oil-sands petroleum as a high-pollution product.

Such headlines are monitored closely in Canada’s embassies and in Ottawa. Even though Europe does not buy Canadian petroleum, Canadian officials fear that an EU “dirty fuel” designation could harm exports in other markets. So Canada has been calling in its political and diplomatic favours in London in an effort to get Britain to sway their fellow EU members in Brussels.

The end goal, of course, is to change Canada’s image: If Ottawa can somehow persuade the EU that its oil-sands output is what it calls “ethical oil,” then Canada will look better on the world stage, and its export economy will gain. This has been a major push: As an earlier British investigation found, Canada has held no less than 110 lobbying meetings with European and British politicians in the last two years to try to have Alberta oil designated as clean.

But as today’s headline shows, the effort could end up backfiring, by creating a British perception of Canada as a self-interested polluter. Indeed, the Guardian story was evidently designed to embarrass British Prime Minister David Cameron - who campaigned on a pledge to provide the “greenest government ever” - on the eve of the South Africa climate-change summit. The fact that merely being associated with Canada is described in a newspaper as an embarrassment shows how far things have fallen.

But how bad is Canada’s press in Britain, really?

London’s eight “quality” newspapers have mentioned Canada or Canadians in their headlines in 294 stories so far this year. Of this, 42 were sports stories, of which only three were about the Vancouver hockey riots; 22 were arts stories (thanks, Group of Seven), and 68 were travel articles, more than half of them appearing to be paid-editorial features (“Explore Canada’s welcoming wilderness.”)

Another 24 stories were about Prince William and Kate’s royal visit to Canada, and fewer than a quarter of those concerned protesters disrupting that tour. Ottawa’s non-confidence vote, dissolution of parliament, national election and Conservative majority victory together merited exactly nine stories.

Then there were the 22 stories devoted to the London Stock Exchange’s failed attempt to purchase TMX Group, the operator of the Toronto Stock Exchange. Most of these stories were negative -- typical was the Times’s “Canada stays out in the cold,” arguing that the failure will hurt transatlantic trade.

But back to the oil: the word “Canada” appeared in the headlines of a total of six stories about Alberta oil. All of them presented the oil sands and their output in a negative light.

Looking more widely, there have been 129 stories in British papers this year containing the phrases “Athabasca oil,” “oil sands” or “tar sands” (the latter term is more popular in Britain). The largest share were about the large-scale public campaign, including many celebrities and arts figures, to get BP to end what the conservative Daily Telegraph calls its “controversial oil sands project in Canada.” Many of the rest were about the U.S. battle to stop Canada’s Keystone oil pipeline; regardless which paper, they tended to assume that the oil is an ecological threat.

About half of those 129 stories cast Canadian oil in a negative light (perhaps a quarter, appearing in the business pages, presented it as a promising investment). Interestingly, the negative stories appear equally distributed across the left-leaning papers (The Guardian, The Independent and the Observer) and the conservative ones (The Times, The Telegraph and their Sunday counterparts).

The phrase “ethical oil,” by the way, could not be found in any British newspaper, quality or otherwise, even once this year.

Tagged with: canada, greenhouse gas, guardian, britain

UK secretly helping Canada push its oil sands project

News Articles Featured | guar | November 27, 2011

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The UK government has been giving secret support at the very highest levels to Canada's campaign against European penalties on its highly polluting tar sands fuel, the Guardian can reveal.

At the same time, the UK government was being lobbied by Shell and BP, which both have major tar sands projects in Alberta, and opened a new consulate in the province to "support British commercial interests".

At least 15 high-level meetings and frequent communications have taken place since September, with David Cameron discussing the issue with his counterpart Stephen Harper during his visit to Canada, and stating privately that the UK wanted "to work with Canada on finding a way forward", according to documents released under freedom of information laws.

Charles Hendry, the energy minister, later told the Canadian high commissioner: "We would value continued discussion with you on how we can progress discussions in Brussels," with Hendry's official asking the Canadians if they had "any suggestions as to what we might do, given the politics in Brussels".

Canada's vast tar sands – also known as oil sands – are the second largest reserve of carbon in the world after Saudi Arabia, although the energy needed to extract oil from the ground means the process results in far more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil drilling, as well as causing the destruction of forests and air and water pollution.

Nasa scientist James Hansen says if the oil sands were exploited as projected it would be "game over for the climate".

The European proposal is to designate transport fuel from tar sands as resulting in 22% more greenhouse gas emissions than that from conventional fuels. This would make suppliers, who have to reduce the emissions from their fuels by 10% by 2020, very reluctant to include it in their fuel mix. It would also set an unwelcome precedent for Canada by officially labelling fuel from tar sands as dirtier.

The UK and Canada's shared opposition to the European plan puts the UK in a minority among EU countries and will be deeply embarrassing as a new round of global negotiations on tackling climate change begins in Durban, South Africa on Monday. Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, claimed on Thursday that the UK was showing "leadership" in the UN negotiations, while Canada's prime minister has blocked climate laws. The revelations are also the latest blow to Cameron's claim to be the "greenest government ever".

The vote to approve the European fuel quality regulations takes place on Friday. In advance of that, William Hague, the foreign secretary, has also given support to Canada, sending an "immediate action" cable in September to the UK's embassies there asking "to communicate our position and seek Canadian views on what might be acceptable".

However, the Department for Transport, in which the Liberal Democrat minister Norman Baker has responsibility for tar sands issues, has released only two presentations made to it by Shell, both heavily redacted. The DfT rejected requests to release at least six other relevant documents on the grounds of commercial confidentiality and adverse effect on international relations, as did the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), where Shell also met ministers.

BP has lobbied ministers, too. Its vice president in Europe, Peter Mather, has been, in his own words, "bending the ear" of Baker. Mather also sent a letter in which he wrote: "The regulatory burden would be considerable at a time when the industry is already creaking under the weight of a heavy regulatory regime."

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "The scale of oil industry lobbying exposed in these documents is quite extraordinary. It's especially worrying that Baker held a secret meeting with Shell about this key European vote on tar sands. But worse still, he's now covering up what was discussed."

Colin Baines, toxic fuels campaign manager at the Co-operative, the UK mutual business group which targets tar sands as part of its climate change campaigning, said: "It is very disappointing that the UK government is supporting Canada's efforts and we hope it has a rethink and puts tackling climate change ahead of Canada's trade interests when it comes to vote on the European commission's commonsense proposal."

The documents were obtained by the Co-operative under environmental information regulations, a type of freedom of information law. They include letters to and from ministers, diplomatic correspondence and notes of meetings.

Baker said: "The government is staying true to its aspiration to be the greenest ever by seeking to secure the best deal it can for the environment from the discussions ongoing in the EU about the fuel quality directive.

"We believe that means tackling all highly polluting crudes equally, not simply oil sands from one particular country. These certainly represent a problem, but so do other crudes, and it makes no environmental sense to ignore these.

"This is not about protecting one particular country – we want to deal with all crudes, not just one type, and in a way that is based on robust and objective data, related to their carbon emissions."

Like Baker, Canada also argues in the newly revealed documents that it is unfair to single out one nation and that other types of oil can be as dirty as tar sands.

But Baines says these arguments are "myths", as the European proposal does not name any nation and on average fuel from tar sands is a greater source of carbon by a clear margin, according to a Stanford University study for the European commission.

Furthermore, the European commission proposal allows for changes in the emissions designated for fuel types.

Canadian ministers and diplomats state they support an "overarching ambition" to reduce carbon emissions. But Canada has admitted it will fail to meet its Kyoto protocol target of a 6% cut compared with 1990 levels: in 2009 its emissions were 34% higher.

In September, Lord Sassoon, the UK Treasury minister for commerce, spent two days in the Albertan capital Calgary, a few hundred miles from the vast oil sand pits excavated by 1,500-tonne diggers. The International Energy Agency expects production to treble in the next 20 years. Sassoon met politicians and oil executives to discuss boosting trade with the UK and told reporters that Alberta is "one of the main focuses of British business". Alberta's energy minister, Ron Liepert, told Sassoon privately he "was grateful for UK efforts" on the tar sands issue in Europe.

The new British consulate-general in Calgary was announced by Hague on 18 October, the same day as Canadian energy minister Joe Oliver said: "[The British] have been very, very helpful and we're pleased about that. Many European companies are heavily invested in the oil sands and they also would be concerned." The new documents and diplomatic sources suggest the Netherlands, Spain and Poland are among those backing the British-Canadian position.

In London, a senior Canadian diplomat, Sushma Gera, told BIS: "Canada will not hesitate to defend her interests," perhaps via a World Trade Organisation dispute, a possibility also raised by Shell in its presentation to DfT.

Bill McKibben, a leading US environmentalist, who was arrested in August protesting against a major oil sands pipeline called Keystone XL said: "The UK seems to have emerged as Canada's partner in crime, leaning on Brussels to let this crud across the borders. This will be among the biggest single environmental decisions the Cameron government makes."

Greenpeace's Sauven, along with the head of Friends of the Earth, Andy Atkins, and David Nussbaum, leader of WWF-UK, have written to Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister and Lib Dem leader.

The letter says: "We ask you to intervene personally on this, to ensure that your party's green ambitions are more effectively upheld across Whitehall."

Tagged with: united kingdom, european union, durban

Stockpiled Keystone pipes troubling, NDP MP says

News Articles Featured | CBC | November 25, 2011

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It's troubling that TransCanada is sending pipes to the U.S. before the State Department approves the Keystone XL extension, an NDP critic said Wednesday.

Truckloads of pipe from Canada are arriving daily in Gascoyne, N.D., where they are being stockpiled, Radio-Canada reporter Marc Godbout reported Monday.

The U.S. State Department is considering the company's request to extend the Keystone XL pipeline through the U.S. but likely won't decide until the end of the year. The Canadian government says it fully supports the expansion.

Megan Leslie, the NDP's environment critic, says the fact TransCanada is already shipping pipes to the U.S. makes people question the whole process.

"It’s unbelievable to me that industry would be lining this up already," she said. "They're saying 'come on board and support this project, you have a say in this,' and meanwhile they're stockpiling pipes.

"It makes me feel like the die is cast."

A spokesman from TransCanada says the company is shipping pipes to multiple pipe yards to prepare for the extension.

"The pipe yards are in preparation [for] Keystone XL and they are located throughout the U.S. and part of Canada," Terry Cunha said in a statement to CBC News.

Most of the pipe – 85 per cent – will be manufactured in North America, he added.

"One of the mills is in Regina. We hope to begin construction in early 2012. We need [the] Presidential Permit from the State Department before we can proceed with construction," Cunha wrote.
Long delays possible

It's possible a decision on Keystone could be delayed, however. And construction could start even later than planned if the U.S. government decides to re-route the pipeline around an ecologically sensitive aquifer in Nebraska, which a spokesman for the State Department wouldn't rule out Wednesday.

A U.S. official told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the U.S. State Department, which is involved because the pipeline would cross international borders, is now mulling a new route.

Such a route change would force Keystone XL to go through environmental and wildlife studies all over again, said Alex Pourbaix, president of energy and oil pipelines for TransCanada. So far the environmental review process has taken more than three years.

"There's no doubt that if we were asked to do that, I think it would a minimum of a one- to two-year delay," he said in an interview. Most studies can only take place during the summer, prolonging the process.

Wednesday's development – as well as news the department's inspector general will review the assessment process over conflict-of-interest concerns – has called that timeline into serious doubt.

The rerouting decision would likely push a final decision on the pipeline past the 2012 presidential election. The issue has become a hot issue for President Barack Obama, who has the power to block or approve the project.

The Obama administration risks angering environmental supporters if he approves the pipeline and could face criticism from labour and business groups for thwarting jobs if he rejects it.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, ndp

COASTAL FIRST NATIONS REAFFIRM OPPOSITION TO ENBRIDGE PIPELINE

News Articles Featured | Coastal First Nations | November 23, 2011

Vancouver (Nov. 23, 2011) - "The Coastal First Nations categorically oppose Enbridge's Northern Gateway Project," says Art Sterritt. Sterritt, the executive director of Coastal First Nations, added that "we unequivocally maintain our ban on oil tankers on the coast."It was Mr. Daniels, of Enbridge, who spoke of wanting a fresh start with the Coastal First Nation. Sterritt, on behalf of the board, told Daniels that a fresh start from the Coastal First Nations perspective meant having Enbridge ask the Joint Review Panel (JRP) to stand down.

"The Joint Review Process is seen by the Coastal First Nations not as objective, rather as a process that advances the Enbridge Project." Subsequently the Coastal First Nations has been informed that Enbridge is not prepared to ask the JRP to stand down or reveal who the other proponents are, he said.

In August of 2009, Enbridge stated that the proposed project would not go ahead if First Nations communities opposed it, said Sterritt. "None of our communities support the project. Nor do any First Nations along the pipeline route."

"Why would we support a proposal that would put our rivers, oceans and lifesource at risk?" Sterritt said. "It's time Pat Daniels and Enbridge take the correct action and give us the fresh start they promised. It's time to shut down the Joint Review Process and the Northern Gateway project."

For more information:

Art Sterritt, Executive Director
Coastal First Nations
604-868-9110

Tagged with: pipeline, first nations, enbridge, northern gateway, tankers

Exposing the Blind Side of the Ethical Oil Campaign

News Articles Featured | Huffington Post | November 19, 2011

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It's unethical to allow caribou in Alberta to disappear under the boot print of unchecked tar sands developments. But the ethical oil campaign wants you to ignore that.

Proponents of the ethical oil argument want you to look away as the tar sands drive the boreal caribou to extinction, an animal so entangled with our country's history that it's etched on the back of our quarter. They want you to ignore the fact that the tar sands suck up water from the Athabasca River and spit out toxic sludge into tailing ponds. They even want you to close your eyes as the quest for oil swallows large patches of Boreal forest.

In northeastern Alberta, boreal caribou are under siege. Herds have declined by more than 70 per cent during the past 15 years. A 2010 Government of Alberta study found that the tar sands could make local caribou extinct in less than 40 years. Ecojustice is unwilling to let that happen. We went to federal court in June to fight for the caribou. Representing Pembina Institute and the Alberta Wilderness Association, we asked the court to force federal Environment Minister Peter Kent to recommend emergency protection of the critical habitat for the threatened caribou.

Victory came in July, when the federal court set aside the minister's decision not to recommend emergency protections and ordered the minister to reconsider the steps government was taking to protect the caribou and come to a new decision. The court said the minister's decision not to recommend emergency protection was contrary to the scientific evidence that exists about the threats facing caribou. The court also said that a recovery strategy to protect and recover woodland caribou was four years overdue and gave the minister until Sept. 1, 2011, to release a proposed recovery strategy.

We reviewed the proposed strategy, released on Aug. 26, and found that it will do little to protect caribou herds. The science is clear: if Alberta's boreal caribou herds are to survive, their habitat must be improved. The proposed strategy, however, makes no mention of improving habitat. Rather, it sacrifices further habitat destruction as long as there is a plan to stabilize the population. In effect, the strategy has written off the herds in Alberta.

All of this has occurred as the ethical oil publicity campaign urged the world to avert its gaze from the ecological disaster that is the tar sands. Fortunately, not everyone in the world is so easily distracted. On Oct. 4, the European Commission labelled the tar sands as a dirty source of fuel, one whose import they may eventually ban. Why did they do that? The European Union has made a commitment to lowering its carbon footprint. Importing fuels that are more environmentally damaging -- such as those that come from shale gas or tar sands -- would compromise this shift towards sustainability.

On the same day the EU labelled the tar sands a dirty source of fuel, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development Scott Vaughan told Canadians that federal efforts to reduce greenhouse gases have failed. In his audit, Vaughan reported that while billions have been spent to cut emissions, pollution and emissions from tar sands projects have more than doubled in the last decade (and continue to grow). It's now unlikely that we'll meet our commitments under the Kyoto Protocol and, even more alarming, the government has slashed its goal for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by a whopping 90 per cent.

Time and again, the government's own studies say climate change will cost Canadians. Sometimes the costs are measured by the loss of critical habitat and threatened species. The boreal forest is our ally in the fight against climate change, moderating temperatures, producing oxygen and purifying our water. It's also home to majestic species like Alberta's boreal caribou. Sometimes the cost of climate change is in dollars and cents. A federal advisory panel said in September that ignoring climate change could cost Canada between $21 billion and $43 billion per year by 2050. The panel is an independent organization whose members were appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's own government.

The ethical oil campaign often glosses over the price we're paying to develop the tar sands. Through calculated diversion and distraction techniques, they've tried to shift the focus to oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran or Venezuela and their appalling records on human rights. They want you to support Canadian oil because it is ethical. But how ethical is an industry that destroys our boreal forests, pollutes our water and drives species, such as the boreal caribou, to extinction? It's time we stop pointing fingers at other countries and take a long hard look at how we are acting in our own backyard.

Will Amos and Melissa Gorrie are staff lawyers for Ecojustice, Canada's leading nonprofit using the law to protect and restore the environment.

Tagged with: ethical oil, ecojustice, caribou

The return of Alykhan Velshi

News Articles Featured | CBC | November 14, 2011

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Former Jason Kenney staffer Alykhan Velshi is returning to Parliament Hill -- this time as director of planning for the Prime Minister's Office, CBC News has learned.

Velshi was most recently executive director of EthicalOil.org, an organization set up to promote writer Ezra Levant's take on Canada's oilsands. While in that job, Velshi infamously debated actress Daryl Hannah over extending TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline through the U.S.

Making the transition to the private sector can be difficult for political aides, especially after having the chance to influence public policy.

Velshi worked for several years for Kenney, including during Kenney's time as minister of citizenship and immigration, and worked for now-Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird when Baird was environment minister. He also worked for the Conservative Party during elections and was one of the main spokesmen during the 2011 election campaign.

The director of planning position was once held by Patrick Muttart, who was a major strategic player in the Conservative party's first election victory under Stephen Harper.

He's expected to start work in December.

Reached by CBC, Velshi declined to comment.

Tagged with: ethical oil, alykhan velshi

NY Times Editorial: The Right Move on Keystone XL

News Articles Featured | New York Times | November 11, 2011

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President Obama made just the right call on Thursday when he delayed a final decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada until 2013.The decision included a heaping self-serving of politics, since a decision either way would have offended somebody among Mr. Obama’s base voters — the labor unions who want the pipeline or the environmentalists who don’t. Yet so many basic questions remained unresolved — about the pipeline’s environmental and economic impacts, about whether the country actually needs the oil — that it was reasonable to decide that a decision was impossible without further study.

The White House was also troubled by allegations that the State Department, the agency in charge of the pipeline review, had contracted its environmental studies to a company with ties to TransCanada, the pipeline operator. According to other government agencies, the department has consistently low-balled the greenhouse gas emissions that extracting heavy oil from Canada’s tar sand are likely to cause. And the route it had chosen for the 1,700-mile pipeline has aroused bipartisan fury in places like Nebraska, where voters from both parties fear that a leak would poison water supplies.

All this was reason enough for Mr. Obama to return to the drawing board. But it was also important, he suggested in his statement, to step back and put the pipeline in the larger context of other strategies the administration is pursuing to strengthen America’s energy security — doubling the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks, developing alternative fuels, responsibly expanding America’s own oil and gas resources.

As it happens, the tar sands announcement came shortly after the release of the administration’s proposed five-year plan for offshore oil drilling. The plan can be improved but is modest compared with the drill-now-and-everywhere strategies favored by industry. Most new development would occur in areas like the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Coast would be off the table altogether, and leasing in the Arctic would not occur until 2016 and then only after extensive environmental review.

The plan was a reminder that there are still huge untapped reserves in American waters — 90 billion barrels, conservatively. Add these reserves to big new discoveries in deep shale formations in Texas and North Dakota, couple them with strategies to use less oil, and the Keystone XL seems less urgent to America’s energy security.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, obama

U.S. delay could spell end for Keystone XL

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | November 11, 2011

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Keystone XL has been dealt a potentially fatal blow after the U.S. State Department told TransCanada Corp. (TRP-T40.78-0.20-0.49%)to come up with a new route for the contentious pipeline.

The State Department, which is overseeing the permitting process, said it wants TransCanada to avoid the Sand Hills, a fragile environmental area in Nebraska. Doing that will require working through a supplemental environmental impact statement, a process that could take until early 2013 to complete.TransCanada said it remains confident the pipeline will be approved, suggesting work it has already done could “help expedite the review process” of establishing a new route through Nebraska. But the delay threatens to extinguish a project that has been years in the making, providing shippers an opening to abandon the pipeline.

U.S. refiners, in particular, will “look at this and they will immediately turn to say, we will go elsewhere,” warned Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute. “It sends a chilling effect to the entire industry. And what it says is you can’t rely on the legal processes to make a timely decision.”

TransCanada, whose shares are down almost 9 per cent in the past two weeks, has poured tremendous resources into preparing for Keystone XL, which it can now begin building at a moment’s notice. It has spent $1.9-billion to secure land and parts – great quantities of which are sitting in warehouses, waiting to be installed. It had hoped for an approval next month.

Now, however, the outlook for the project is growing dimmer.

That creates serious concern for Canada’s oil producers, which are just years from running out of room on existing pipelines for their product. Without more pipelines, the oil sands face being forced to slow growth, a possibility that has broad ramifications not just for Alberta, but the entire country.

TransCanada now faces a fight to keep Keystone XL alive. Underlying the $7-billion pipe are a series of long-term contracts with shippers – both producers and refiners – who have agreed to ship certain volumes on the pipe.

But a template of those agreements filed with the National Energy Board shows that shippers have an exit they may be able to access. If, by the end of this year, TransCanada cannot prove it will have oil flowing through Keystone XL by Dec. 31, 2013, shippers can provide 30 days notice and dump their contracts.

TransCanada has said that it will take two years to build the 2,763-kilometre pipeline, which is intended to pump up to 830,000 barrels a day of crude to the Gulf Coast from the oil sands and the northern U.S. It seems unlikely TransCanada will be able to file the new route and still complete construction in two years.

The crucial question now is whether shippers will bail on the pipeline, or stick with a project they have built business plans around. Legal sources suggested TransCanada will immediately work to negotiate an extension of the completion date requirement – if it has not already done so. At least one of the pipeline’s supporters, Valero Energy Corp., said in a statement that it “continues to support the Keystone XL pipeline project, and we feel it makes too much sense not to approve.”

Paul Reimer, senior vice-president of marketing, transportation and power for Cenovus Energy Inc., said he continues to “believe it is an important artery out of Alberta.” He declined comment on whether Cenovus will consider pulling out, saying, “Keystone XL is still a reasonable and rational and appropriate route for the producers and, I think, for the U.S. energy needs.”

TransCanada itself, however, made reference to the potentially ominous implications of the delay. Killing the pipe “would be a tragedy,” chief executive officer Russ Girling said in a statement.

“If Keystone XL dies,” he said, “Americans will still wake up the next morning and continue to import 10 million barrels of oil from repressive nations, without the benefit of thousands of jobs and long-term energy security.”

For Canada’s energy industry, any uncertainty over Keystone raises troubling questions about its future. Keystone XL had been tapped as the favoured route to expand Canada’s oil exports to the United States. With the project delayed, other efforts to shuttle crude south, as well as to the West Coast, will now attract more attention, said Greg Stringham, a vice-president at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

“We need to be very active at putting the other alternatives ... under enhanced attention and get started on them earlier and push them much stronger,” Mr. Stringham said, noting that he still thinks Keystone XL will ultimately succeed.

Yet it’s clear the delay is a major setback for Canada’s industry, which like many in the U.S. suggested politics is at play.

“It seems to have turned into a hot potato that President Obama doesn’t want to touch until after the election,” said Chris Seasons, president of Devon Canada.

The State Department denied any political involvement, saying the White House did not push for the decision. Instead, it referred to the increasingly angry insurgency in Nebraska, where everyone from ranchers to the Republican Governor argued that the pipeline should be moved away from the Sand Hills.

“The concerns of the people are a legitimate factor to respond to,” State Department Assistant Secretary Kerri-Ann Jones said Thursday afternoon.

Industry had steadfastly supported Keystone XL, saying its importance should make it the primary focus for exporters. Now, however, executives are shying away from that stance, stating that their fortunes do not rest solely with Keystone XL.

“The delay – and I’ll call it a delay – of a year, is not catastrophic to the industry,” Mr. Seasons said. “We’re a creative industry and there are alternate routes.”

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, obama, state department

NYT Editorial: The Right Move on Keystone XL

News Articles Featured | New York Times | November 11, 2011

Read the full article on the originating site

The decision included a heaping self-serving of politics, since a decision either way would have offended somebody among Mr. Obama’s base voters — the labor unions who want the pipeline or the environmentalists who don’t. Yet so many basic questions remained unresolved — about the pipeline’s environmental and economic impacts, about whether the country actually needs the oil — that it was reasonable to decide that a decision was impossible without further study.

The White House was also troubled by allegations that the State Department, the agency in charge of the pipeline review, had contracted its environmental studies to a company with ties to TransCanada, the pipeline operator. According to other government agencies, the department has consistently low-balled the greenhouse gas emissions that extracting heavy oil from Canada’s tar sand are likely to cause. And the route it had chosen for the 1,700-mile pipeline has aroused bipartisan fury in places like Nebraska, where voters from both parties fear that a leak would poison water supplies.

All this was reason enough for Mr. Obama to return to the drawing board. But it was also important, he suggested in his statement, to step back and put the pipeline in the larger context of other strategies the administration is pursuing to strengthen America’s energy security — doubling the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks, developing alternative fuels, responsibly expanding America’s own oil and gas resources.

As it happens, the tar sands announcement came shortly after the release of the administration’s proposed five-year plan for offshore oil drilling. The plan can be improved but is modest compared with the drill-now-and-everywhere strategies favored by industry. Most new development would occur in areas like the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Coast would be off the table altogether, and leasing in the Arctic would not occur until 2016 and then only after extensive environmental review.

The plan was a reminder that there are still huge untapped reserves in American waters — 90 billion barrels, conservatively. Add these reserves to big new discoveries in deep shale formations in Texas and North Dakota, couple them with strategies to use less oil, and the Keystone XL seems less urgent to America’s energy security.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, obama, state department

Keystone XL pipeline unites left and right

News Articles Featured | Washington Post | November 11, 2011

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President Obama’s decision to delay a final ruling on the “tar sands” pipeline from Canada to Texas has been cheered by environmentalists a s a rare victory — and it is. But it’s also a rare product of a coalition between conservationists and conservatives in red states.

Environmentalists oppose the project because of the energy-intensive, pollution-creating oil extraction. Conservatives and tea party activists are worried about the use of eminent domain, or the government’s ability to take private property, to build a pipeline for a foreign company. And both sides are concerned about oil leaking into aquifers that supply Texas and the Plains states.

Demonstrators carry a giant mock pipeline while calling for the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline during a rally in Washington November 6, 2011. (JOSHUA ROBERTS - REUTERS)

While Obama’s decision focused on the opposition in Nebraska, environmentalists all along the pipeline’s path have joined forces with conservative Republicans in opposition to the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline.

The issue has not yet become a national one for conservatives, as it has for environmentalists. But Nebraska and Montana both have competitive 2012 Senate races, and the pipeline could become a problem for candidates on both sides of the aisle. For now, it’s an example of how left and right can overcome their divisions — just like Obama always wanted.

In Texas, an active alliance has formed between tea party and environmental groups.

Debra Medina, a prominent activist who ran against Gov. Rick Perry (R) in last year’s Republican gubernatorial primary, said environmental groups reached out to her. Medina was active in the fight against the Trans-Texas Corridor, a complex all-in-one transportation network supported by Perry that collapsed in the face of public opposition.

“I initially said, ‘What’s the big deal? You’ve got a company moving its product.’ The guy said, ‘Well, they’re using eminent domain to do it,’ and all of a sudden I got real interested.”

Alberta-based TransCanada filed with the Texas Railroad Commission as a “common carrier” — meaning the project is for public use, which gives TransCanada eminent domain rights. Local opponents argue that there’s no justification for it — and that even if there is, there was no process to determine whether the pipeline is a public good.

“We have folks from every affiliation involved, including tea party folks,” said David Daniel of Stop Tarsands Oil Pipelines (STOP), a landowner collective formed to oppose the project. The pipeline would cut through the middle of his property. “Doesn’t matter who you are, everybody needs water.”

And tea party activists start to sound like liberals when asked about the involvement of Americans for Prosperity, a libertarian group funded by the billionaire Koch brothers that has backed the pipeline.

“You’ve got Americans for Prosperity out there promoting this and saying we want you to put in comments in favor of the pipeline,” said Terri Hall of Texas Uniting for Reform and Freedom. “Anyone who’s done five minutes of research will find out that not only are the Koch brothers involved in this, TransCanada has never made any promises that this is going to be domestic energy.”

Koch Industries is heavily invested in Canadian oil sands exploration.* 

“Americans for Prosperity is not a tea party group,” said Medina. “Americans for Prosperity says, ‘Koch funds us, this is good for the Koch brothers, so we’ll support it.’ There are a lot of wolves in sheeps’ clothing masquerading as tea party groups.”

Some local tea party activists do support the pipeline, arguing that eminent domain issues can be handled.

“I strongly support the project; however, TransCanada should be held accountable for both safety compliance and in regard to private property rights,” said JoAnn Fleming, who chairs a group of tea party members that advises state legislatures.

Landowners say the TransCanada refused to work with them to minimize damage, as oil companies normally do, and that not enough research was done on potential water contamination.

“There are folks in East Texas who are wary of working with ‘environmental organizations,’ but the statewide organizations are more wary of letting these groups be divided over silly distinctions,” said Trevor Lowell of Public Citizen. “They’re going above and beyond. They’re pretty independently frustrated about this whole project.”

There are also eminent domain fights going on in South Dakota, and Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) is asking the state legislature to impose “additional protections.”

In Montana, the conservation group Northern Plains Resource Council is working with local landowners, who have formed the Northern Plains Pipeline Landowners Group to oppose the pipeline’s current path project.

The pipeline has created some strange bedfellows — an alliance of convenience that could have local implications, even if another such national victory is unlikely.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, obama

Keystone XL Do-Over Likely a Lethal Blow

Media Releases Featured | National Wildlife Federation | November 10, 2011

Washington, DC (November 10, 2011) – The Obama Administration today announced they would redo an environmental assessment of the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Larry Schweiger, NWF president and CEO said:

“This do-over is likely a lethal blow.  The project won’t be able to stand the scrutiny because Americans now understand that it will increase our addiction to dirty, expensive tar sands oil for decades.

“The Keystone XL pipeline was the wrong project in the wrong place.  You can change the route, but it is still the wrong project at a time when we need investments in clean energy alternatives that don’t spill, don’t pollute, and don’t run out.

“Over the last several months, a groundswell of opposition sunk this project.  Not since the first Earth Day have I seen so much energy directed toward conserving the environment for our children. This is a great moment for the thousands of Americans who have stood up to this project, from town halls to the White House.”

For more National Wildlife Federation news visit www.nwf.org/news

Celebrating 75 years of inspiring Americans to protect wildlife for our children's future.



**************************
Tony Iallonardo
Senior Communications Manager
National Wildlife Federation
(202) 797-6612

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, obama

Statement by the President on the State Department’s Keystone XL Pipeline Announcement

Media Releases Featured | Office of the Press Secretary, The White House | November 10, 2011

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 10, 2011

I support the State Department's announcement today regarding the need to seek additional information about the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal.  Because this permit decision could affect the health and safety of the American people as well as the environment, and because a number of concerns have been raised through a public process, we should take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood.  The final decision should be guided by an open, transparent process that is informed by the best available science and the voices of the American people.  At the same time, my administration will build on the unprecedented progress we’ve made towards strengthening our nation’s energy security, from responsibly expanding domestic oil and gas production to nearly doubling the fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks, to continued progress in the development of a clean energy economy.

###

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, obama

Statement from Environmental Defence Executive Director Dr. Rick Smith on U.S. government’s decision

Media Releases Featured | Environmental Defence Canada | November 10, 2011

ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE
For Immediate Release:  November 10, 2011

Statement from Environmental Defence Executive Director Dr. Rick Smith on U.S. government’s decision to delay TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline:

“We applaud President Obama’s decision to delay a permit for TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in order to further review its potential impacts.

Today’s announcement sends an important signal to Canada’s tar sands industry: citizens are standing up for a clean energy future. Just five days ago, 12,000 Americans showed up at the White House to urge President Obama to stick by his pledge to reduce dependence on oil. Canada needs to pay attention to this message.  There is no such thing as “business as usual” for the tar sands industry any longer. The longer Canada delays getting serious about reining in tar sands pollution and transitioning to a clean energy economy, the more of this type of controversy we should expect. 

The delay announced today has the potential to  not only protect a water source that provides 3 million people with safe drinking water from the damage of an oil spill, but it also gives more time to consider the impacts of the proposed pipeline on efforts to fight global warming. We hope that the Canadian government will listen to the concerns of its citizens affected by Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline in the same way that President Obama has listened to the concerns of Nebraskans. 

The near-doubling of tar sands production exports to the US that would be needed to fill the Keystone XL pipeline would take North America in the wrong direction, increasing our dependence on oil at a time when scientists around the world are calling for us to dramatically transition away from fossil fuels to avoid catastrophic climate change.”

About Environmental Defence ( www.environmentaldefence.ca ): Environmental Defence is Canada's most effective environmental action organization. We challenge, and inspire change in government, business and people to ensure a greener, healthier and prosperous life for all.

-30-

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:
Gillian McEachern, Environmental Defence, (613) 292-4416; gmceachern@environmentaldefence.ca
Stephanie Kohls, Environmental Defence, (647) 280-9521; skohls@environmentaldefence.ca

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, obama

President Obama sides with the “many over the money” by effectively rejecting Keystone XL

Media Releases Featured | Oil Change International | November 10, 2011

Contact: Steve Kretzmann, 202-497-1033

WASHINGTON, November 10 -- This afternoon, officials at the White House and the State Department announced that they would “examine in depth alternative routes” for the Keystone XL pipeline and that this process “could be completed as early as the first quarter of 2013”.

This amounts to an effective rejection of the pipeline.  During TransCanada’s third quarter results call in early November, CEO Russ Girling told analysts that “(s)hipping contracts have sunset clauses that could be triggered by a long delay… if the administration delays the project long enough that it becomes a low probability that they will ever get it through in a time frame that meets their needs, they are not going to support us anymore.”[1]

Analysis by Oil Change International indicates that the contracts signed between TransCanada and its customers ([2])– producers, traders and refiners – are potentially invalidated if oil is not flowing by the end of 2013. With two years needed for construction, work would need to start in early 2012 to stand a chance of meeting these contractual agreements.  Thus, this decision is likely an “effective rejection” of the Keystone XL pipeline.

In response to the news Oil Change International Executive Director Stephen Kretzmann said:

We congratulate President Obama for listening to the many not the money.  This decision shows the Administration is heeding the concerns of the 12,000 people who surrounded the White House last weekend, as well as millions of Americans and two thirds of Nebraskans by deciding to reconsider the route of the Keystone XL pipeline.  The President’s decision amounts to an effective rejection of the pipeline.

This is a great first step, but there is still much work to do to end our nation’s addiction to oil.   America needs a coherent energy policy that firmly rejects tar sands oil and definitively charts a roadmap to a climate friendly clean energy future that safeguards our health, economy and security. 

America’s problem is not foreign oil – it is all oil.  As retired General Steven Anderson said today, “the greatest threat to our security is our over-reliance on oil and Americans must immediately take steps to cut our petro-addiction before it’s too late.“

_____

Note to editors: Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson, U.S. Army (RET), served for 15 months as the senior U.S. and coalition logistician during Operation Iraqi Freedom and later as the Army's director of operations and logistics readiness at the Pentagon.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, obama

Pembina reacts to additional review of proposed Keystone XL pipeline

Media Releases Featured | Pembina Institute | November 10, 2011

CALGARY — Dan Woynillowicz, spokesperson for the Pembina Institute, made the following statement in response to the U.S. Department of State's announcement regarding additional review of the Keystone XL pipeline:


"By ordering additional environmental review of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama has made it clear that he has heard the concerns of Americans about environmental protection, climate change, and the need for the United States to create a clean energy future. The fact that climate change will be explicitly considered in the final decision is notable given the higher greenhouse gas pollution associated with oilsands compared to other sources of oil.

"President Obama's decision demonstrates that the regulatory process will be based on the best available information and analysis, and will take into account the views and concerns of American citizens. Then, and only then, will the President be equipped to determine whether the pipeline is in the best interests of the United States.

"This decision stands in stark contrast with the Canadian government's approach to the proposed Enbridge Gateway pipeline that would transport oilsands product to the West Coast. Rather than maintaining an objective perspective on this pipeline, Prime Minister Harper and his cabinet have been actively promoting its approval before public hearings on the environmental impacts of the project have even begun.

"The Canadian government should take a lesson from the U.S. and ensure a broader and more rigorous review of Gateway is completed, including the upstream environmental and greenhouse gas impacts of expanding oilsands development to fill the pipeline."

-30-

Contact:
Dan Woynillowicz
Spokesperson

Cell: 250-551-2072

Julia Kilpatrick

Media Manager

Cell: 613-265-5579

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, obama

Dakota Rural Action Applauds Decision to Delay Pipeline

Media Releases Featured | Dakota Rural Action | November 10, 2011

or Immediate Release: November 10, 2011
For more information contact:   Paul Seamans, Murdo, (605) 669-2777  Frank James, Dakota Rural Action, (605) 697-5204          

Dakota Rural Action (DRA) applauds the decision by the Obama Administration to delay the Keystone XL Presidential Permit decision until 2013 to evaluate a better safer route around the Ogalalla Aquifer and Sand Hills. This delay will give officials the ability to offer this project the scrutiny it deserves. DRA urges the Administration to take this extra time to address other outstanding problems with its review of the project and proposed measures to ensure pipeline safety and protection of water, land and residents along the entire route.

“DRA has been trying to hold TransCanada accountable since they first announced the pipeline route,” says Paul Seamans, member of DRA and whose land is being crossed by the pipeline. “We organized South Dakotan landowners into a group forcing TransCanada to the negotiation table.”

“DRA had been working to get water quality concerns addressed for three years,” says Mr. Seamans, “it’s nice to know the Administration is listening.” 

There are more issues that need to be addressed such as The Emergency Response Plan, the document used by local residents and first responders in the case of a spill, should be made available for public and local emergency personnel review. Currently, TransCanada must only provide a finalized ERP to emergency workers when construction has started, without any expert or third party input. The public should be able to review and comment on the plans prior to construction because they have intimate knowledge of the land and will likely be the first people to respond if something goes wrong.

Dakota Rural Action also urges that with this delay, TransCanada will hold off their aggressive pursuit to condemn South Dakotan land. With the extra time, we hope TransCanada will return to the negotiation table to address landowner’s concerns.

“The Administration’s decision to delay the Presidential Permit is an opportunity to take a step back and evaluate all aspects of this project,” says Mr. Seamans. “Many issues have not been addressed through the rush by TransCanada to get this pipeline built. Keystone 1 was rushed. Now there have been more than a dozen leaks and the pipeline has been shut down twice for safety and mechanical concerns. We don’t need the same mistake again.”

******

Dakota Rural Action is a grassroots family agriculture and conservation group that organizes South Dakotans to protect our family farmers and ranchers, natural resources, and unique way of life.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline

Video: Alberta premier blasts pipeline delay

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | November 10, 2011

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Alberta's premier says the delay of approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline is a setback for the province's oil industry. The U.S. State Department wants the Calgary company to explore other routes for the pipeline.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, alberta, alison redford

U.S. talks on Keystone route could push project past 2012 election

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | November 08, 2011

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The $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline, which would run from the Alberta oil sands through the United States to refineries in the Gulf Coast, could face delays as the U.S. State Department considers rerouting the project, media reports said Tuesday.

The State Department is weighing the concerns of Nebraskans and public officials who say TransCanada’s current plans pose serious environmental risks – a move that could push the final decision past the 2012 presidential elections, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg said, citing anonymous government sources.

Thousands have surrounded the White House to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The demonstration is aimed at convincing Barack Obama to thwart TransCanada's attempts to build the oil sands pipeline.

TransCanada’s chief executive, Russ Girling, said in an interview Tuesday with the Wall Street Journal that his company couldn’t wait indefinitely for a final decision. He said some Gulf Coast refiners have contracts that expire in 2012 and 2013, and they need assurances the project will be able to provide crude oil.

But a spokesperson for TransCanada refused to speculate on what the delays meant for the Keystone project’s viability.

“If we hear something definitive from a named official on the record, we would then comment,” said James Millar in an e-mailed statement to The Globe and Mail. “We have taken our guidance from the Department of State over the last three years as it is their review process and will continue to do so.”

TransCanada has said the pipeline would create 20,000 jobs in the United States.

“If Keystone dies, Americans will still wake up the next morning and continue to import 10 million barrels of oil a day. Much of that oil will flow from repressive nations, without the benefit of thousands of jobs and long-term energy security,” Mr. Millar said. “That would be a tragedy.”

The pipeline has become a political challenge for the Obama administration. A decision in favour of the project would anger environmentalists, a core Obama constituency, ahead of the 2012 election. But rejecting the project, which many of the pipeline’s backers say would create much-needed jobs in a recession, could send voters to the Republican camp.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, obama, state department, election

EU capitals should hold firm, send signal to Canada on dirty fuels

News Articles Featured | Hill Times | November 07, 2011

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But European capitals are facing a volley of Canadian pressure in defence of the tar sands, threats of trade wars, and pressure from domestic oil companies.

By RICK SMITH | Nov. 07, 2011

TORONTO—The oil industry and Canadian government officials have been crying foul this month over the European Commission’s decision to label tar sands oil as carbon-heavy. As the EU moves toward a final decision on its proposed new policy to cut the carbon footprint of transportation fuels, it’s clear that this is a high-stakes game for the oil industry. As a result, European capitals are facing a volley of Canadian pressure in defence of the tar sands, threats of trade wars, and pressure from domestic oil companies.

The facts of the debate have, at times, been obscured. Despite what’s being said, this is not about discriminating against Canada, but about discriminating against more polluting fuels like tar sands and oil shale.

The EU has pledged to cut the carbon footprint of its transportation fuels by six per cent by 2020, and has been developing a policy called the Fuel Quality Directive to achieve this. This is a laudable goal given that transportation accounts for roughly 25 per cent of the continent’s greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, the transportation sector is being put on a diet, and its performance will be measured by the mix of heavy and light fuels it consumes. Similar to those food labels we all diligently read to see how much fat is in the bag of chips we’re about to eat, the EU has undertaken a rigorous scientific process to label different types of oil based on their carbon content.

Tar sands oil was found to have 23 per cent more carbon than conventional oil, and therefore has been given a ranking of 107 grams CO2 equivalent per megajoule (CO2eq/MJ) of fuel, as opposed to the 87.5 g CO2eq/MJ for conventional crude oil. This is consistent with the research done for California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and other independent scientific reviews. Oil shale has been given an even higher ranking than tar sands.

Contrary to claims that Canada is being unfairly targeted, it’s the type of oil that these numbers apply to, not the country it comes from. Any country wanting to export tar sands or shale oil to Europe would face the same challenge based on the simple fact that they have more carbon than conventional oil at a time when the EU is trying to trim its carbon footprint. And, if a company can demonstrate that it has managed to reduce the carbon footprint of these oil sources, it can be given a lower ranking, thereby creating an incentive to invest in reducing emissions.

Another argument being made is that the ranking ignores other sources of carbon-heavy fuel such as some of that flowing from Nigeria and Russia by allowing them to be lumped into the conventional oil category. However, in many of these cases, the higher carbon content is mostly a result of flaring—a process where natural gas is burned at wells producing oil. The proposed EU fuel policy tackles this issue by creating an incentive for oil producers to reduce flaring, and the plan is to look at these oil sources more closely in the near future.

And, since when was it Canada’s foreign policy approach to point fingers at other countries like Nigeria and Saudi Arabia and say, “Hey, they’re just as bad as us” as a way to avoid taking responsibility for our own actions? The EU has called a spade a spade, and governments and industry are trying to pressure other countries into backing down from a sound policy to deal with climate change rather than actually deal with the problem that tar sands oil is more polluting.

The EU decision should be a wake-up call—it’s time to stop relying on ever-increasing PR efforts because they aren’t quelling the controversy. It’s time to start taking an honest look at what needs to be done to fix the problems within our borders. We don’t need to look far. Several credible, independent reviews have highlighted what’s wrong with the current regulatory system for tar sands. Most recently, the commissioner of environment and sustainable development released his annual report that blasted the lack of any credible plan to reach our goals for reducing carbon pollution and said that decisions related to tar sands development were based on “incomplete, poor on non-existent environmental protection.”

The EU will likely make its final decision on the Fuel Quality Directive over the next couple of months. We hope that European capitals hold firm. It may, finally, send the signal to Canada that is needed to spur investment in clean, low-carbon energy instead of hitching our future to dirty, polluting tar sands oil.

Dr. Rick Smith is executive director of Environmental Defence (www.EnvironmentalDefence.ca) and co-author of the bestselling book “Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health.” The views expressed here are his own.

news@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

Tagged with: greenhouse gases, environmental defence canada, european commission, eu, fuel quality directive

Local View: No one forced TransCanada to take risk

Opinion Featured | Journal Star | November 06, 2011

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There was this guy, when I served on the Lincoln City Council, who wanted to open a bar on "O" Street.

He applied for a liquor license, and while he was waiting, he fixed up the space he had rented, fixed it up very nicely. Turns out his license was not approved. He assumed that because he had spent his money and time, he would get his license. Too bad he didn't read the part of the application that said:

"If your operation depends on receiving a liquor license, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission cautions you that if you purchase, remodel, start construction, spend or commit money that you do so at your own risk."

Three years ago, TransCanada, a multinational company with the head office in Calgary, Alberta, applied for a Presidential Permit with the U.S. State Department to cross the United States/Canadian border with a crude oil pipeline.

It drew a straight-line route that goes through the Sandhills and the Ogallala Aquifer. It was so sure it would get the permit and be able to use its shortest route that it moved ahead to implement its business plan.

It spent millions of dollars to buy land easements along the assumed route. And, where persuasion did not work, landowners were bullied and threatened with eminent domain, for a pipeline which TransCanada has no current authority to build.

At the same time TransCanada was buying up easements, it spent $1.8 million to relocate the rare and endangered American burrowing beetle away from its proposed and assumed route.

TransCanada also says it signed agreements and priced its oil transportation to the refineries in Texas based on the assumed route, which is, of course, the shortest and least expensive. And it will realize millions less in profit if the pipeline is delayed.

As President Barack Obama is poised to decide on TransCanada‘s permit by the end of the year, Nebraska lawmakers are engaged in a special session of the Legislature to implement siting regulations for oil pipelines.

Among the arguments TransCanada has launched as to why Nebraska should not pass siting legislation at this time is, "It's unfair to TransCanada's shareholders to pass regulations now!"

Why?

Because TransCanada already has bought 90 percent of the easements, relocated the American burrowing beetles and priced its oil shipping prices for the shortest route, which goes through the Sandhills.

TransCanada has spent more than $300,000 lobbying in Nebraska and millions of dollars in Washington with a theme that can be described as, "we don't want no pipeline laws."

I have some sympathy for the business owner in Lincoln who didn't understand the risk he was taking to fix up his bar before he had the liquor license.

But I have no sympathy for a multinational oil company that has unlimited legal expertise at its fingertips. In a free-market economy, you take risk and then accept responsibility for that risk.

TransCanada knew the risks of proceeding on the basis of assumptions! It's its own doing. No one forced it to jump the gun, buy easements, move beetles and make deals!

TransCanada is asking Nebraska to take risks with our water to cover its risks!

Bullfeathers!

As lawmakers, we must not be cowed by TransCanada's cry that it can't make a profit if it has to change its route.

Profit margin for shareholders is not Nebraska's problem. The Keystone XL crude oil pipeline going through the Sandhills is!

Ken Haar of Malcolm represents the 21st legislative district.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, nebraska, ken haar

Governments urged to put science first in oilsands monitoring plans

News Articles Featured | Calgary Herald | November 05, 2011

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Five months after two reports recommended a step change in how environmental monitoring is done in the oilsands, federal and provincial officials have yet to decide the process of how to negotiate improvements to their shared system.

In an interview with the Herald, newly appointed Alberta Environment and Water Minister Diana McQueen said this week that staff have been meeting to figure out how the two levels of government can cooperate, but she has not yet discussed the topic with federal Environment Minister Peter Kent.

Nor does she have a timeline on when those questions will be answered.

Meanwhile, the people who perform monitoring in the Fort McMurray area say they are both hopeful and fearful of what may result from the revamp.

Monitoring of land, air, biodiversity and water in the oilsands region is now handled by several not-forprofit, multi-stakeholder groups who watch for pollution from standing monitoring stations and also contract scientific experts from around the world to design and conduct additional studies.

The group that covers water, the Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program, came under fire over a year ago after University of Alberta ecologist David Schindler and his colleagues found its methods were inadequate to detect oilsands pollution, a contention backed by followup work by both provincial and federal panels.

In a report published June 30, the Alberta panel recommended the establishment of an "Environmental Monitoring Commission" to ensure "scientific oversight and organization and integration of activities" throughout Alberta, starting in the oilsands.

In July, Ottawa said it would set aside $50 million for an "integrated oilsands environment monitoring plan" to be developed by teams of scientists that would enhance scrutiny of everything from acidification in lakes to the health of fish across provincial boundaries.

Kevin Percy, lead scientist at the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association, which monitors air, earth and human impacts of oilsands, said he fears the politicians will design a top-down system where science will take a back seat to bureaucracy.

"That's kind of what they're saying, on some sort of commission, which scares me and I told the assistant deputy minister that," he said.

"If you load this up with too many layers of bureaucracy and management . . . we're going to get to the point where decisions take so long to come and there are so many levels of hierarchy and administration . . . We need to bring things together, but ultimately science has to drive the work."

Both Percy and Glen Semenchuk, a wildlife biologist who is the executive director of the Cumulative Effects Management Association, said Schindler's whistle-blowing was a good thing that may result in needed change.

CEMA designs monitoring programs and passes them on to the other groups to perform. But the other groups then have the option of performing the work or not.

"If nothing else, we should have some kind of a role to indicate whether the monitoring program is still on target, whether it is meeting its objective," said Semenchuk. "And if there is new technology or issues out there, we would probably be in the best place to identify those and make the monitoring agencies aware of it."

He said the work done by his group ultimately contributes to government policy in terms of regulation. CEMA has an annual budget of $6 million to $9 million, part industry and part government funded.

Semenchuk said he fears the new system could result in fewer resources for the groups doing the work.

"The only thing that concerns me now is we have two levels of government who are quite concerned about budgets and balancing budgets and usually when that happens, environment is not a high priority," said Semenchuk.

"They're talking about this worldclass monitoring system, but I don't think anyone really looked at exactly what does that mean and what dollars are you going to assign to it. If you're not going to assign decent dollars to it, don't do it."

Percy said the fractured nature of environmental monitoring today resulted from changing priorities throughout the history of the oilsands.

"Rather than looking at the region as a whole, everything just got compartmentalized and siloed, but that's not how you do things," he said, adding that, "it's really time to bring all this together."

WBEA's budget jumped from $2.7 million to over $8 million in 2007 when Percy joined the organization with a goal to expand its focus on sciencebased pollution research that goes beyond merely gathering data.

The association has recently studied the impact of tailpipe emissions from the heavy trucks that rumble around oilsands projects and is considering a study of the role dust may play in airborne sulphur and heavy metal pollution.

An independent board approves all of its projects and an annual budget is submitted for approval to its industrial members.

So far, said Percy, the oilsands companies haven't said no to contributing more than they are technically required to pay - this year's budget is $9.6 million and he's proposed $10.6 million for 2012.

Environmentalists have criticized the Alberta government for continuing to accept applications for new oilsands projects before nailing down a new monitoring system, but McQueen said the data available is sufficient to assess projects.

"We can up our game and do a better job, but that's not going to stop development," McQueen said.

"I don't think it has to be either-or. I think we have to up our game with regard to monitoring and environmental practices and industry has to catch up to those things we're doing."

But Jennifer Grant, oilsands director for the environmental Pembina Institute, said it's irresponsible to add new potential sources of pollution when world-class monitoring systems aren't in place.

"I think it should have been done yesterday," she said, adding that proponents of new oilsands projects now seeking government approval are citing RAMP studies that are now considered suspect.

"It's important to note that monitoring is really only meaningful if it results in changes in management. Alberta, for example, has monitored the steady decline toward extinction of caribou in the oilsands for over 20 years and we're still seeing a failure to act to protect their habitat."

dhealing@calgaryherald.com

Tagged with: alberta, david schindler, monitoring, peter kent

Robert Redford video op-ed Keystone XL

News Articles Featured | New York Times | November 01, 2011

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The stranded oil sands

News Articles Featured | National Post | October 29, 2011

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Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post · Oct. 29, 2011 | Last Updated: Oct. 29, 2011 4:09 AM ET

The signs are there: The Keystone XL oil sands pipeline has festered into an uncomfortable election issue for Barack Obama, the U.S. President.

The upshot for Canada: A decision on whether to grant a presidential permit, promised by year-end, could once again be delayed.

The reality is that anything short of a go-ahead in December for Keystone XL would plunge the oil sands sector into disarray until new solutions move forward. The worst-case scenario? Stranded oil sands - for years.

Keystone XL, with a capacity to carry up to 830,000 barrels a day from Alberta to Texas, was due for startup in early 2013. There is no backup on the same scale or timeline.

"Everybody in the industry is thinking about this," said Bob Dunbar, president of Strategy West Inc., an oil sands consultancy based in Calgary. "Keystone XL is not the only solution, but it is a very elegant solution and it really would have an impact on the industry if it doesn't proceed in a timely way."

Even optimists can't ignore that pipeline is becoming politically toxic: Anti-Keystone protesters are dogging Mr. Obama everywhere he goes; donors are threatening to pull campaign funding if he approves it; members of the Democratic party are rallying against it; allegations of conflict of interest have strangely emerged; Nebraska has called a special session of the state legislature to discuss whether to block it.

Rumours and anonymous warnings implying a delay is likely, such as the one from a U.S. government official this week, are making the rounds: "We're carefully reviewing all of the information we've received, including the many comments from the public, and will make a decision only after we have weighed all of the facts," the official told Reuters.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama is keeping his distance, despite the pipeline's promise of huge job creation in a struggling U.S. economy.

"We're looking at it right now, all right?" is the response he gave this week to an anti-Keystone protester in Denver. "No decision's been made and I know your deep concern about it, so we will address it."

David Wilkins, former U.S. ambasador to Canada, said it's obvious Keytone XL has gotten more political.

After the President failed to deliver key environmental reforms, the environmental lobby and the left wing of the Democratic party have made the pipeline and what it stands for, a proxy for fossil fuels growth and an impediment to renewable energy, their last stand.

"If there is a significant delay, probably the only rational conclusion you can reach is that it's an effort on the part of the administration to placate the left-wing of the base of his party, and to placate them and to cater to them going into the election 13 months away," Mr. Wilkins, who still hopes the project will be approved on its merits by the end of the year, said in an interview.

As the clock ticks, Canada's oil patch has begun to weigh the implications of a lengthy time out.

It has been a long battle already. Calgary-based TransCanada Corp., proponent of the $7-billion project, first filed an application for a Presidential permit in 2008. The approval process has been delayed repeatedly. The most recent delays were caused by the Environmental Protection Agency injecting itself into the process and the State Department deciding to hold hearings in six states directly affected by the pipeline. A decision by the U.S. State Department on whether the pipeline is in the national interest is now due by Nov. 26. After that, eight agencies affected by the decision have 15 days to decide whether to object. If there are no objections, the pipeline is approved. If there are objections, the issue moves to the White House, which can take as long as required to render its decision.

Former Republican Congressman Tom Corcoran, managing director of the Centre for North American Energy Security and one of the pipeline's top Washington lobbyists, said if a decision is not made by year end, the odds go up that it will be made in late 2012, following the Nov. 6 vote.

"There are two reasons there could be a delay," Mr. Corcoran said. "One is that something unexpected was learned in the inter-agency review, which is going on at the moment, of the environmental impact statement, or something we learned in the public hearings. The other reason for delay would be a political decision. It's a flashpoint. And so with politics, you don't need a timeline, you don't need substance, you don't need an issue to be settled on the merits. And it could be that for whatever reason politics has intruded itself once again into this process, and a decision to carry it over into next year will be made, which I think would be most unfortunate."

The widest impact of a delay is uncertainty. Would a delay lead to approval or to rejection? How long would it be? If Mr. Obama gets reelected, would he feel he has the obligation to reward his political base by rejecting the pipeline or the strength to approve it in the broader national interest? As is often the case, until those questions are settled, market players may chose to remain on the sidelines. Those looking to buy oil sands assets may be reluctant to move ahead until they know there is a market.

Industry growth plans would also be in doubt. Aggressive expansions may be revisited if there is no way to sell the oil. According to a new study by international petroleum consultancy Purvin & Gertz Inc., existing pipelines to U.S. markets could run out of space by 2013 to 2016, depending on how quickly oil sands production grows. In fact, after looking at all pipeline options, the consultancy concluded that additional capacity would be needed to accommodate oil sands growth by 2017 to 2019, even if Keystone XL is in operation.

"We can't ship more than pipelines can carry, so production would slow down and project development would likely slow down, until pipelines catch up," vice-president Tom Wise, the report's author, said in an interview.

Meanwhile, existing capacity could be rationed and other options are likely to be fast-tracked. Some involve building new lines, some would undo bottlenecks such as the one at Cushing, Okla., which is depressing prices of West Texas intermediate crude.

The most ambitious involve pipelines to Canada's West Coast. Enbridge Inc. has proposed Northern Gateway to ship oil to Asia. Kinder Morgan Inc. is pushing forward an expansion of its TransMountain pipeline.

Asked about what it plans to do given uncertainty over Keystone XL, one oil sands developer, Cenovus Energy Inc., said it's looking at what's available, including sending its oil by rail and ship to Asia.

"It's obviously quite a political football in the U.S.," CEO Brian Ferguson said on a conference call Thursday in response to an analyst question. "There are other alternatives we are looking at and we are making sure we don't have all our eggs in our basket."

Yet conspiring against a quick ramp-up of alternatives is the fact that the forces that lined up against Keystone are regrouping to fight other plans. Already, more than 4,000 people and groups have registered to participate in regulatory hearings on Northern Gateway scheduled to start in January, promising a long and controversial review. Environmental organizations are also gearing up to fight the TransMountain plan and other solutions.

In a recent interview, Enbridge CEO Pat Daniel conceded Keystone XL's outcome will affect all future pipeline projects. It's one of the reasons Enbridge supports approval of Keystone XL, even though it's proposed by a competitor.

"I think a horrible precedent would be set if that project were to be rejected because of concerns over oil sands crude or the inability of a pipeline to operate safely near an aquifer, which I think are the two biggest issues at stake," Mr. Daniel said. "We are absolutely convinced that the system should be built for energy-security reasons in the United States and can be built and run safely."

TransCanada, after spending nearly $2-billion on the project so far and putting it repeatedly on hold, has no Plan B. It would bear the biggest blow from a delay, which would also leave it wishing for a return to the good old days, when pipelines were just that, pipelines.

ccattaneo@nationalpost.com

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline

Pipeline plan meets growing resistance

News Articles Featured | Argus Leader | October 29, 2011

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Gov. Dennis Daugaard will ask the Legislature this session to "impose additional protections" on the Keystone XL pipeline, similar to concessions that Nebraska lawmakers recently won from TransCanada, a spokesman said Friday.

The Nebraska Legislature goes into special session this week to determine whether the state can force the Calgary-based company to reroute the pipeline around the ecologically sensitive Sandhills region overlaying the Ogallala Aquifer.

In the run-up to the special session, TransCanada met with Nebraska officials and offered six concessions in lieu of rerouting the pipeline, among them encircling the pipeline with concrete or rock jacketing where it crosses a shallow water table, moving spill response teams closer to the Sandhills and offering a $100 million performance bond to cover spill cleanup.

Daugaard spokesman Tony Venhuizen said offering similar protections for South Dakota is only fair.

"We've already let TransCanada know that they can't be cutting special deals for some states just because they protest more," he said. "The squeaky Cornhusker wheel shouldn't get all the grease."

Nebraska's upcoming special session, and to a lesser extent South Dakota's announcement this past week, are the latest obstacles to a project that has met much more resistance than the first pipeline TransCanada built through South Dakota.

That pipeline, Keystone I, runs through the eastern part of the state and began pumping Canadian oil to Illinois and Oklahoma last year. When and if Keystone XL, which would run across parts of western and central South Dakota, comes online is uncertain. Opponents nationwide - mainly environmentalists, land owners and Native Americans - are waging a much more aggressive campaign to block Keystone XL than they mustered against the first project.
Proposals rejected for cleanup funds

Aquifer contamination from groundwater spills have been a concern for both pipelines.

Dakota Rural Action and some South Dakota legislators have pushed for a pipeline cleanup fund, similar to what TransCanada now is offering Nebraska, in each session since 2008. All failed. The bill introduced in the 2011 session would have established a $30 million cleanup fund, Money would have come from a 2-cent-per-barrel tax on large oil pipelines.

Read more

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, nebraska, ogallala aquifer, dennis daugaard

Green donors warn Obama: ‘Do the right thing’ on Keystone pipeline

News Articles Featured | CNN | October 28, 2011

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(CNN) -- They're rich, powerful and P.O.'d.

One of them is BFF with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

And they're putting President Obama on notice: stop the Keystone XL oil pipeline or else. Or else what? Well it depends on who you ask.

Take Susie Tompkins Buell, for instance. She's a major Democratic Party fundraiser and co-founder of Esprit clothing company.

This is a woman who's used to hosting political fundraisers and entertaining multimillionaires. She's often described as one of Clinton's closest friends -- donating to her 2008 presidential campaign. Back then, she led a group of holdout Clinton supporters before finally throwing her support to Obama after the '08 Democratic convention.

On Tuesday, Buell could have been rubbing shoulders with the president at a swanky $5,000-a-plate luncheon.

Instead, she joined an estimated 1,000 people out in the street protesting against the pipeline.

"If he doesn't oppose this, I certainly could not get behind him in a big way," she said Thursday. Over the years, she guesses she has raised more than $1 million for Democratic causes and candidates.

Will she be helping out Obama's re-election?

"I'm doing fundraisers for several people coming up in the next few months, but the (Obama campaign) hasn't asked me, and I haven't volunteered -- and I don't know what's to come, I really don't."

Buell wasn't the only rich and powerful political donor at Tuesday's demonstration. Michael Kieschnick, president and co-founder of CREDO Mobile and Working Assets, was there, too.

Obama's decision, he said, "will really be the clearest most unambiguous statement of whether or not he cares about protecting the Earth as he said in his campaign."

Keystone XL is a proposed 1,700-mile pipeline that would carry crude oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas. Environmentalists fear the pipeline will poison underground water supplies. Pipeline operator TransCanada says the project would pose no threat, create jobs and spur the sagging economy.

Obama has said the decision whether to begin pipeline construction rests with the State Department, but opponents say the final call is in the president's hands. The administration's decision is expected before the end of the year.

Buell said she's spoken about the Keystone issue recently with her friend the secretary of State at a social gathering a few weeks ago.

"She knows that it's important for the people to speak out," Buell said. In 2010, Clinton said the State Department had not yet completed its analysis of the pipeline's environmental effects, but it was "inclined" to "sign off" on the project.
Keystone pipeline fight
Clinton too close to pipeline fight?
Hannah: Canadian tar sands pipeline "bad news"
"One way or another, this oil will be produced"

At the demonstration Buell, who has seven grandchildren, held a poster that said, "Another outraged grandmother against the pipeline."

"I don't say that I know President Obama, but I've had several conversations with him," Buell said. "I feel that the environment is not a priority for him, and it should be."

Obama re-election campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt wouldn't respond directly to Buell's comments, but he did offer a written statement that said, "The president has done more to wean us off of foreign oil and transition the nation to a clean energy economy than any other -- investing in renewable energy and high-speed rail, building a smart grid and reaching a historic agreement with the automakers on fuel economy standards that will save us from importing millions of barrels of oil from the Middle East. When Americans compare the president's record promoting clean energy and America's energy security to those of the leading Republican candidates, who don't even believe that climate change is an issue that we need to address and would cede the clean energy market to China, there will be no question about who will continue our progress."

Political test

The environmental community sees the Keystone pipeline as more than a threat to water in the heartland. They see it as a political test of Obama's 2008 campaign promise to cut U.S. dependence on polluting fossil fuels and to slow climate change. Allowing the project to move forward, they say, makes a statement that the White House is willing to bow to the wishes of the powerful oil industry.

Kieschnick's business has donated $5 million to groups that oppose the pipeline. A self-described "big and enthusiastic" Obama supporter in 2008, Kieschnick said he made $4,400 in personal donations to the president's first campaign.

He also was among 1,200 pipeline protesters who were arrested outside the White House last summer. But Kieschnick hasn't given up hope. He still has a photo of himself with Obama hanging on his office wall.

Ex-Obama environment adviser arrested in pipeline protest

Basically, he says, if the pipeline starts going, the money stops flowing. "I would still vote for him, and I would work to defeat his opponents," Kieschnick said, "but nothing more."
Map of proposed Keystone XL oil pipelineMap of proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline

It's not the first time disgruntled Democrats have threatened to withhold their support for Obama. During debt ceiling negotiations with Congress in July, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee demanded that the president press Congress to raise taxes on higher income earners and protect entitlements -- or else lose the committee's support.

Members of the group threatened not to contribute to or volunteer for the president's re-election campaign unless the White House met its demands.
The president has done more to ... transition the nation to a clean energy economy.
Ben LaBolt, Obama campaign press secretary

Last summer, the liberal group MoveOn.org, which supported Obama in 2008, expressed frustration with the president over what it said was his inability to hold firm against Republicans in debt ceiling battles and on environmental issues.

Environmentalists acknowledge the White House has made some positive steps, including new vehicle fuel efficiency standards aimed at saving energy and cutting pollution.

But if Obama allows Keystone to go forward, they say there will be political repercussions.

Donors like IT consultant David desJardins say the campaign will have a hard time motivating its base in an election where turnout may be critical. "Even if the Sierra Club says we should still go out and support the president, people will say, 'Why should we do that when he didn't stand up for us when he really had the chance?'"

In 2008, ex-Google software engineer and philanthropist desJardins watched from the audience as Obama delivered his nomination acceptance speech promising to fight climate change and pollution.
His decision will really be the clearest most unambiguous statement of whether or not he cares about protecting the Earth.
Michael Kieschnick, CREDO Mobile, Working Assets

Now Keystone offers a chance for "Obama to do the right thing, and then give a great speech about how we need to stop investing in environmental degradation and nonrenewable energy sources and start investing instead in renewable energy," desJardins said. "Then I would certainly be inspired to make a contribution."

Protest organizers admit their message has been overshadowed somewhat by the nationwide Occupy Wall Street protests. But rather than compete for media attention, the two groups have been helping each other to some extent, joining forces at protests and offering moral support, organizers said.

Nonetheless, the anti-Keystone groups are preparing a new demonstration set for November 6, a year before Election Day, when thousands of pipeline opponents plan to form a human circle around the White House.

Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline, obama, hillary clinton

Nebraska Lawmakers Could Challenge Pipeline Route

News Articles Featured | ABC News | October 24, 2011

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Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman said Monday he will call a special legislative session that could allow lawmakers to challenge the route of a massive transnational oil pipeline, despite uncertainty about whether such an effort will succeed or stand up in court.

The Republican governor said he wants lawmakers to find a "legal and constitutional" solution to allow for state oversight of oil pipelines, including the hotly contested Keystone XL project. The U.S. State Department has authority to approve or scuttle the $7 billion Keystone project because it would cross the national border.

Heineman said he will call lawmakers into session Nov. 1, which means they'll have little time to act before the end of the year, when federal authorities are scheduled decide the project's fate.

The 1,700-mile pipeline, which would travel through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma, ending up on Texas's Gulf Coast, would carry an estimated 700,000 barrels of oil a day, doubling the capacity of an existing pipeline from Canada.

Heineman has said he supports the pipeline but opposes the route, which would cut through part of the Ogallala aquifer, a massive water supply in Nebraska and seven other states.

The governor acknowledged lawmakers will face steep challenges with any proposal that might affect the project, which has been in the planning and review stage for years. Any state law that tries to derail the proposal will face an all-but-certain legal challenge.
Dave Heineman
AP
FILE- This Aug. 4, 2011, file photo, shows... View Full Caption

"At the end of the day I want to be very, very clear: I believe we need to make the effort. I think Nebraskans will appreciate that," Heineman said. "But it's entirely possible at the end of the day we'll have this conversation, and the Legislature may reach the conclusion that we don't have any legal or constitutional option."

Nebraska Speaker of the Legislature Mike Flood welcomed the plan to hold a special session, despite saying last week that a bill to reroute the pipeline would not likely survive a legal challenge.

"This issue has never been about whether the state has a legitimate role in protecting our groundwater and natural resources," Flood said. "The question, for me, has been how to exercise that role within the parameters of the law."

Pipeline opponents in the Legislature are now looking at ways to amend the bill to focus on other concerns where the state would have authority, such as protecting Nebraska's cultural identity or economic interests.

"If we don't succeed, at least we will have tried," said state Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln. "The voters will respect at least that."

Supporters say the pipeline could reduce U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil, while environmental groups say it would bring "dirty oil" that requires huge amounts of energy to extract and could cause an ecological disaster in case of a spill.

Pipeline operator TransCanada last week offered new safeguards it said would limit the effect of a potential spill, but company executives maintained they cannot move the proposed route at this point in the federal permitting process.

Supporters of the project derided Heineman's decision to call the special session, noting a three-year State Department analysis found no major environmental threat from the project and arguing the project will create of jobs during the two-year construction phase.

"It's unfortunate that the governor chose to ignore these facts and instead put taxpayers on the hook for an exercise that will either yield no legislation or put the state in the middle of a costly litigation cycle," said Michael Whatley, executive vice president of the Houston-based Consumer Energy Alliance.

Pipeline opponents maintained the state already has so-called siting authority to control where the pipeline will run.

"We have the authority to require bond for road repairs. We have the authority to make sure landowners are not liable for oil spills," said Jane Kleeb, executive director of the group Bold Nebraska. "The list is long on what our state can do to ensure our land and water are safe."

Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline, nebraska, dave heineman

Pipeline politics trump sisterhood of the premiers

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | October 24, 2011

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The Northern Gateway pipeline could be the most glittering jewel of all in Premier Christy Clark’s highly-hyped jobs plan for British Columbia.

The proposed, $5.5-billion project to carry Alberta crude from the oil sands through northern B.C. to the West Coast port of Kitimat would create 4,000 well-paying construction jobs and hundreds of permanent positions.Yet, awash in mutual admiration as women leaders of Canada’s two westernmost provinces, Ms. Clark nonetheless found herself differing with Alberta’s freshly-minted premier, Alison Redford, on the ambitious Gateway megaproject during Ms. Clark’s brief visit to Calgary last week.

Ms. Redford is all for it. Ms. Clark, not so much.

Pressed repeatedly for her position on the pipeline during a joint Calgary press conference with her new sister-in-arms, Ms. Clark doggedly dodged the issue.

Over and over, she repeated that B.C. would not say “yea” or “nay” until the federal environmental review of the project is complete, at least two years down the road.

And even then, should the federal assessment clear the pipeline to proceed, Ms. Clark gave no guarantee B.C. would give it a green light, as well.

“If the answer is ‘yes’, that will provide us with the information we need to be able to take a position and have a public debate about it,” the B.C. Premier told reporters in the heart of Canada’s oil business.

“It’s not just the outcome of the process that will be useful. It will be all the information provided in the process.”

Ms. Clark’s reluctance to embrace the Gateway pipeline may be surprising to some, given her tub-thumping for jobs and the fact it plays perfectly into B.C.’s long-held desire to transform Kitimat/Prince Rupert into a hub for energy exports to Asia.

And this is the same Christy Clark who dissed a previous federal environmental review that caused the Conservative government to reject approval of the Taseko gold mine near Williams Lake.

But Gateway is not Taseko, and Ms. Clark knows it.

Not only does the pipeline route cross the traditional territories of scores of B.C. native groups, all of whom are opposed to the project, it would mean more than 200 oil supertankers a year making their way through the same narrow channels that claimed the Queen of the North ferry in 2006.

British Columbians don’t agree on much, but on the prospect of oil tankers plying their pristine coastline, polls have shown opposition as high as 80 per cent.

In B.C., Gateway is one of those precarious, hot potato issues from which even the relentlessly-upbeat Ms. Clark shies. The longer she can avoid taking a stand, the better for her politically.

One’s own political skin trumps leadership sisterhood every time. Sorry, Ms. Redford.

Tagged with: pipeline, enbridge, northern gateway, christy clark, alison redford

Canada fighting EU plans to label oilsands world’s dirtiest crude source

News Articles Featured | Vancouver Sun | October 19, 2011

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The Harper government and Canada's energy industry have launched an intensive lobbying campaign to have the European Union rethink proposed fuel quality standards that would penalize the Canadian oilsands and label the resource one of the dirtiest crude sources on Earth.

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The Harper government and Canada's energy industry have launched an intensive lobbying campaign to have the European Union rethink proposed fuel quality standards that would penalize the Canadian oilsands and label the resource one of the dirtiest crude sources on Earth.
Photograph by: Bruce Edwards, Edmonton Journal

OTTAWA — The Harper government and Canada's energy industry have launched an intensive lobbying campaign to have the European Union rethink proposed fuel quality standards that would penalize the Canadian oilsands and label the resource one of the dirtiest crude sources on Earth.

And while Canada ratchets up its pro-oilsands campaign, the world's energy ministers warned Wednesday that the increasing reliance on fossil fuels "risks significant negative global impacts" — including growing greenhouse gas emissions that pose "dangerous consequences for the global environment and human welfare."

Federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver met Wednesday in Paris with energy ministers from around the globe, where he delivered Canada's case for the European Union to vote against the proposed Fuel Quality Directive — which would slap a higher rating of carbon emissions on oilsands-derived fuels.

His trip comes on the heels of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers — the energy sector's main lobby group — travelling to Brussels and London to make its own pitch to European officials and business leaders.

And early next month, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will have an opportunity to raise the issue with European leaders attending the Group of 20 summit in Cannes, France.

Canada believes the fuel directive is discriminatory against the oilsands because it singles out the resource as having higher carbon emissions without any sound scientific studies examining the greenhouse gases from conventional oil the EU actually imports.

Ottawa fears the EU's actions could severely damage the oilsands industry's worldwide reputation and close future export markets.

Oliver said he has sent a letter to the European commissioner for energy in Brussels outlining Canada's position. He has also dispatched a senior department staffer to meet with eurozone officials and sent copies of the letter to all members of the EU.

"The EU needs to do its homework before it finalizes the (FQD)," Oliver told reporters on a teleconference call from Paris, following meetings with ministers of the International Energy Agency.

"The level of analytical rigour by the (European) Commission is insufficient and cannot support regulatory actions," he added. "We believe the EU's proposed approach is unfounded."

Canada has been trumpeting the carbon-intensive oilsands as a secure and stable energy supply during a time of global economic turmoil.

But Wednesday's official summary from the International Energy Agency meetings — which featured ministers and delegates from 37 countries representing more than three-quarters of the world's energy consumption — demonstrates the challenges Canada faces in selling oilsands development.

Martin Ferguson, an Australian MP and current chairman of the group, said in his closing summary that ministers were briefed on a soon-to-be-released World Energy Outlook report, and the findings were alarming.

"The scale and breadth of the energy challenge is enormous. Unless much stronger action is taken, global energy demand is set to continue on a long-term upward trend with fossil fuels accounting for the bulk of the increase. This risks significant negative global impacts," Ferguson says in his summary.

Persistently high levels of spending on energy imports would impose a drag on economic growth in many countries, he warned, and the risk of serious disruptions to energy supplies could continue to mount.

Moreover, he said the upcoming report shows that continued reliance on fossil fuels would see energy-related carbon dioxide emissions lead to a long-term global temperature increase of more than 3.5 C — "with dangerous consequences for the global environment and human welfare."

Oliver, however, said he told his counterparts the EU's approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the fuel supply is counterproductive. The standards target oilsands fuel — when Canada exports virtually no crude to Europe — and ignore the greenhouse gas intensity of actual imports from places like Russia or Nigeria, he said.

He is warning the EU that adopting the proposal could trigger a challenge before the World Trade Organization.

"Having a measure that provides for more onerous treatment for the oilsands relative to other crudes which haven't been analyzed is discriminatory and it potentially violates the European Union's international trade obligations," he added.

But the Conservative government is hoping the EU might reject the proposal when the European parliament votes on the matter, likely later this fall.

"We do have some hope that the parliament will vote it down, and that would be a good thing," he added.

Earlier this month, the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, approved placing a higher carbon-emissions value on bitumen-derived fuel than conventional oil under the Fuel Quality Directive.

The commission has recommended oilsands-derived fuel be given a greenhouse gas rating of 107 grams per megajoule, 22 per cent higher than the 87.5 grams assigned to fuel from conventional crude oil.

The aim of the fuel directive is to reduce emissions from transportation fuel by six per cent by 2020. If approved by the European parliament, importers would face higher carbon offsets in order to trade in Canadian oil.

Determined to have Europe reconsider its approach, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers made presentations last week to EU officials in London and Brussels.

Greg Stringham, a vice-president with CAPP, said the industry is concerned about the proposed fuel standards for three key reasons, including potential discrimination against the oilsands, setting a dangerous precedent for other countries and the potential to "artificially" close future energy export markets.

"If you want to have a policy like (the Fuel Quality Directive), make sure it is a sound policy, based on science," Stringham said. "Right now we don't see the science saying there is any reason to single out the Canadian oilsands."

But Jennifer Grant, oilsands program director at the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental think-tank, said the oilsands sector and Harper government will have a difficult time arguing their case when Canada remains an environmental laggard.

The country has no national carbon price or cap-and-trade emissions reduction program, she said, nor has it adopted gritty greenhouse gas regulations for the oil and gas sector.

"The Fuel Quality Directive target for bitumen is actually indicative of the direction the world is heading, and Canada is paddling upstream to defend high-carbon energy," she said.

Read more: http://www.canada.com/business/Canada+fighting+plans+label+oilsands+world+dirtiest+crude+source/5575302/story.html#ixzz1cPCG9ODk

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Hillary’s legacy rests on fixing tainted pipeline approval process

News Articles Featured | Salon.com | October 19, 2011

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Hillary Clinton is one of those people who never really got a fair shake — she had to endure her husband’s philandering and the right-wing’s endless hatred, down to the scurrilous suggestion that she had something to do with the death of her friend Vince Foster. So it’s been a pleasure to watch her accomplished second act — pretty much everyone has had to admit that she’s been a creditable secretary of state; she spent yesterday in Tripoli where rebels-turned-rulers fired guns in her honor. Last year, a Gallup poll found she was the most admired woman in the United States.

That’s why it’s particularly painful to see her nearing the end of her career as our top diplomat with a scandal looming. It’s not too late for her to nip it in the bud, and if she doesn’t President Obama can still put a stop to it, as well. But right now, it threatens to tarnish her legacy.

Here’s how the story goes: The TransCanada corporation wants to build an oil pipeline from the tar sands of Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico. Because it crosses our border, they need a “presidential certificate of national interest,” and that can only come on the advice of the State Department, which has been carrying out a theoretically independent review process.

But even before the review process got underway, Clinton said she was “inclined” to grant the permit. Perhaps that’s because her former deputy campaign manager, Paul Elliott, had been hired as TransCanada’s chief lobbyist. (Emails unearthed by Friends of the Earth show that State Department staff were rooting hard for him — “Go Paul,” is how one of them put it, when he spread the news to this supposedly independent staffer that he’d managed to bring U.S.  Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., onboard as a pipeline supporter). Perhaps it’s because a whole web of lobbying firms have the same kind of overlapping ties. Employees of McKenna, Long and Aldridge, for instance, donated $41,000 to Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and collected at least $190,000 from TransCanada for lobbying. Or DLA Piper, whose employees were the single largest corporate source of funds for her presidential bid, and whose partner, James Blanchard, was both a big-money bundler for the campaign and a highly-paid lobbyist for the province of Alberta’s pro-pipeline effort.

The State Department standard response to this kind of accusation has been: “We meet with everyone, including environmental groups.” Clinton herself says the department remains in “listen and outreach mode” as it prepares to make a decision.

But the New York Times put the lie to this official cover earlier this month, when they revealed just how deeply compromised the State Department actually was. The State Department — and read this carefully, because it’s almost beyond belief — asked TransCanada who they would like to have conduct the “independent” pipeline review. TransCanada submitted the name of three firms, and State helpfully chose the first one on the list: Entrix Corporation. If you head over to their web site, you’ll find that TransCanada is listed as one of the company’s “major clients.”

The Times called this “flouting the intent of a federal law.” You could say it was like hiring Fox Associates for a security study of Henhouse Inc. It’s hard to imagine even the Bush administration doing anything quite this blatant — it makes a complete and utter mockery of the idea of independent review.

It also helps explain how the review found that there would be “minimal” environmental impact, even though we’re still cleaning up the Kalamazoo and Yellowstone rivers from big leaks of tar sands crude. Even though 20 of the nation’s top scientists sent the president a letter saying the pipeline was in  neither the nation’s nor the planet’s best interest. Even though our most important federal climatologist, NASA’s James Hansen, wrote recently that heavily tapping tar sands for oil would mean it was “essentially game over” for the climate.

The only good news is that this particular crime against the environment, and against good government, is still in progress. The permit hasn’t been granted yet. Clinton could still send it back for a true, fair review; barring that, the president could still insist that the certificate not be issued.

It’s become the most important environmental test for the president between now and the election. But it’s also become a legacy-sealing moment for the secretary of state, a public official with a long and powerful, but not quite complete, record.

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Eminent Domain Fight Has a Canadian Twist

News Articles Featured | New York Times | October 17, 2011

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A Canadian company has been threatening to confiscate private land from South Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico, and is already suing many who have refused to allow the Keystone XL pipeline on their property even though the controversial project has yet to receive federal approval.

Randy Thompson, a cattle buyer in Nebraska, was informed that if he did not grant pipeline access to 80 of the 400 acres left to him by his mother along the Platte River, “Keystone will use eminent domain to acquire the easement.” Sue Kelso and her large extended family in Oklahoma were sued in the local district court by TransCanada, the pipeline company, after she and her siblings refused to allow the pipeline to cross their pasture.

“Their land agent told us the very first day she met with us, you either take the money or they’re going to condemn the land,” Mrs. Kelso said. By its own count, the company currently has 34 eminent domain actions against landowners in Texas and an additional 22 in South Dakota.

In addition to enraging those along the proposed pipeline’s 1,700-mile path, the tactics have many people questioning whether a foreign company can pressure landowners without a permit from the State Department — the agency charged with determining whether the project is in the “national interest.” A decision is expected by year’s end on the pipeline, which would carry crude oil from Alberta to American refineries.

A government official with knowledge of the permitting process who would address the issue only on condition of anonymity said, “It is presumptuous for the company to take on eminent domain cases before there is any decision made.”

Landowners have begun joining forces and challenging the company’s assumption that it can legally seize land.

“With so many unanswered questions about the safety of this project, perhaps it’s time for the U.S. to hit the brake pedal,” Mr. Thompson wrote in testimony for a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing in May. “And perhaps it’s time that our government starts placing the concerns of American citizens over and above those of a foreign corporation.”

Mr. Thompson said he intends to fight to keep the pipeline, 36 inches in diameter, off his land. Eminent domain laws generally allow for the confiscation of private property if taking it is judged to serve a larger public good. These kinds of laws differ slightly from state to state as do the processes by which pipelines are approved and licensed. As a result, there is both debate and confusion over whether TransCanada has the right to use the courts to demand easements from property owners in advance of final approval for the project.

A TransCanada spokesman, Shawn Howard, says the company does not have to wait for a license from the State Department to begin securing land. He said the company has tried to obtain voluntary agreements, but when that fails the company has the right to force lease agreements upon landowners in all six states the pipeline would pass through.  All of TransCanada’s permit applications, he said, have been made through its subsidiary in Omaha, Keystone Pipeline.

“We have been given the legal advice that we can do this in parallel to the process going on in Washington,” Mr. Howard said. “If we didn’t think we had the authority or ability to do this, we wouldn’t be doing it.”

A senior State Department official, who asked not to be identified because the permit process is continuing, said TransCanada had not sought federal approval to invoke eminent domain. He said the department had no authority on the issue and that it was up to state law and the courts to determine appropriate use of eminent domain laws.

Landowners and their lawyers are pushing local courts to do just that. While it is impossible to say how many cases are working their way through the legal system, in addition to the 56 Texas and South Dakota cases, TransCanada acknowledges it has sent “Dear Owner” letters to dozens of families in Nebraska.

Timothy Sandefur, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit advocate for property rights issues, said that if the project is approved, the company will be on firmer ground. As unfair as the laws might seem, he said, the right of way of pipelines and railroads as public goods has been well established, regardless of whether they are foreign-owned. “Property owners almost never win these suits,” he said.

But lawyers for the landowners, particularly in Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas, argue that TransCanada has not met the requirements to invoke eminent domain under those states’ laws. In South Dakota, however, a judge has already ruled that TransCanada could use eminent domain to secure land for a previous pipeline project.

David A. Domina, a Nebraska lawyer whose firm represents 45 landowners, said there was “no way” that TransCanada has eminent domain powers under Nebraska law, and that the company was “acting in bad faith.”

In East Texas, where residents are used to having cordial dealings with oil companies, landowners said they had never seen a company behave as aggressively as has TransCanada.

Norman Ladd, a lawyer in Tyler, Tex., whose firm represents more than a dozen landowners, said the company has low-balled on prices and threatened to use eminent domain “instead of coming down here and saying we can work with you.”

TransCanada has taken reticent landowners before special county boards in Texas, one of the first steps in that state’s condemnation process. The boards determine only how much landowners should be compensated, not whether eminent domain laws apply.

With drilling and pipeline building expected to expand into more shale fields and the news over the weekend that Kinder Morgan was buying the El Paso Corporation to expand its pipeline network, these types of land use challenges may well increase in coming years.

Supporters of Keystone XL argue it will help bolster domestic energy security and spur job growth. But many politicians, particularly in Nebraska, oppose much of the pipeline’s route because they say it poses a danger to the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides more than a quarter of the water for the country’s agricultural crops.

Environmental groups argue that extracting and burning the heavy crude drawn from Alberta’s oil sands will increase greenhouse gas emissions. They also warn that if there is a spill or a leak, it would cause severe environmental damage and be extremely hard to clean up.

In what has been interpreted as a virtual green light for the project, a State Department report in August concluded that the pipeline would have minimum environmental impact if operated under federal regulations.

Mr. Howard said the company has already secured legal agreements with 90 percent of the landowners it needs in Nebraska, and that he does not expect a few unhappy landowners to slow the process or force changes to the intended route. But TransCanada backed off and dropped its lawsuit against Sue Kelso’s family, when it was clear that the family was not going to acquiesce. Mr. Howard said the company decided it would be better to reroute the pipeline around the Kelso property for “various reasons” based on convenience.

An East Texas landowner, Eleanor Fairchild, said that a TransCanada representative arrived at her house a few days before her husband died of Alzheimer’s in 2009. At first, she considered the $42,000 offer — later raised by $18,000 — for a 50-foot easement on her 425 acres. But she said that the more she learned about the pipeline, the less she wanted it on her land.

“It was a hard decision whether I wanted to fight and spend all this money even though I could lose the thing,” Ms. Fairchild said in a weary drawl. “But somebody needs to fight them. I decided it would be me.”

TransCanada’s condemnation suit against her is pending.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, eminent domain, oklahoma

Companies use fuzzy math in job claims; candidates still buy in

News Articles Featured | Washington Post | October 14, 2011

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In an ad that has blanketed radio airwaves in the Washington region, a woman’s voice gently intones, “Imagine . . . one million new jobs.”

“One million new American jobs,” echoes a man. “One million new opportunities to build a career,” says the woman.

“Support a family.”

“Follow your dreams.”

And where will these “one million new jobs” come from? By expanding oil and gas drilling and building new pipelines, says the American Petroleum Institute, an industry lobbying group that paid for the ad campaign, which also has featured in newspapers, on television and on Metro platforms.

Oil companies aren’t the only ones promising jobs if Washington gives them their way. A wide array of businesses are saying they can help solve the country’s unemployment crisis if only the government would roll back some regulations, approve their big mergers or lower their taxes.

Yet the industry often touts debatable jobs numbers. Mergers between big companies, for instance, tend to result in layoffs rather than new positions overall. And a closer look shows that API’s ads exaggerate the effect that looser drilling policies would have on employment; more than half of its projected job growth would come between 2015 and 2030.

Nonetheless, some policymakers and presidential candidates have cited these statistics as they echo companies’ claims about creating jobs.

“We just learned today that if the federal government would pull back on all of the regulatory restrictions on American energy production, we could see 1.2 million jobs created in the United States,” Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) said at a Sep. 7 Republican presidential debate.

In a letter last month to the Justice Department, 100 lawmakers defended the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, repeating the companies’ argument that the government’s lawsuit to stop the deal on antitrust grounds would “thwart job creation and economic growth.”

And a central element in the economic plans of other Republican presidential candidates, such as Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, is to roll back “job-killing” regulations to spur hiring.

“It’s really hard if you’re against regulation to let a good crisis go to waste, and right now we have high unemployment,” said Roger Noll, an economics professor at Stanford University and co-director of the school’s program on regulatory policy. “You can use the current economic condition as a Trojan horse.”

The horses come in different shapes. The coal industry is running ads that show working people weighed down by regulation-filled briefcases being violently thrown from broncos in a rodeo. A new study commissioned by environmental groups, however, says that regulation of coal ash disposal would actually create jobs.

Other company numbers also become fuzzy upon examination.

Big company mergers are widely known to lead to job losses in the short term as firms seek savings, or “synergies” in merger jargon. But that has not stopped AT&T and Capital One, whose proposed mergers have raised antitrust scrutiny, from saying that their acquisitions will result in more jobs.

AT&T has been running a television ad showing its employees hard at work and consumers enjoying their wireless phones and tablets. The ad says that if the merger with T-Mobile is approved, AT&T will bring back 5,000 jobs that were outsourced overseas. It also says the merger will create investment in broadband that would create “as many as 96,000 jobs.”

The latter number comes from a study by the Economic Policy Institute looking at the employment benefits of the $8 billion AT&T has promised to plow into broadband investment should the deal be approved in court. EPI concluded that such an investment would yield 55,000 to 96,000 new jobs over seven years.

But the EPI study does not address whether the merger would ultimately result in more jobs — after factoring in potential layoffs.

AT&T has said it expects to save $3 billion annually from the deal but has not explained whether that would include job cuts. An AT&T spokesperson said that the company expects to keep all of its call-center jobs and that most of the reduction in the company’s workforce would come from attrition rather than layoffs.

In another big corporate merger the government is looking at, Capital One has proposed acquiring ING Group’s online banking unit for $9 billion. The company says the deal would create 500 new jobs in Delaware. It has also said, though, that it expects $90 million in cost savings from the merger. Capital One declined to say whether positions would be cut.

For more than a year, the API has been highlighting the number of jobs it says are linked to the oil and gas industry.

“Sure, you know oil and natural gas fuel transportation and comfort,” a blond-haired woman in a black pantsuit says in one API television ad. Behind her, silver trucks and cars glide by, an African American family shares a meal, people pour out of a rush-hour train. Then a crowd appears before giant letters that read: “9.2 million JOBS.”

But many economists say that the API has exaggerated the number of jobs linked to the oil and gas industry by including direct and indirect jobs (such as steel suppliers), and a seldom-used category known as “induced” jobs that API says covers everything from valets to day-care providers, from librarians to rocket scientists.

Moreover, the single biggest category of people working directly for the petroleum industry is cashiers at gasoline stations and stations with convenience stores — 533,830 of them, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet hardly any of those cashiers pump gas, check engines or inflate tires; mostly they ring up sales of snacks, not gasoline. According to the Labor Department, their median hourly wage is a meager $8.68.

“As the old saying goes, statistics do not lie but statisticians do,” said Philip K. Verleger, an economist, consultant and retired professor of management at the University of Calgary’s business school. “The API is the best there is at lying with statistics.”

“Anybody dismissing any kind of a job is silly,” responded John Felmy, chief economist of the API, adding that including cashiers as industry workers is “a matter of BLS accounting.”

He added that counting induced jobs was “completely appropriate methodology.”

The API has made new claims in its recent ads, asserting that a different energy policy — including a new pipeline to Canada’s oil sands, drilling on now-protected federal lands and waters, and unimpeded shale drilling — would add 1.4 million jobs. “Are you one in a million?” its latest ad reads, showing a man in a hard hat. (The ad, which credits API in small type, says it is the product of a more populist-sounding “The People of America’s Oil and Natural Gas Industry.”)

“It’s a triple win,” API president Jack Gerard said. He said that the industry could create jobs, generate hundreds of billions in tax revenue and double North American oil production — although the main production increase would occur in Canada.

The ad cites a study by Wood Mackenzie, a consulting firm hired by API. Scott Mitchell, who oversaw the study as head of North America upstream research at Wood Mackenzie, said that only a third of the 1.4 million positions created would go to people working directly for the petroleum industry and that the rest would be indirect and induced jobs.

“To be confident about the induced job effects of additional spending is incredibly complex,” said Mark Fulton, head of research at Deutsche Bank’s team of climate change advisers. Citing such figures involves “going another step toward lack of accuracy,” he said.

The Wood Mackenzie study also makes assumptions about current policy. For example, it assumes that current regulations limit the number of Gulf of Mexico exploratory wells to 20 a year. But the number of exploration wells being drilled now is already well above that. As a result, gulf exploration would have little effect on job creation.

Josh Bivens, an economist at EPI, said the amount of job creation from industry spending depends on economic conditions. “In today’s economy, if an oil company decided to do something new, that would create jobs,” he said. “If unemployment were 4 percent, it would suck people away from other employment and there would be no net increase in jobs.”

Felmy, the API economist, retorted: “You may be moving jobs around,” but wages would rise because companies would be bidding for skilled workers.

Drilling further into the API numbers of existing petroleum industry jobs shows just how murky these numbers and definitions can be.

According to the BLS, the number of people in the United States drilling wells, extracting oil and gas, refining petroleum and manning gasoline stations is about 1.1 million. If sole proprietors and business partners are included, the number rises to about 2 million, according to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Kurt Kunze, an official at the BEA, said, “The big discrepancy in oil and gas extraction is that there are some big master limited partnerships with lots of partners. There is no way to separate out the people digging holes in the ground from someone who is just a financial partner.” He said given the number of partnerships, he would tend to use the lower BLS figure.

API used the higher figure. If half a million people were taken out of its baseline projection, the final total would have been reduced by 1.8 million.

Most of the jobs provided by big oil companies are overseas. At Royal Dutch Shell, for example, 21 percent of its 97,000 employees worked in the United States; the rest work in 89 other countries. Exxon Mobil has 4,970 people working in its Canadian Imperial Oil subsidiary, 885 in Norway and about 2,000 in Malaysia.

A study by Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee last month found that the four biggest oil companies combined — Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell and BP — reduced their U.S. workforce by 11,200 employees between 2005 and 2010. BLS statistics show that although the number of oil and gas extraction positions has risen, the number of gasoline station jobs has dropped. The Democratic lawmakers noted that the four companies earned $546 billion in profits during that period.

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Slippery pipeline: The Keystone XL project deserves closer scrutiny

News Articles Featured | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 14, 2011

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The question of whether the United States should permit the construction of a 1,700-mile pipeline across the middle of the country to permit the transport of crude oil from Canada to Texas is complicated enough already.

Now it appears that the State Department, the government body which will make the decision since it is an international matter, has also introduced lobbying and potential conflict-of-interest elements into the process. We believe that compromises the department's integrity.

The proposal would allow the oil company TransCanada to build a pipeline called Keystone XL between the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to Port Arthur, Texas. The route would cross Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas and the pipeline would carry an estimated 700,000 barrels a day of corrosive "diluted bitumen" crude oil.

The basic U.S. interest to be weighed is the balance between the jobs and profits that would emanate from the construction and maintenance of the pipeline, and the risks to the environment that would be posed by possible spills, blowouts and sabotage, now and in the future.

A particularly important piece of the decision-making process involves the U.S. government's consideration of an environmental impact statement. That part may now have been corrupted since Cardno Entrix, the company chosen to do the environmental study, describes in its advertising the pipeline's prospective builder, TransCanada, as one of its "major clients." Cardno Entrix submitted an environmental impact statement at the end of August that gave TransCanada a green light.

The second questionable element at play here is that TransCanada's top Washington lobbyist, Paul Elliott, was the deputy campaign director for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 presidential run. Trans- Canada has registered 14 leaks in various pipelines in the United States in recent years, including one in May in North Dakota.

The Keystone XL pipeline would pass through a number of important sources of mid-America's water, including the famous Ogallala aquifer, which stretches between western Texas and South Dakota and underlies eight states. Landowners from the states that would host the pipeline have also complained that, in seeking to acquire land, Trans-Canada has told them that it has a U.S. government pledge that "eminent domain" will be applied if they don't sell what is necessary to complete the project.

The Department of State is scheduled to hand down a decision by the end of the year, and environmentalists who have put up strong opposition predict that the Obama administration will approve the plan.

It is essential, however, given the importance of the decision to America and the role played in it so far by Cardno Entrix, TransCanada's important client, and Mr. Elliott, Ms. Clinton's former campaign aide, that a new and truly independent environmental impact statement be prepared on Keystone XL before the matter goes any further.

At this point the affair is giving off a very foul odor.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11287/1181923-192.stm?cmpid=newspanel5#ixzz1cPB0yA8W

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Canada’s Environment Succumbs to Oil Sands

News Articles Featured | Spiegel | October 14, 2011

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Celina Harpe holds up the map like an indictment. "The oil companies are into Moose Lake now," she says, angrily tapping the paper. Workers have apparently already begun surveying the land.

"I cried when I heard that," says Harpe, the elder of the Cree First Nation community based in Fort MacKay in the Canadian province of Alberta. "That's where I was born."

Her feet are shod in moose-leather moccasins decorated with brightly-colored beads. Over her neatly-pressed trousers she wears a checked lumberjack shirt.

Harpe gets up off her worn sofa and steps out onto the terrace of her blue-painted log cabin. The mighty Athabasca River is just a stone's throw away. "We can't drink the water anymore," says Harpe, 72. Berries and medicinal herbs no longer grow in the woods. Even the moose have become scarce. Harpe wrings her wrinkled hands. "We can't live off the land anymore," she laments. "Our livelihood has been taken away from us, and they haven't even asked if they can use the land."

An unequal battle is being waged in Alberta. Multinational oil companies are talking about the biggest oil boom in decades. Standing in their way are people like Celina Harpe, whose culture and health are threatened because the ground under their feet contains the planet's third-largest reserves of crude oil.

Geopolitical Significance

Experts estimate that up to 170 billion barrels of crude oil could be extracted from Canada's oil sands. Only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have more black gold. In addition, the Alberta deposits are of huge geopolitical significance. Indeed, the US already buys more oil from neighboring Canada than from all the nations in the Persian Gulf region put together.

Very soon, still more of the so-called bitumen could be helping to fire up the US economy. President Barack Obama wants to decide by the end of the year whether it is in his country's interests to build a 2,700-kilometer (1,700-mile) pipeline from Alberta to Houston in Texas.

This pipeline, named Keystone XL, could pump up to 1.3 million barrels of crude oil a day to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. But whereas the industry is dreaming of an oil rush, protests against the plans are growing. Environmentalists spent two weeks in August and September demonstrating in front of the White House against the exploitation of Canada's oil sands. Among others, they have the support of 10 Nobel Peace Prize winners, including the Dalai Lama and former Vice President Al Gore.

The protesters' rage is directed at a form of oil considered the world's dirtiest. Ecologists are also worried about the fate of wetlands and water reservoirs along the route of the planned pipeline, including the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies no fewer than eight US states with water.

Above all, the exploitation of the Canadian oil sands could also lead the US to put off seriously thinking about renewable energy sources for many decades to come. "The point is not to get ourselves hooked on the next dirty stuff," says US environmentalist Bill McKibben, one of the spokesmen of the anti-oil sands movement. He thinks the exploitation of the sands would make it impossible for America to meet its CO2-reduction targets.

'A Dirty Needle'

"It's [like] a drug addict reaching for a dirty needle from a fellow addict," NASA climate researcher James Hansen says. "It's crazy, and the president should understand that and exercise leadership and reject the pipeline."

Criticism of the plans is also coming from Europe. Only last week the European Commission decided to define oil extracted from oil sands as particularly harmful to the environment. If the European Parliament and EU member states agree, it will make it particularly expensive to import it into the European Union. Importers could, for example, be forced to invest in organic fuels to compensate for the increase in CO2 emissions. The Canadian government is opposed to such moves.

The area around the town of Fort McMurray, a ramshackle assortment of ugly purpose-built houses in northeastern Alberta, is the epicenter of the oil sands industry. Beefy four-wheel-drive vehicles race along the town's roads. In winter the temperatures fall to as low as minus 25 degrees Celsius (minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit). That's when the locals retreat to the Boomtown Casino or the Oil Can Tavern, a neon yellow-illuminated bar of dubious repute.

The first oil prospectors came to the region more than a century ago. The commercial exploitation of the oil sands began with the construction of the first extraction plants in the mid-1960s. Suncor and Syncrude were the first two companies involved, but rising oil prices have since attracted the industry's giants, including Shell, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil.

Stinks of Diesel

Heavy equipment is used to dredge out a mixture of sand, clay, water and heavy oil created from the plankton of a primeval ocean. The upward thrust of the Rocky Mountains pushed the reserves into their present position about 70 million years ago. The area of Alberta underneath which the oil sands lie today is about the size of Iowa (see graphic on left).

The Oil Sands Discovery Centre in Fort McMurray contains a sample of oil sand under a glass dome. Visitors can open a small hatch and smell the contents. Crumbled oil sand looks like coffee grounds, and stinks of diesel. It is the stench of big money.

Some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Fort McMurray, the smell hangs in the air day and night. The drive north along Highway 63 leads into the seemingly endless pine forests of the boreal climatic zone. But the woods soon open up, affording a clear view of the smokestacks of an immense industrial complex in the center of an apocalyptic-looking lunar landscape.

Yellow sulfur tailings flash in the distance. Walls of earth surround a gigantic pit in which Caterpillar 797F industrial tippers are shunting to and fro. Each of these tippers can carry up to 360 metric tons of oil sand in a single load. Their wheels alone are four meters (13 feet) high. The plant is the Mildred Lake Mine belonging to the Syncrude company. Approximately 300,000 barrels of oil are produced on the site every day.

Oil sands contain about 10 percent bitumen on average. To separate the oil from the mixture, the sand is put into a caustic soda solution at about 50 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit). The bitumen floats to the top of the slurry, from where it can be skimmed off. It is then upgraded to produce what is known as synthetic crude oil (see graphic).

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Why Keystone XL is not in the national interest

News Articles Featured | The Hill | October 13, 2011

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Pressure is building on the Obama administration to reach a final decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The State Department seems to be siding with backers of the project. The favorable environmental impact statement it has just released does not wholly dispel the reservations of the EPA and private environmental groups, but it carries political weight. Still, before construction can begin, the pipeline needs a finding that it is in the national interest. It is not.

Keystone XL, if built, would carry bitumen from Canadian oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries. Its backers claim it will enhance national security without harm to the environment and create jobs in the process. Those claims are dubious.

Let’s begin with security. Granted, the U.S. addiction to imported oil, much of it from countries that are unfriendly, undemocratic, or both, does create security threats. One comes from the periodic spikes in world oil prices that disrupt our economy. The Libyan conflict, which pushed oil prices over $100 a barrel last spring, helping to stall the recovery, is a case in point. A second security threat lies in tendency of oil wealth to find its way to groups that are hostile to the United States and its allies. Backers claim that a pipeline that assures a steady flow of oil from a stable, nearby country would be better than continued reliance on distant, often uncertain sources.

However, because of the global nature of the oil market, the security benefits of the pipeline are illusory. A disruption anywhere sends prices up everywhere. Suppose, say, that a civil war were to break out in Nigeria, sending world oil prices soaring. Could we expect Canadians to sell us their oil at a discount just because they are our neighbors? Hardly. Would a pipeline from Canada stop higher oil prices from enriching unfriendly regimes? Not at all.  At best, a pipeline from Canada might reduce the temporary logistical costs of a supply disruption, but we already have the national oil reserve to protect against those short-run effects.

On the environmental front, the biggest objection to Keystone XL is that oil from Canadian sands has a far higher carbon footprint than oil from conventional sources. The State Department’s environmental impact statement makes two claims that attempt to downplay that issue. One is that Canadian oil is only a little dirtier than that from other major suppliers like Venezuela and Nigeria. The other is that improvements in extraction methods may eventually reduce carbon emissions from oil sands.

Neither claim is entirely false, but in the end, they only divert attention from a far larger issue: The lack of a comprehensive energy policy. What we really need is to slash total energy use, and at the same time, shift the energy we do use away from dirty sources like oil sands to cleaner sources like renewables and natural gas. The best way to do that would be a tax on the carbon content of energy from all sources, although other policies, such as cap-and-trade, could also do the job.

A carbon tax or similar policy would put real economic pressure on Canadian oil producers to do what is now only a vague promise: find a way to extract energy from oil sands in ways that are less environmentally destructive, if that is really possible. If not, oil from Canadian sands would become so much less competitive that the backers of Keystone XL might well withdraw their proposal.

But what about jobs? Aren’t jobs what matter most? Yes, jobs are important, but environmentally harmful projects like Keystone XL are the wrong fix.

For one thing, the number of jobs involved is often exaggerated. Pipeline backers claim it would directly create 20,000 jobs and support hundreds of thousands more. Fantasy. The State Department speaks more realistically of 6,000 new jobs. Of course, even 6,000 jobs would be welcome, if they were good ones, but they are not.

What makes a good job? Above all, a good job puts someone to work producing something we need. Jobs that only increase our access to the dirtiest source of oil on the planet and feed an energy demand we should be making every effort to curb do not qualify. There are many more beneficial jobs waiting to be created: upgrading an obsolescent electric grid, putting laid-off teachers and police back to work, encouraging private sector jobs through tax reform or export promotion, you name it.

The bottom line? The jobs Keystone XL would create are just the kind we don’t need. The oil it would carry is just the kind we don’t need. Its security benefits are illusory. It is not in the national interest.

Ed Dolan blogs at Economonitor.com and is the author of TANSTAAFL: A Libertarian Perspective on Environmental Policy.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline

“Oil Orgy” invades Energy Summit

Media Releases Featured | UK Tar Sands Network Press Release | October 11, 2011

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Activists interrupt UK-Canada talks aimed at promoting the future of tar sands oil

Protesters interrupted the Canada-Europe Energy Round table [1] in London today, to expose the UK government’s opposition to European legislation, which would label tar sands oil as highly polluting. The campaigners stripped down to Union Jack boxers and maple leaf underwear and covered each other with oil while kissing and groping in a provocative ‘oil orgy’ [2].

“We interrupted the Energy Round table today because the UK and Canadian governments flirtations are developing into friends with benefits.  This seedy relationship puts profits for the oil industry and banks ahead of much needed legislation which will curb emissions from transport fuel in Europe,” [2] said UK Tar Sands Network campaigner Emily Coats.

Since PM Cameron’s visit to Canada last month, the UK government has been echoing the position of the Canadian government that the EU is ‘unfairly discriminating’ against the Canadian tar sands [3]. Contrary to Canada’s claims that the Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) will discriminate against the tar sands, the current FQD proposal also includes values for other unconventional oil feed stocks, such as shale oil [4].

“The UK government is supporting sleazy Canadian lobbying efforts and today’s Energy summit shows just how intimate they have become to promote the tar sands industry,” said climate campaigner Peter Templeton.

Despite extensive lobbying by the Canadian government over the last year, [5] last Tuesday the European Commission announced its recommendation that tar sands fuel should be assigned an accurate value in order to account for the higher emissions caused by tar sands extraction [6].

“A Canadian government body [7] proved that tar sands extraction is very filthy, yet the Harper government is increasing extraction of bitumen without full scientific knowledge of the impacts on the local environment and the global climate.” said Coats.

In the upcoming weeks the UK will continue to receive Canadian officials [8] as Canada attempts to secure the UK as an ally to stall the FQD directive, which has already received extensive support from the EU commission. The controversial UK government support for the Canadian tar sands industry has received disapproval and outrage from UK climate activists, which shall escalate as the relationship deepens.

ENDS

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[1] 2011 London Energy Roundtable: Canada Europe Energy Summit http://www.energyroundtable.org/london.php

[2] Minister for Transport, Norman Baker, stated the UK government will oppose an inclusion of a tar sands value. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/04/oil-sands-imports-eu-ban?newsfeed=true

[3] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawas-ethical-oil-sands-campaign-heats-up/article2181234/ The Cameron government commented “tar sands oil sands should not be singled out as a dirty source in a world that will need oil, and increasingly heavy crudes, for the foreseeable future.”

[4] The directive includes values for a range of transport fuels including shale oil.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/04/eu-tarsands-idUSL5E7L41ST20111004

[5] See ‘Canada’s dirty lobby diary – Undermining the EU Fuel Quality Directive’ released by Friends of the Earth Europe http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2011/FOEE_Report_Tar_Sands_Lobby_Final_July82011.pdf

[6] See ‘EU ‘tar sands’ stance welcomed’ http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5haVri_2f3ta4WIB7h_FfkCv5DgZg?docId=N0755991317741677000A

[7]  Environment Canada’s audit http://www.oagbvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_cesd_201110_e_35765.html

Summary of report by Pembina Institute http://www.pembina.org/media-release/2276

[8] Joe Oliver, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources will be speaking at the London School of Economics to discuss investment opportunities and the strategic importance of the tar sands. http://www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2011/20111020t1300vHKT.aspx

The Minister has vowed to fight the EUs’ recent decision http://www.canada.com/business/Oliver+vows+fight+smacks+oilsands+with+pollution+penalty/5501777/story.html

Tagged with: canada, protest, united kingdom, canada-europe energy roundtable, cameron

Pipeline Review Is Faced With Question of Conflict

News Articles Featured | New York Times | October 07, 2011

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The State Department assigned an important environmental impact study of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to a company with financial ties to the pipeline operator, flouting the intent of a federal law meant to ensure an impartial environmental analysis of major projects.

The department allowed TransCanada, the company seeking permission to build the 1,700-mile pipeline from the oil sands of northern Alberta to the Gulf Coast in Texas, to solicit and screen bids for the environmental study. At TransCanada’s recommendation, the department hired Cardno Entrix, an environmental contractor based in Houston, even though it had previously worked on projects with TransCanada and describes the pipeline company as a “major client” in its marketing materials.

While it is common for federal agencies to farm out environmental impact studies, legal experts said they were surprised the State Department was not more circumspect about the potential for real and perceived conflicts of interest on such a large and controversial project.

John D. Echeverria, an expert on environmental law, referred to the process as “outsourcing government responsibility.”

The subsequent study, released at the end of August, found that the massive pipeline would have “limited adverse environmental impacts” if operated according to regulations. That positive assessment removed one of the last hurdles for approval of the proposed pipeline.

Cardno Entrix also played a substantial role in organizing the public hearings on the project for the State Department, the last of which was held Friday in Washington. The proposal is open for public comment until midnight Sunday, and the department’s Web site directs comment to a Cardno Entrix e-mail address.

Environmental groups, as well as some citizens and public officials along the route, have opposed the project, citing the relatively high emissions created by extracting crude from oil sands and the spill threat posed to important aquifers by a pipeline filled with a potentially corrosive crude, among other concerns. The E.P.A. has criticized two prior draft environmental impact statements prepared by Cardno Entrix on Keystone XL as “inadequate” and providing “insufficient information,” but has not yet rendered an appraisal of the final study. The E.P.A.’s role is purely advisory.

Advocates for the project say that Keystone XL, which would carry 700,000 barrels of crude a day, would create thousands of jobs and help ensure a stable fuel supply from a friendly neighbor.

The State Department is the agency that approves transboundary pipelines by determining whether they are in the national interest. Its decision is expected by the end of the year.

The National Environmental Policy Act, which took effect in 1970, allows for agencies to hire outside contractors to perform its required environmental impact studies, but advises that contractors be chosen “solely by the lead agency” and should “execute a disclosure statement” specifying that they “have no financial or other interest in the outcome of the project.”

And yet legal experts said it had become common for companies applying to build government projects to be involved in assigning and paying for the impact analysis. Some say such arrangements are nearly inevitable because federal agencies typically lack the in-house resources or money to conduct these complex studies. “What’s normal is deplorable, and it’s NEPA’s dirty little secret,” said Mr. Echeverria, acting director of the Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law School, referring to the law. He said federal agencies are supposed to review the findings, but often lack the expertise to do so.

Oliver A. Houck, a law professor at Tulane University and an expert on NEPA, said Cardno Entrix should never have been selected to perform the environmental study on Keystone XL because of its relationship with TransCanada and the potential to garner more work involving the pipeline. The company provides a wide ranges of services, including assisting in oil spill response.

Cardno Entrix had a “financial interest in the outcome of the project,” Mr. Houck said, adding, “Their primary loyalty is getting this project through, in the way the client wants.”

Kerri-Ann Jones, the assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs, in an interview, said the State Department followed all federal regulations and had closely managed and supervised the company’s work, adding, “We have final say.”

She said that TransCanada had managed the bidding process and recommended three candidates with Cardno Entrix topping the list. The department vetted Cardno Entrix by consulting with other agencies like the Bureau of Land Management. TransCanada pays the consultant directly, but would not reveal the amount.

Ms. Jones said that Cardno Entrix provided a solid and impartial study, which became more robust through the draft process, with advice from agencies like the E.P.A. “I think it required a lot a lot of work to get it where it is now,” she said. “We have done an objective environmental impact statement.”

The State Department has also faced charges of political conflict of interest over its handling of the Keystone XL application because TransCanada’s chief Washington lobbyist, Paul Elliott, was a top official in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Cardno Entrix officials referred all questions about its participation to the State Department. Cardno Entrix did submit a disclosure statement acknowledging that it was paid $2.9 million to handle the environmental review of an earlier pipeline in the Keystone network. It did not mention another project it had done for TransCanada, consulting on a natural gas pipeline that runs through Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota.

A spokesman for TransCanada, Terry Cunha, said that his company had recommended contractors to the State Department based on “technical ability, experience, and appropriate personnel.” But he said the final contract for the environmental assessment “provides that Department of State directs Entrix. As a result, we don’t have a direct relationship with Entrix.” The American company, Entrix, merged with the Australian company Cardno Limited in 2010.

Environmental groups say the study underplays both the emissions impact of the new pipeline and the danger posed by a spill of crude from oil sands, called diluted bitumen, a hard-to-remediate mixture. An accident at a pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy in July 2010 dumped 843,000 gallons of such oil near Marshall, Mich.

A 35-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River remains closed and cleanup has proved extremely difficult, running over budget and past deadlines set by the E.P.A. Estimates of cleanup costs have run well over $500 million. The E.P.A.’s regional administrator said her office had never seen a river system affected by so much submerged oil.

But the impact report for the Keystone XL project says that “response to a spill from the proposed pipeline would not require unique clean up procedures.”

The Enbridge spill is only mentioned briefly in addendums. And Cardno Entrix would have been aware of the challenges in Michigan: it was hired by Enbridge to assess the damage to natural resources caused by the spill.

Steven Da Silva, a retired science teacher who attended public hearings in Austin and Port Arthur, Tex., last week to oppose the pipeline, said he was surprised to see officials wearing Cardno Entrix nametags and was not sure whether State Department employees were present.

The department said its personnel moderated all hearings.

Legal experts said it is not unusual for subcontractors to conduct hearings and prepare responses to complaints. But they also said the State Department should closely monitor the work to make sure that any concerns raised are taken seriously. James W. Spensley, a Colorado-based environmental lawyer with broad experience in government pointed out that the courts provided an import check on abuse, since shoddy or biased studies are vulnerable to legal challenges.

“Generally,” he said, “lead agencies are very cautious about finding someone who is going to give them good, reliable, information because they are the ones that are going to get sued.”

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, state department, hillary clinton, lobbying, cardno entrix

Keystone XL: The wrong question

News Articles Featured | LA Times | October 06, 2011

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The question of whether to build an oil pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas is turning out to be one of the most important political decisions of the year for the Obama administration. It's an agonizing choice because the costs and benefits of building it are so closely balanced; opponents have overstated the environmental risks, and proponents seem oblivious to the consequences of continuing to feed our nation's oil addiction.

The Keystone XL pipeline would run 1,700 miles and cost $7 billion, generating thousands of construction jobs. It would increase oil imports from a stable, friendly neighbor while decreasing U.S. reliance on more volatile (and sometimes hostile) OPEC regimes. What's more, pipelines are the safest way to transport oil.

Yet the tar sands are an environmental monstrosity. To extract the tar-like crude from the sand and clay in which it's embedded, steam must be injected underground to liquefy the oil before pumping it to the surface. Thus it requires a great deal of energy to produce energy, heightening emissions of greenhouse gases. Residents of Nebraska and other states through which the pipeline would pass, meanwhile, fret about the risk of a leak that might contaminate water supplies.

These arguments are compelling but not entirely persuasive. An environmental study by the State Department, which is charged with approving the pipeline because it crosses the national border, found that the "life-cycle" emissions from wellhead to gas tanks would be about 17% higher than the average of oil consumed in the U.S., but also pointed out that the nation already imports oil that is nearly as filthy, including Venezuelan heavy crude. Moreover, if the pipeline isn't built, the tar sands won't simply go away — TransCanada, the company proposing to build the line, would most likely build one to Canada's west coast and sell the oil to China. And although minor spills are common with pipelines, the oil very seldom migrates far from the spill site, and TransCanada has agreed to safeguards that exceed U.S. requirements.

What's most aggravating about this decision is that the government shouldn't have to be making it; by now, both the U.S. and Canada should have approved carbon-reduction measures that would make extracting tar sands oil economically unfeasible. In the absence of such action, some argue that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should reject the pipeline as a signal that the U.S. aims to end its oil addiction. They have a point, but it would be a fairly empty gesture that would fail to reduce U.S. reliance on imports from such countries as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia while doing little to limit global emissions. Environmental activists would do better to lobby for carbon controls — the only practical way to cut fossil-fuel use — than against Keystone XL.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline

Koch Subsidiary Told Regulators It Has ‘Direct and Substantial Interest’ in Keystone XL

News Articles Featured | Reuters | October 05, 2011

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A document filed with Canada's Energy Board appears to cast doubt on claims by Koch Industries that it has no interest in the controversial pipeline.

By Stacy Feldman, InsideClimate News

In recent months Koch Industries Inc., the business conglomerate run by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, has repeatedly told a U.S. Congressional committee and the news media that the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline has "nothing to do with any of our businesses."

But the company has told Canadian energy regulators a different story.

In 2009, Flint Hills Resources Canada LP, an Alberta-based subsidiary of Koch Industries, applied for—and won—"intervenor status" in the National Energy Board hearings that led to Canada's 2010 approval of its 327-mile portion of the pipeline. The controversial project would carry heavy crude 1,700 miles from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast.

In the form it submitted to the Energy Board, Flint Hills wrote that it "is among Canada's largest crude oil purchasers, shippers and exporters. Consequently, Flint Hills has a direct and substantial interest in the application" for the pipeline under consideration.

To be approved as an intervenor, Flint Hills had to have some degree of "business interest" in Keystone XL, Carole Léger-Kubeczek, a National Energy Board spokeswoman, told InsideClimate News. Intervenors are granted the highest level of access in hearings, with the option to ask questions. The Energy Board approved Canada's segment of the pipeline with little opposition, and Flint Hills did not exercise its right to speak.

InsideClimate News contacted the Flint Hills manager who filed the Canadian document. She referred questions to Koch Industries general counsel Mark Holden, who did not return calls. Neither did Koch spokespeople. 

The State Department, which must approve the project because it crosses an international border, has spent three years reviewing the 1,375-mile U.S. leg of the pipeline proposal. Its decision, which is expected by the end of the year, will be the most far-reaching environmental decision of Barack Obama's presidency so far.

The project's supporters say the pipeline is needed because it would deliver a secure supply of oil from a politically stable ally and produce much-needed jobs during the recession. Opponents contend it would increase global warming emissions and raise the threat of oil spills in sensitive areas along the route. They also argue that gasoline prices in the Midwest would increase and that much of the 830,000 barrels of oil the pipeline could send into the United States each day would go to foreign markets.

Currently, Canadian crude can be pumped only as far as the U.S. Midwest, where a crude oil oversupply is keeping regional oil prices low. The Keystone XL would clear that bottleneck, send Canadian oil to the Gulf Coast and open access to world markets, creating a massive business opportunity for tar sands players.

"There's no ability to access world markets, and that's the reason why WTI [Midwest oil pricing] is depressed. Keystone XL will relieve that issue," said Chad Friess, an oil and gas analyst at UBS Securities Canada Inc. in Calgary, Alberta. "Pricing is expected to improve as it comes on stream."

A 2009 market analysis conducted for TransCanada, the Alberta-based company that hopes to build the pipeline, projected that it would create a $3 per-barrel increase, at minimum, for Canadian heavy crude in the Midwest. Canada's petroleum producers would benefit most from the price hike. The report predicts their annual revenues would increase $2 billion to $3.9 billion in 2013.  But the entire industry—including the refineries and shipping businesses where Koch Industries has concentrated its efforts—would also profit.

"Keystone XL is about the whole industry," said Danielle Droitsch, senior adviser to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit environmental organization that opposes the pipeline. "They will fetch a higher price of oil from the Gulf Coast market, which also happens to be an international market."

Deep Involvement in Oil Sands Trade

The controversy over the Kochs and the pipeline was sparked by an InsideClimate News report from February. That analysis, also published on Reuters.com and later cited by various news organizations, found that Flint Hills is deeply involved in the Canada-Alberta oil sands trade and is well positioned to benefit if more heavy crude is exported to the United States.

The Koch brothers own nearly all of Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries, the second-largest private company in the United States. The energy and manufacturing conglomerate earns an estimated $100 billion in annual revenue from its network of subsidiaries—a mix of oil, gas, pipeline, chemical, fertilizer and paper and pulp companies. In addition to its Canadian operation, Koch's Flint Hills subsidiary operates oil refineries in Alaska, Texas and Minnesota as well as a dozen fuel terminals in the Midwest and Texas.

The Koch brothers have donated millions to Republican candidates and conservative movements, bankrolling groups involved in Tea Party causes and in campaigns to deny climate change science and the need for cleaner energy. Through their Flint Hills subsidiary, they underwrote the failed 2010 ballot initiative that would have suspended California’s landmark law capping greenhouse gases.

The United States already gets nearly a quarter of its oil, about 2 million barrels every day, from Canada. Half of it comes from Alberta's tar sands patch, where Flint Hills is responsible for shipping close to 25 percent of the oil sands crude being piped into the United States.

At the other end of the proposed Keystone XL supply chain, in the Texas refining corridor, Koch Industries has been upgrading its Corpus Christi refinery to be able to handle harder-to-process blends of tar sands, according to industry reports.

A String of Denials from Koch Industries

Koch Industries did not reply to questions about what it meant when it told Canadian regulators it had a "direct and substantial interest" in the Keystone XL. But after InsideClimate News reported on Feb. 10 that Koch Industries was well positioned to benefit from the pipeline, its representatives complained of media bias and denied to Reuters that it had any interest in Keystone XL.

As a result of the InsideClimate News report, Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Energy and Power Subcommittee, began looking into the Koch connection to Keystone XL. Koch Industries representatives told Waxman's staff that Flint Hills had no financial interest in the pipeline.

This has "nothing to do with any of our businesses," Koch spokespeople were quoted as telling the congressman's staff members in a May 20 letter that Waxman sent to Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the Energy and Commerce Committee chair, and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), who chairs the Energy and Power Subcommittee.

In that letter, Waxman urged the Republican congressmen to seek documents from Koch Industries that Waxman's own staff had been unable to obtain. At the time, Upton and Whitfield were fast-tracking a bill—which passed the House on July 26 but was ignored by the Senate—that would force the Obama administration to decide on Keystone XL by Nov. 1.

The Energy and Power Subcommittee denied Waxman's request. A subcommittee aide told reporters at the time that the letter was "a transparently political stunt."

The Los Angeles Times has reported that Koch Industries and its employees were the largest single oil and gas donor to members of the Energy and Commerce Committee during the 2010 campaign. That included $20,000 in contributions to Upton, who is leading the charge to block EPA's new rules for greenhouse gas emissions. Upton was once considered a moderate, who had voted for amendments strengthening the Clean Air Act. At one point his website contained a statement, now removed, that "climate change is a serious problem that necessitates serious solutions."

Koch Industries issued a statement after Waxman released his letter to Upton and Whitfield. "As we explained to Representative Waxman's staff ... we have no financial interest in the project," said Phillip Ellender, president and chief operating officer for Koch Companies Public Sector. "Given these facts, we are confused about why Koch is being singled out and inserted into these discussions."

In late May, Ellender responded to a second InsideClimate News story, this one about questions raised by Waxman. Ellender told Reuters in an email that "we have no financial stake in the pipeline" and called the article "factually inaccurate." He did not identify any specific inaccuracies.

In June, Koch Industries asked the Los Angeles Times to correct an op-ed written by Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. Brune described Keystone XL as being "backed" by the Koch brothers.

"Koch is not involved in the Keystone Pipeline project in any way as we have stated publicly and as has been widely acknowledged," Koch spokesperson Melissa Cohlmi said in a letter requesting the correction, which ran on July 15. "This is not a matter of opinion since there are no facts to the contrary."

Keystone XL to Benefit All Oil Sands Players

Koch Industries, like the rest of the oil industry, is well positioned to benefit from a pipeline that would double U.S. oil sands imports.

The company's Flint Hills subsidiary already has an oil terminal in Hardisty, Alberta, the starting point of the Keystone XL. It sends about 250,000 barrels of diluted bitumen a day to a heavy oil refinery it owns near St. Paul, Minn., making that refinery "among the top processors of Canadian crude in the United States," the company website says.

Flint Hills is not among the six shippers that have already signed contracts to send their oil through the Keystone XL. But Steven Paget, vice president of energy infrastructure at FirstEnergy Capital, an oil and gas brokerage firm based in Calgary, said every oil sands player would benefit from the pipeline, because the price of all Canadian crude would rise.

Most of Alberta's heavy oil is currently shipped to the Chicago area or to Cushing, Okla., the world's largest oil storage facility and the point where prices are set for U.S. crude. Stockpiles at Cushing are depressing crude prices in the country's midsection below the global benchmark and pinching profits across the entire tar sands supply chain. 

The price spread on Tuesday was nearly $25, with the global benchmark, known as the Brent crude oil marker, trading at just below $100 and the Cushing price, known as West Texas Intermediate or WTI, settling at a one-year low of about $76. "Once this [Cushing] bottleneck is relieved, the expectation is that WTI will appreciate to something closer to world oil prices," said Friess of UBS.

Paget, the FirstEnergy Capital analyst, said "such a pricing differential will be too attractive to [oil sands] shippers. They will sign up for commitments to ship ... to the Gulf," growing their operations and bottom lines.

Refiners that have upgraded their Gulf Coast plants to handle heavy crude are especially well positioned to take advantage of a new gush of oil.

A 2010 analysis by Accufacts Inc., an energy consulting firm that focuses on pipelines, identified Koch's Corpus Christi plant as one of 22 Gulf Coast refineries—out of more than 50—that is now capable of refining "a significant volume of blended bitumen," the type of crude that would flow through the Keystone XL. The report was prepared for the Natural Resources Defense Council and was based on data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a division of the Department of Energy.

The Accufacts report predicted that 90 percent of the 500,000 barrels of Keystone XL bitumen expected to eventually reach the Gulf each day would be handled in refineries on the line's route in the Houston and Nederland, Texas areas. It said 10 percent could be handled in Corpus Christi and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast via connecting pipelines.

Refining heavy crudes, which are cheaper to purchase than light varieties, is profitable for refiners, Paget said. "By buying cheaper oil, it reduces their costs. They may have to make more capital expenditures. But for the long term, their input costs will be [recovered] later."

Friess said that while producers will benefit most from the pipeline, refineries along the Gulf—which he described as the "most sophisticated refineries in the world"—will profit, too, because they'll be able to outbid other refining markets for Canadian crude.

Droitsch, the NRDC adviser, said the entire industry is banking on an Obama green light by year-end. "The pipeline basically sends an overall signal to industry that they can continue with their expansion plans."

Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline, state department, national energy board, koch industries, flint hills resources canada lp

Conservation groups sue to stop groundwork on Keystone pipeline

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | October 05, 2011

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Three conservation groups are suing to halt preliminary work on a proposed 2,730-kilometre long oil pipeline from the tar sands of western Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.

The lawsuit to be filed Wednesday in federal court in Nebraska contends that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service broke the law by allowing Canadian pipeline operator TransCanada to start preparing the route for its Keystone XL pipeline.

The plaintiffs — the Center for Biological Diversity, the Western Nebraska Resources Council and Friends of the Earth — say TransCanada has cleared a 160-km pipeline corridor through the Nebraska Sandhills, despite a federal law that prevents the launch of projects before they receive approval.

They also say the decision to allow the groundwork is a sign that federal officials aren't committed to the full, legally mandated review. U.S. State Department officials held public meetings last week in Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, where the pipeline would run, and have defended the process as fair.

“The State Department has further confirmed that it is running a corrupt review process by giving TransCanada a green light to begin construction,” Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, said in prepared remarks. “It makes a mockery of the public and sends a message to Nebraska that their concerns don't matter. If the State Department was truly doing its job, this lawsuit wouldn't be necessary.”

Pipeline supporters point to a U.S. State Department study and some Nebraska water experts who claim any spill in the aquifer would have a limited impact. The pipeline would carry an estimated 700,000 barrels of oil a day, doubling the capacity of an existing pipeline from Canada, and business groups and unions have welcomed the project as a job-creator that will reduce dependence on Middle East oil.

But the pipeline has drawn opposition from an unlikely coalition of Nebraska farmers, ranchers, environmental groups and other activists who fear it will leak and contaminate the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies drinking and irrigation water to eight states.

Supporters and top TransCanada executives have said the criticism is baseless, and an attempt to stir fears.

Nebraska State Sen. Annette Dubas circulated a bill this week that would give state authorities the power to relocate the pipeline around the aquifer. Ms. Dubas and several other lawmakers are pushing for a special legislative session to address concerns over the pipeline's route before the State Department's expected decision in December.

Gov. Dave Heineman has said he supports the pipeline but opposes the route. The Republican governor has declined to call a special session, citing a lack of legislative support, and he questioned whether the state can supersede federal law, despite U.S. State Department assurances.

The lawsuit contends that many Nebraskans who oppose the project cannot speak publicly out of fear for their job prospects and professional relationships.

The lawsuit names the U.S. State Department, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as defendants, because of their oversight roles. TransCanada is not named as a defendant.

Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline, nebraska, lawsuit, friends of the earth, center for biological diversity, western nebraska resources council

Environmental groups target Democratic lobbyists on Canadian oil pipeline

News Articles Featured | Washington Post | October 05, 2011

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Environmental groups are demanding more public documents from the State Department about a controversial oil pipeline that will cross the U.S.-Canada border, seeking information on half a dozen lobbyists and their firms connected to the Obama administration.

The new Freedom of Information Act request, which Friends of the Earth, the Center for International Environmental Law and Corporate Ethics International will file Thursday, is part of an ongoing campaign aimed at pressuring the administration to deny a construction and operating ­permit to TransCanada. The firm wants to construct a 1,700-mile pipeline to transport crude extracted from oil sands in Alberta, Canada, to Gulf Coast refineries. State has recently released a slew of e-mails in response to a FOIA that detail how a former campaign aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Paul Elliott, has appealed to the department’s officials to support the proposal.

Proponents say the pipeline will generate American jobs and supply oil from a U.S. ally; opponents say it will support an especially carbon-intensive form of oil extraction and could imperil American habitat and wildlife. The State Department has said it will make a final decision on the permit by the end of the year.

Two of the lobbyists named in the request — Gordon Giffin with McKenna Long & Aldridge and James Blanchard with DLA Piper — served as fundraising bundlers for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid. Jeff Berman, a lobbyist listed on Bryan Cave’s Keystone XL lobbying account, directed delegate selection in President Obama’s primary campaign.

The groups are also asking for documents regarding McKenna Long & Aldridge lobbyist Maryscott “Scotty” Greenwood, who serves as a senior advisor and former executive director for the Canadian American Business Council, and the firm’s senior strategic adviser David Pollak. Greenwood is a Democrat who served on the Credentials Committee at the 2008 Democratic Convention. Pollak served as Co-Chairman of the New York State Democratic Party from 2006 to 2008, and was a Hillary Clinton Super-Delegate.

The FOIA request targets former Bryan Cave lobbyist Broderick Johnson, a former Clinton administration in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs from 1998-2000

The groups, which are represented by Earthjustice, based their request on documents compiled by another environmental organization, DeSmogBlog.

“The State Department has a legal obligation to make its communications with these lobbyists public,” said Earthjustice staff attorney Sarah Burt in a statement. “And we intend to do what we can to ensure the law is followed.”

The State Department and TransCanada could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, state department, hillary clinton, lobbying

Keystone XL: More about the politics than the petroleum

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | October 05, 2011

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For months, the stars seemed pretty well aligned for the Keystone XL pipeline, the proposed $7-billion megaproject that would carry oil-sands crude from Alberta to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico coast in Texas.

Though the U.S. State Department has seemed at times to drag its feet, all the arrows had been pointing in the direction of a resounding “yes.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton showed her cards by declaring herself “inclined” to support it. Five of the six governors through whose states the 2,700-kilometre conduit would run were on board. And a country dying for jobs had a whopper of a shovel-ready project.Then, a little thing called politics reared its head.

Proponents of the TransCanada Corp. project, which would double the amount of Alberta crude flowing south, now fear that President Barack Obama will give in to pressure from the base of the Democratic Party to nix the pipeline.

With Mr. Obama’s approval rating sliding to a record low – leading more than half of Americans to think for the first time that he will be a one-term President – the White House needs to bring every stray Democrat it can find back into the fold before the 2012 election.

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has been feeling particularly unloved by this White House. Killing the Keystone XL project would be a powerful way for the administration to show its renewed affection.

After weeks of watching a star-studded coalition of anti-pipeline forces steal the media spotlight, however, a group of Keystone proponents in Congress is now pushing back hard against the project’s foes.

The result is a full-blown public relations war that promises to heighten the political sensitivity of the pipeline, and oil-sands crude in general, as the administration prepares to make a final decision by year-end.

“The longer this takes, the more dangerous it becomes for this [project] to fall apart,” South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham warned Wednesday after a pro-pipeline pow-wow near Capitol Hill.

If the Obama administration rejects the pipeline, Mr. Graham vowed, “it will be a defining issue in 2012.”

Indeed, the White House itself may try to make it one.

Mr. Obama has adopted a more populist and stridently progressive tone in recent weeks as he moves to rally the Democratic base for the electoral battle at hand. But the progressive movement has laid down its conditions for backing Mr. Obama – and killing Keystone is a big one.

Environmentalists are smarting after the release this week of e-mails between State Department officials and TransCanada’s Washington lobbyist suggesting an agency bias in favour of the pipeline.

The lobbyist, Paul Elliott, was Ms. Clinton’s deputy national campaign director when she ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. In one e-mail from Marja Verloop, an official in the U.S. embassy in Ottawa, Ms. Verloop declares: “Go Paul!”

“Clearly, these guys are on the same team,” Bill McKibben, a Vermont environmentalist who organized anti-Keystone protests outside the White House, wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Tuesday.

The sudden politicization of the Keystone XL project has alarmed its oil industry backers, leading the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers to hire former U.S. ambassador David Wilkins to help make its case to the administration and lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The choice of the uber-connected Mr. Wilkins, a former Republican speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives, brought with it a ready army of arm-twisters in Congress.

Six of the seven members of South Carolina’s congressional delegation showed up for the “energy roundtable” Mr. Wilkins organized over breakfast on Wednesday.

Mr. Graham led the charge.

The administration’s failure to approve the Keystone XL project “would be one of the biggest energy policy blunders in our history,” he warned, adding it would jeopardize Canada-U.S. relations.

Keep reading

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline

Oilsands high on Alison Redford’s agenda

News Articles Featured | Calgary Herald | October 05, 2011

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Alison Redford emphasized health and education in her run to become Alberta's next premier, but it appears energy and environmental issues will be her most immediate challenge on taking office.

On Tuesday, the European Commission ruled that oilsands crude was more environmentally harmful than conventional crude, a move that could effectively stifle future imports to the European Union.

It came the same day as a report by Canada's environment commissioner - an independent watchdog who reports to Parliament - said the federal government had ineffective monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions and the oilsands.

Redford - who will be sworn in as premier Friday after winning the job of Progressive Conservative leader in last weekend's vote - also must decide how she will pitch the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project. The development has become mired in controversy south of the border because it will send Alberta bitumen through to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Speaking to reporters in Edmonton after her first meeting with the government caucus, Redford said discussions are underway with the federal government and Canadian Embassy over the province's best approach on Keystone XL.

With her swearing-in on Friday, Redford will not testify at U.S. State Department hearings on the pipeline in Washington, D.C.

When asked about the European move, Redford said the province can't control the decisions of sovereign governments. However, Alberta must do a better job of "telling our story" and defending the oilsands, she added.

"What we're seeing right now is an international climate that is feeling they have to deal with public pressure around those issues. It is not the right decision. It is not the right way to deal with the issues. I do not agree with the decision and we'll be continuing to lobby in capitals on that issue," she said.

Redford's comments came because the European Commission approved placing a higher carbon-emissions value on bitumen-derived fuel than conventional oil under its new fuel quality directive.

If approved by the European Parliament, importers would face higher carbon offsets to trade in Canadian oil.

Janet Annesley, vice-president of communications for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, noted little oilsands product is exported to Europe, but standing up to the EU's move is a "matter of trade principle."

"We view it as discriminatory and not the foundation of good policy that's based in science and principle," said Annesley, who was reached in Washington where CAPP president Dave Collyer is scheduled to testify Friday at the Keystone hearings.

"The decision was based on just one study . . . oilsands crude was singled out and is being treated differently than energy products from other countries."

Doug Horner, who was named Tuesday by Redford to serve as deputy premier, said there is a widespread feeling within the Tory government that it must be proactive in getting its message out.

"We're going to have to make sure that we can change the direction fairly quickly and start to get our message out and I think Premier Redford was very adamant about that today," he told the Herald.

Chaldeans Mensah, a political scientist at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, said Redford spoke frequently during the Tory leadership race about beefing up environmental monitoring in the oilsands, but she's also staked out a position defending the industry.

"Does Alison Redford have the fortitude to defend the oilsands against these kind of negative signals coming from Europe and other places?" he asked.

"One of her strong suits is her communication skills and it will be put to the test on this file."

Despite Redford's prooilsands stance, her election has given at least a glimmer of hope for environmental organizations that she will make changes beyond simply messaging.

The Pembina Institute, in a statement released Tuesday, noted Redford has spoken about a worldwide shift to sustainable energy production and her desire for Alberta not to be left behind.

"Redford's new strategy for energy sees Alberta as a 'global leader in sustainable hydrocarbon production,' which means to us ensuring responsible oilsands development that respects science-based environmental limits to protect air, land and water," said the Alberta-based think-tank.

The group added that there are feasible technical and policy solutions to many of the environmental challenges posed by oilsands development that could improve the sector's environmental performance.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Oilsands+high+Alison+Redford+agenda/5504126/story.html#ixzz1aULIUNtZ

Tagged with: alberta, election, alison redford

Oil sands imports could be banned under EU directive

News Articles Featured | The Guardian | October 04, 2011

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Oil from controversial and environmentally destructive tar sands is likely to be all but banned from Europe after a decision on Tuesday. The move also casts doubt on the future of other controversial energy sources such as shale gas.

Tar sands (also known as oil sands) have been a target of green campaigners for several years, as the extraction of low quality oil from sands – chiefly in Canada to date – produces far greater greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil drilling operations, and requires vast quantities of water. The exploitation of tar sands has also led to the destruction of swaths of forest and is blamed for water and air pollution.

In a victory for Connie Hedegaard, the EU's climate change commissioner, the commission has decided to back a new directive on fuel quality. This will set minimum environmental standards for a range of fuels, including tar sands, coal converted to liquid and oil from shale rock.

Hedegaard said: "With this measure, we are sending a clear signal to fossil fuels suppliers. As fossil fuels will be a reality in the foreseeable future, it's important to give them the right value.''

Franziska Achterberg, EU transport policy adviser for Greenpeace, said: "Today's move by the commission is good news. Tar sands extraction is a very dirty business for the climate, polluting rivers, lacing the air with toxins and turning forests into wasteland. Despite coming under intense pressure from oil lobbyists and Canada, the commission is doing the right thing by wanting to keep tar sands out of Europe to protect the climate."

The proposals have now been sent to EU member states who will meet in four to six weeks to vote on the proposal. It will then go to the European parliament for final approval.

If the proposed standards are accepted, they will all but rule out imports of tar sands, unless producers can clean up their acts. The commission has proposed that tar sands be ascribed a greenhouse gas value of 107 grams per megajoule of fuel – this compares with 87.5 grams per megajoule for ordinary crude oil, on average. Producers will also have to cut the carbon footprint of their fuels by 6% in the next decade.

Although gas from shale is not yet included, because the proposed directive is focused on transport fuels, the acceptance that fuels must meet minimum environmental standards makes it much more likely that it too could fall foul of legislation in the future. Shale gas has come under the spotlight as vast sources in the US have proved a cheap source of fuel there, but allegations of widespread pollution caused by the shale gas projects has led green groups to call for a moratorium. Europe is beginning to exploit its own newly discovered reserves, but campaigners have called for a halt while the environmental consequences are studied. In the UK, drilling work has begun at sites in Lancashire.

The proposed fuel quality directive may also face a tough ride from some member states. In Britain, Norman Baker, minister for transport, stated in a letter dated 26 September that the government will oppose inclusion of a tar sands value and will "continue to have discussions with colleagues in other member states to ensure all heavy crudes are dealt with, not simply oil sands".

The commission appears to have finessed this objection by including other fuels – such as coal converted to liquid and oil from shale, both of which have been assigned far higher carbon values than oil from tar sands – but it is not certain ministers will accept this. There has been fierce lobbying from the Canadian government in particular over the past year on this issue.

Canada has warned that banning oil from tar sands will raise energy prices for Europe, as tar sands are probably the world's biggest reserve of oil after Saudi Arabia. The exploitation of the hard-to-reach resources is only economically viable because of the high oil price.

Paul Morozzo from Greenpeace UK said the benefits of ruling out tar sands and other high-carbon fuel sources were clear: "This proposal is absolutely the right recommendation. The key question now is what will the UK government do – will it be, as David Cameron once claimed, the greenest government ever and support the ban or will the government adopt the George Osborne approach, as outlined in his speech [at the Conservative party conference], where carbon emissions and the destruction of the environment seems to be a price worth paying."

Tagged with: greenhouse gases, european union, guardian, connie hedegaard

Oliver vows fight if EU smacks oil sands with pollution penalty

News Articles | National Post | October 04, 2011

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WASHINGTON — Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver on Tuesday warned the European Union against singling out Canadian oil as a dirtier form of energy in new fuel quality standards, saying the action would be “discriminatory” and could trigger a challenge before the World Trade Organization.

“Should the European Union implement unjustified measures which discriminate against the oilsands, we won’t hesitate to defend our interests,” Mr. Oliver said in Washington, where he was meeting with senior U.S. lawmakers.

“They are doing it believing, apparently, that there is no downside.”

The minister’s remarks came amid news the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has approved placing a higher carbon-emissions value on bitumen-derived fuel than conventional oil under its new Fuel Quality Directive.

“The government of Canada does not object to the fuel quality directive goal of reducing (greenhouse gas) emissions for transportation fuels,” Mr. Oliver said. “However, we do object strongly to discriminatory treatment that singles out oilsands-derived fuels without scientific justification . . . We don’t like the potential stigmatization and we don’t think it is justified.”

The European Commission’s decision to target oil sands crude came after lengthy internal debate and vigorous protest from the Harper government.

The commission has recommended oil sands-derived fuel be given a greenhouse gas rating of 107 grams per megajoule, roughly 20% higher than the 87.5 grams assigned to fuel from conventional crude oil.

The aim of the fuel directive is to reduce emissions from transportation fuel by six per cent by 2020.

If the measure is approved by the European Parliament, importers would face higher carbon offsets in order to trade in Canadian oil.
Canada currently exports virtually no oil to Europe but Ottawa fears the EU’s action would do severe damage to the oilsands industry’s worldwide reputation.

The Canadian government will seek to review the implementing measures of the proposal, Mr. Oliver said.

But on its face, he said, it appears Europe believes it has nothing to lose by singling Canadian oil for penalization.

“Crude from Russia and Nigeria has similar (life cycle) greenhouse gas emissions to the oilsands. So we find it odd that they would be discriminating against oil that they don’t import, and not against oil that they do import. Wonder why that would be the case?” Mr. Oliver said.

Moments later, he answered his own rhetorical question: “Europe is importing oil from Nigeria and Russia and not from Canada. So they can take a shot.”

Asked what action Canada might take if the EU goes forwards, Mr. Oliver said an appeal to World Trade Organization “seems obvious.”

Environmental groups in Canada and abroad cheered the European Commission’s move.

Graham Saul, Executive Director of Climate Action Network Canada, said the decision “sends a clear signal that no amount of aggressive lobbying can counter the scientific fact that tarsands are one of the world’s dirtiest fuels.”

Franziska Achterberg, a spokeswoman with Greenpeace in Europe, said the European Commission was “doing the right thing by wanting to keep tarsands out of Europe to protect the climate.”

The threat of European action against oilsands oil comes as a political battle rages in the U.S. over approval of Calgary-based TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

The State Department is in the final stages of deciding whether to approve TransCanada’s request to build the $7-billion pipeline, which would ship up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Hardisty, Alberta, to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

U.S. environmental groups on Tuesday asked President Barack Obama to strip the State Department of its authority to decide the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline, amid controversy over ties between American government officials and a lobbyist for Calgary-based TransCanada.

In a letter to Mr. Obama, leaders of 17 green groups said State officials had shown “pro-industry bias” throughout the department’s review of TransCanada’s application.

The environmental groups call the regulatory process tainted and tell Mr. Obama “it would be irresponsible for you to follow the State Department’s guidance as you make your determination.”

Their appeal to the U.S. president followed the release internal emails between TransCanada lobbyist Paul Elliott, a former official in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and a senior American diplomat in Ottawa.
The documents showed Marja Verloop, the U.S. Embassy’s counsellor for energy and environment, congratulating Mr. Elliott after a prominent Democratic senator endorsed construction of Keystone XL.

“Go Paul!” Ms. Verloop wrote to Mr. Elliott on Sept. 10, 2010, after Montana Senator Max Baucus issued a statement announcing his support for the oilsands pipeline.
“Baucus support holds clout.”

The environmentalists argue the exchanges between Mr. Elliott and Ms. Verloop conform to broader pattern in which State officials offered messaging guidance and ready access to TransCanada.

“We believe the State Department should be disqualified from the environmental impact statement review and that President Obama should reject the pipeline permit,” said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth.

Despite the opposition from environmentalists, Mr. Oliver said there remains strong support for Keystone XL among U.S. lawmakers.

He met with several of them on Tuesday, including Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn and Nebraska congressman Lee Terry, author of a recent bill that demanded the Obama administration decide on Keystone XL by November.

Critics of Keystone XL “would rather complain than seek or support solutions,” Mr. Oliver said.

“To my mind, Keystone is not a problem, it’s a solution.”

Tagged with: greenhouse gases, european union, joe oliver

Keystone pipeline e-mails show friendly exchanges

News Articles Featured | Washington Post | October 03, 2011

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The State Department has released a new series of e-mails about the controversial Keystone pipeline proposal that show a friendly relationship between a U.S. Embassy official in Ottawa and TransCanada’s Washington lobbyist.

At times, State Department official Marja D. Verloop — who oversees energy, science and environmental issues at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa — appears to be cheering on TransCanada’s Washington lobbyist, Paul Elliott, in his efforts to enlist congressional support for the pipeline extension.

 Shell is ready to begin a multimillion-dollar drilling project in the Chukchi Sea in Alaska, prompting some concern about environmental damage and whether the lessons of the BP oil spill and the Exxon Valdez disaster have been learned.

 A look at the biggest climate change stories of our generation, from the Gulf oil spill, Cancun climate talks, and flooding in Pakistan.

On Sept. 10, 2010, for example, Verloop sent a congratulatory message to Elliott after he forwarded a press release to multiple people announcing that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) backed the pipeline project.

“Go Paul! Baucus support holds clout,” Verloop wrote.

This is the second batch of e-mails obtained by Friends of the Earth through a Freedom of Information Act filing. Friends of the Earth said the e-mails showed State Department “bias” in favor of a project it is supposed to be evaluating and “complicity” between State and TransCanada.

TransCanada is seeking permission to extend a pipeline that would carry crude oil produced from tar sands deposits in Alberta province to refineries in Texas. The State Department has responsibility for deciding, after weighing environmental dangers and the national interest, whether the pipeline will go ahead. Pipeline opponents, who have demonstrated in front of the White House and elsewhere, say the project will promote the use of tar sands, for which the extraction process contributes to relatively high greenhouse gas emissions. They also fear the impact from any possible leaks. Supporters say that the pipeline would promote U.S. energy security and that Canada would export the crude oil elsewhere if the State Department ruled against the line.

“We are committed to a fair, transparent and thorough process,” a State Department spokesman said in a statement Sunday. “Throughout the process we have been in communication with industry as well as environmental groups, both in the United States and in Canada. . . . We listen to all opinions, but there is much more that goes into the national interest determination decision.”

“Mr. Elliott was and is simply doing his job – no laws have been broken,” TransCanada said in an e-mailed statement Monday. “His role is very similar to the job the over 60 registered D.C. lobbyists for 10 environmental groups perform.” The company said that “it’s absurd to suggest that any one person might influence a process” that includes 10 federal agencies and “a myriad of local governments.”

The department found in August that construction of the Keystone XL pipeline will have “limited adverse environmental consequences.” It must still rule on whether construction of the pipeline is in the U.S. national interest.

On July 26, 2010, Verloop and Elliott corresponded about TransCanada’s decision not to ask for permission to operate the pipeline at a higher-than-normal pressure. The question of pipeline pressure has been a source of considerable debate, especially in states such as Nebraska, where the pipeline would be buried.

“I take it withdrawing the request does not preclude TCPL [TransCanada Pipelines] from re-submitting in the future?” Verloop asked.

Elliott replied that she was “correct” that “withdrawing our request for a special permit at this time, allows TransCanada to submit a request for a special permit at a later date.” The process for consideration would start from scratch and include an environmental assessment.”

 Shell is ready to begin a multimillion-dollar drilling project in the Chukchi Sea in Alaska, prompting some concern about environmental damage and whether the lessons of the BP oil spill and the Exxon Valdez disaster have been learned. A look at the biggest climate change stories of our generation, from the Gulf oil spill, Cancun climate talks, and flooding in Pakistan.

TransCanada on Monday said that it did not conceal the possibility of later seeking permission to use higher pressures in its pipeline. It pointed to its Aug. 5, 2010, press release, which said “the company recognizes it needs to take more steps to assure the public and stakeholders” and that additional safety measures “would allow TransCanada to request a special permit in the future.”

Elliott and Verloop also corresponded about a delay in the environmental assessment of the project that was prompted by an objection from the Environmental Protection Agency, which classified State’s review as “inadequate.” Elliott reported that his firm’s officials had learned the 90-day review would “delay . . . State’s recommendation of a presidential permit but such a delay won’t be as long as the one advocated for by the EPA.”

The next day, in response to an e-mail from David Jacobson, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, Verloop forwarded part of the exchange with Elliott. He also assured the ambassador and another embassy staffer who works on energy issues, Lonzell Locklear, that “TransCanada is comfortable and on board” with the delay.

Throughout their e-mail correspondence, Verloop and Elliott engaged in friendly banter. On Dec. 14, 2010, when Verloop forwarded a news story about Elliott’s lobbying activities, she wrote, “When are you coming up to visit? It’s a snowy winter wonderland here this morning.”

In the same e-mail, Verloop provided an update on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s visit to Ottawa for a trilateral meeting of North American governments. She wrote that she “oversaw” Clinton’s visit, adding, “KXL was not raised, but Doer [Gary Doer, Canada’s ambassador to the United States] flew back on plane with her.”

On April 7, 2011, Verloop complained about the fact that Elliott did not attend an event in Ottawa on April 6. Verloop wrote in response to an unrelated e-mail: “No show last night :( ”

Elliott explained in a reply the same day that he had to work, adding: “I’m sure it was a lot more fun in Ottawa. I hope you are doing well.”

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, friends of the earth, lobbying, us embassy

B.C. municipalities demand closer scrutiny of proposal to expand oil shipments

News Articles Featured | Calgary Herald | October 03, 2011

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A proposal to ship more oil overseas through Burnaby has prompted B.C. municipalities to demand increased scrutiny of expansions of oil pipelines and tanker traffic.

More local consultation is also needed, says an emergency resolution passed by the Union of B.C. Municipalities on Friday.

The motion was prompted by a Kinder Morgan plan to more than double the capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline that brings crude from Alberta’s oilsands into B.C. for use in the Lower Mainland, but also has connections to the U.S. at Sumas.

Some of the oil goes to Burnaby’s Westridge Terminal, from where it is shipped overseas.

The resolution urged the National Energy Board (NEB), Port Metro Vancouver and “all appropriate” federal ministers to ensure any application to expand the amount of oil transported by pipeline and tanker be subject to the “highest degree” of environmental assessment.

It also called for meaningful public consultation, including direct engagement with affected municipalities, regional authorities and B.C. first nations.

Vancouver city councillor Geoff Meggs, who supported the resolution, said Kinder Morgan’s expansion plans have largely gone unnoticed because of the slow and incremental manner in which the Trans Mountain project is being developed.

Kinder Morgan has a stepped plan to more than double the capacity of the 1,150-kilometre pipeline to 700,000 barrels per day.

“This would even require deepening [by dredging] of the Second Narrows to allow these massive ... tankers to go through,” Meggs said Sunday.

As a first step, Kinder Morgan has asked the NEB to allow it to allocate more of its existing 300,000 barrels per day capacity to the Westridge Terminal, which would only nominally increase the amount of oil shipped on tankers.

However, the company also wants to sign 10-year contracts for part of the Westridge Terminal capacity to help build markets overseas, according to documents it filed with the NEB.

The long-term contracts, which would replace monthly ones, would help set the stage for the larger, planned expansion.

The company estimates it will generate $286 million from the long-term contracts that will be used to help build infrastructure like a second Westridge berth for the planned doubling of capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Kinder Morgan has told investors that once the pipeline’s capacity is doubled, the bulk of the increase will go overseas to markets like China, which would mean more oil tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet.

Company officials could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Meggs said municipalities had requested NEB hearings for the Kinder Morgan plan to be held in Vancouver and Vancouver Island. They had also asked for more time to comment.

The NEB, in documents filed as part of the Kinder Morgan application, said it was not persuaded to provide more time because the company’s application to reallocate capacity and sign long-term contracts will not result in a new facility or increased pipeline capacity.

A public hearing was held in August in Calgary.

Last year, the UBCM passed a motion opposing oil tanker traffic off the northwest B.C. coast that would result from Enbridge’s proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline.

Tagged with: british columbia, oil tankers, kinder morgan, union of bc municipalities

Media roundup for Ottawa Protests

News Articles Featured | General | October 03, 2011

TV

August 25 – CBC - Anti-oilsands sit-in urged for Ottawa
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2011/08/25/pol-oil-protest-planned.html

September 20 – Global TV Edmonton - Actors including Dave Thomas of SCTV hoser fame support Ottawa oilsands protest
http://www.globaltvedmonton.com/actors+including+dave+thomas+of+sctv+hoser+fame+support+ottawa+oilsands+protest/6442485782/story.html

September 20 – CityNews - CityTV Toronto - Canadian actors support oilsands protest in Ottawa
http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/entertainment/news/article/155673--canadian-actors-support-oilsands-protest-in-ottawa

September 20 – CBC News Business - Oilsands protest to get Canadian actors' support
http://www.cbc.ca/m/rich/business/story/2011/09/20/dave-taylor-actors-oilsands-protest-ottawa.html

September 20 – CBC News Canada - Oilsands protest to get Canadian actors' support
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/09/20/dave-taylor-actors-oilsands-protest-ottawa.html?cmp=rss

September 20 – Canada AM (CTV Lloydminster)
http://www.fpinfomart.ca/doc/doc_display.php?key=qs|658777765|vcbr|20110921|119282071&play=1

September 25 – CTV News – Embattled pipeline at centre of mass Ottawa protest
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20110925/protesters-gather-for-pipeline-protest-110925/

September 25 – CTV News – Minister: Nebraska Keystone concerns have been addressed
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Politics/20110925/alberta-keystone-pipeline-110925/

September 26 – CBC – The National
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/The_National/1242568525/ID=2145191936

September 26 – CTV National News
http://watch.ctv.ca/news/#clip539294

September 26 – Global Edmonton
http://www.globaltvedmonton.com/hundreds+to+protest+keystone+xl+pipeline+on+parliament+hill/6442489196/story.html

September 26 – Global National
http://www.globalnews.ca/police+arrest+antipipeline+protesters+after+they+cross+parliament+hill+barrier/6442489425/story.html

September 26 – CTV News – Pipeline protesters cross barricades on Parliament Hill
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110926/keystone-xl-pipeline-protest-ottawa-110926/

**Graham Saul, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Clayton Thomas Mueller and Tony Clarke all appeared on Power & Politics with Evan Solomon on September 26.

**Tantoo Cardinal did a live televised interview with CBC at Noon. She was also on Power Play with Don Martin. In addition, she did an interview with APTN.

ONLINE

August 25 - Huffington Post - Anti-oilsands sit-in urged for Ottawa
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/25/anti-oilsands-sit-in-urge_n_937103.html

August 29 – Rabble.ca - Activist Communique: Ottawa Tar Sands Action call-out -- Sept 26, 2011
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/krystalline-kraus/2011/08/activist-communiqué-ottawa-tar-sands-action-call-out-–-sept

September 14 – Rabble.ca - A call to action: Non-violent civil disobedience against the tar sands
http://rabble.ca/news/2011/09/call-action-non-violent-civil-disobedience-against-tar-sands

September 20 – Maclean’s.ca - Actors including Dave Thomas of SCTV hoser fame support Ottawa oilsands protest
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=n8889229

September 20 – Yahoo! Canada Finance - Actors including Dave Thomas of SCTV hoser fame support Ottawa oilsands protest
http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/Actors-including-Dave-Thomas-capress-923037077.html?x=0

September 20 – Yahoo! Canada News - Actors including Dave Thomas of SCTV hoser fame support Ottawa oilsands protest
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/actors-including-dave-thomas-sctv-hoser-fame-support-161634078.html

September 20 – Huffington Post - Dave Thomas Of SCTV Hoser Fame Among High-Profile Canadians Backing Oilsands Protest
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/09/20/dave-thomas-oil-sands_n_972095.html

September 20 – Treehugger.com - Canadian Celebrities Support Ottawa Action Over Tar Sands
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/09/ottawa-action.php

September 20 – The Tyee - Actors including Dave Thomas of SCTV hoser fame support Ottawa oilsands protest
http://thetyee.ca/CanadianPress/2011/09/20/Actors-Oilsands-Protest-8889229/

September 20 – CanadianBusiness.com - Actors including Dave Thomas of SCTV hoser fame support Ottawa oilsands protest
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article/46310--actors-including-dave-thomas-of-sctv-hoser-fame-support-ottawa-oilsands-protest

(not related to the Ottawa Action but referencing tar sands issue and Dave Thomas’ support)
September 20 – Hollywood Reporter
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sctvs-dave-thomas-blasts-albertas-237898

September 21 – Rabble.ca - 'Say no to the tar sands' rally and sit-in in front of Parliament
http://rabble.ca/news/2011/09/say-no-tar-sands-rally-and-sit

September 25 – Calgary Sun – Keystone protesters don’t impress top Tories
http://www.calgarysun.com/2011/09/25/keystone-protesters-dont-impress-top-tories
September 25 – London Free Press – Pipeline protest planned
http://www.lfpress.com/news/canada/2011/09/25/18736906.html

September 26

Castanet.com – Preparing for protest
http://www.castanet.net/news/Canada/65151/Preparing-for-protest

ChronicleHerald.ca
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1265178.html
CTV Ottawa – Pipeline protest goes by smoothly

http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110926/OTT_pipeline_protest_110926/20110926/?hub=OttawaHome

Ottawa Citizen – Anti-oilsands activists stage huge Hill protest
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Anti+oilsands+activists+stage+huge+Hill+protest/5460571/story.html

Vancouver Sun – Demonstrators arrested at anti-oilsands rally on Parliament Hill
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Demonstrators+arrested+anti+oilsands+rally+Parliament+Hill/5459387/story.html

Toronto Star – Dozens arrested in pipeline protest on Parliament Hill
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1059737--pipeline-protesters-arrested-on-parliament-hill?bn=1

The Globe and Mail – Oil-sands protesters descend on Parliament Hill
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/oil-sands-protesters-descend-on-parliament-hill/article2180486/

Toronto Sun – Oilsands protest turns into a huge bust for cops
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/09/26/oilsands-protest-turns-into-huge-bust-for-cops

CTV Edmonton – Pipeline protesters cross barricades on Parliament Hill
http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110926/keystone-xl-pipeline-protest-ottawa-110926/20110926/?hub=EdmontonHome

Vancouver Sun – No star power at Ottawa oilsands protest
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/09/26/no-star-power-at-ottawa-oilsands-protest/

Agence France-Presse (AFP) – More than 100 arrested in Canada pipeline protest
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hEoA0UnhFAoS9aEO0FJirC_xdeFw?docId=CNG.a1a0fa7851ea5002e0eaf3cb1af82a01.121

Inside Politics Blog – Orders of the Day – Definitely not just another sleepy Monday on the Hill
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2011/09/orders-of-the-day---definitely-not-just-another-sleepy-monday-on-the-hill.html

Montreal Gazette – Demonstrators arrested at anti-oilsands rally on Parliament Hill
http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Green+Party+chief+joins+pipeline+protest/5459110/story.html

Winnipeg Free Press – Pipeline protesters head to Parliament
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/pipeline-protesters-head-to-parliament-130549098.html

Financial Post – Demonstrators arrested at anti-oil sands rally on Parliament Hill
http://business.financialpost.com/2011/09/26/demonstrators-arrested-at-anti-oil-sands-rally-on-parliament-hill/

Sun News - Pipeline Protest planned
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2011/09/20110926-072539.html

Open File Blog – The Keystone XL protest mapped
http://ottawa.openfile.ca/blog/curator-blog/breaking/2011/keystone-xl-protest-mapped

Montreal Gazette – Greenpeace co-founder defends oilsands reclamation efforts
http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Greenpeace+founder+defends+oilsands+reclamation+efforts/5459244/story.html

CBC News – Keystone pipeline protest nets 117 arrests on Hill
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/09/26/ottawa-oilsands-protest-parliament-hill.html

Digital Journal – Union leader arrested over Keystone XL
http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/432715

Middle East North Africe Financial Network – Hundreds protest Canada oil sands pipeline
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?storyid=%7B1c5692c1-7816-43c6-9608-761fdd6d773a%7D

Times Colonist – Ottawa sit-in to protest federal support of oilsands
http://www.timescolonist.com/business/Ottawa+protest+federal+support+oilsands/5454580/story.html

Canada Newswire – Media Advisory
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/September2011/26/c6462.html

Treehugger.com – Live Now: Hundreds Risk Arrest at Ottawa Action To Sit-In Against Big Oil, Tar Sands
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/09/ottawa-action-live.php

iPolitics.ca – Seen and heard on the Hill: ‘Make love, not tar…’
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2011/09/26/live-coverage-protest-on-parliament-hill/

Ottawa Citizen - Demonstrators gather to protest oilsands pipeline in Ottawa
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Demonstrators+gather+protest+oilsands+pipeline+Ottawa/5459188/story.html

United Press International (UPI) – Oil sands pipeline protesters arrested
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/09/26/Oil-sands-pipeline-protesters-arrested/UPI-77911317057688/

Huffington Post Canada – Ottawa Oil Sands Pipeline Protest: Maude Barlow among 100-plus people arrested
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/09/26/ottawa-oil-sands-pipeline-protest_n_981052.html

Market Watch – Keystone protestors gather near Canadian Parliament
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/keystone-protestors-gather-near-canada-parliament-2011-09-26

Canadian Labour Reporter – Energy union president arrested at oilsands pipeline protest
http://www.labour-reporter.com/articleview?articleid=11299&headline=energy-union-president-arrested-at-oilsands-pipeline-protest

Maclean’s.ca – Police blanket Parliament as oilsands protesters gather
http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/09/26/police-blanket-parliament-as-oilsands-protestors-gather/

Rabble.ca - 1,000 on Parliament Hill to protest the tar sands
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/council-canadians/2011/09/update-1000-parliament-hill-protest-tar-sands

CTV Ottawa – Pipeline protestors cross barricades on Parliament Hill
http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110926/keystone-xl-pipeline-protest-ottawa-110926/20110926/?hub=OttawaHome

Greenpeace.org – Hundreds gather to say no to Canada’s tar sands
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/hundreds-gather-to-say-no-to-canadas-tar-sand/blog/37043/

APTN – At least 100 arrested during anti-tar sands protest on Parliament Hill: RCMP
http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2011/09/26/tar-sands-hundre-protest-arrests-on-parliament-hill/

care2.com – Dozen arrested at Canadian Tar Sands and Pipeline protest
http://www.care2.com/causes/dozens-arrested-at-canadian-tar-sands-and-pipeline-protest.html

Digital Journal – Hundreds assemble on Parliament Hill to say ‘No to Tar Sands’
http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/432390

National Union of Public and General Employees – Message to Harper: No to tar sands
http://www.nupge.ca/content/4505/civil-disobedience-action-parliament-hill-against-tar-sands-send-clear-message-harper-n

September 27 – Rabble.ca – Over 200 arrested at Ottawa tar sands protest
http://rabble.ca/news/2011/09/over-200-arrested-ottawa-tar-sands-protest

September 27 – Canadian Business – Police arrest anti-pipeline protesters after they cross Parliament Hill barrier
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article/47502--police-arrest-anti-pipeline-protesters-after-they-cross-parliament-hill-barrier\

RADIO

September 13 – 630 Ched AM (Edmonton) - Greenpeace wants mass civil disobedience in Ottawa
http://www.630ched.com/Channels/Reg/NewsLocal/Story.aspx?ID=1536821

September 13 – iNews880 AM (Edmonton) - Greenpeace wants mass civil disobedience in Ottawa
http://www.inews880.com/Channels/Reg/LocalNews/story.aspx?ID=1536822

September 20 – 680 News (Toronto) - Actors including Dave Thomas of SCTV hoser fame support Ottawa oilsands protest
http://www.680news.com/news/national/article/279414--actors-including-dave-thomas-of-sctv-hoser-fame-support-ottawa-oilsands-protest

September 20 – 1310 News (Ottawa) - Actors including Dave Thomas of SCTV hoser fame support Ottawa oilsands protest
http://www.1310news.com/news/national/article/279414--actors-including-dave-thomas-of-sctv-hoser-fame-support-ottawa-oilsands-protest

September 20 – NewsTalk 1010 (Toronto) - Actors including Dave Thomas of SCTV hoser fame support Ottawa oilsands protest
http://www.newstalk1010.com/News/Article.aspx?id=302578

September 20 – NewsTalk 980 (Regina) - SCTV actor says oilsands should take off, eh?
http://www.cjme.com/content/sctv-actor-says-oilsands-should-take-eh

September 26 – 660 News – Police arrest anti-pipeline protesters after they cross Parliament Hill barrier
http://www.660news.com/news/world/article/281496--police-setting-up-at-parliament-hill-in-advance-of-anti-pipeline-protests

September 26 – 1310 News – More than 100 people arrested at Parliament Hill anti-pipeline rally
http://www.1310news.com/news/national/article/281326--thousands-expected-to-protest-alberta-s-oilsands-on-parliament-hill

September 26 – 580 CFRA – Protesters arrested on Parliament Hill
http://www.cfra.com/?cat=1&nid=81810

PRINT

August 25 – Edmonton Journal - Pipeline protests planned for Ottawa http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/Pipeline+protests+planned+Ottawa/5307122/story.html

August 25 – Postmedia News and Canada.com – Pipelines protests planned for Ottawa
http://www.canada.com/Pipeline+protests+planned+Ottawa/5307122/story.html

August 26 – Telegraph Journal – Ottawa pipeline protests planned
http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/article/1434740

August 26 - Daily Gleaner – Pipeline protests planned for Ottawa
http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/rss/article/1434829

August 26 – Calgary Herald - Corbella: Don't arrest Greenpeace protestors at Ottawa anti-oilsands event
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Corbella+arrest+Greenpeace+protestors+Ottawa+anti+oilsands+event/5310816/story.html#ixzz1YczhPPhn

August 26 – Vancouver Sun - Corbella: Don't arrest Greenpeace protestors at Ottawa anti-oilsands event
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Corbella+arrest+Greenpeace+protestors+Ottawa+anti+oilsands+event/5310816/story.html

August 31 – Vancouver Sun - Call for responsible clean energy
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Call+responsible+clean+energy/5336802/story.html#ixzz1Wip7hfo4

September 9 – Montreal Gazette - Ottawa Keystone pipeline expansion protest planned for Sept 26
http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Ottawa+Keystone+protest+planned+Sept/5380180/story.html

September 11 – Toronto Star - Civil disobedience goes green
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1051885--civil-disobedience-goes-green

September 20 - TheChronicleHerald.ca - Actors join oilsands protest
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1264322.html

September 20 – Winnipeg Free Press - Actors including Dave Thomas of SCTV hoser fame support Ottawa oilsands protest
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/actors-including-dave-thomas-of-sctv-hoser-fame-support-ottawa-oilsands-protest--130203738.html

September 20 – Lethbridge Herald - Actors including Dave Thomas of SCTV hoser fame support Ottawa oilsands protest
http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/national-news/actors-including-dave-thomas-of-sctv-hoser-fame-support-ottawa-oilsands-protest.html

September 20 – The Daily Courier (Kelowna)
http://www.fpinfomart.ca/doc/doc_display.php?key=qs|658777765|kedc|20110921|119278500

September 20 – Canadian Press – Top News Advisory as of 9:30 p.m.
http://www.fpinfomart.ca/doc/doc_display.php?key=qs|658777765|wcpa|20110920|119260536

September 20 – Metro Halifax (Mobile) - SCTV actor says oilsands should take off, eh?
http://mobile.metronews.ca/halifax/canada/article/974455

September 20 – MedicineHatNews.com - Actors including Dave Thomas of SCTV hoser fame support Ottawa oilsands protest
http://www.medicinehatnews.com/national-news/actors-including-dave-thomas-of-sctv-hoser-fame-support-ottawa-oilsands-protest.html

September 21 – Metro Ottawa - Protesters? Check! Police? Check! Celebs? Also check!

http://www.metronews.ca/ottawa/local/article/976247--protesters-check-police-check-celebs-also-check
September 21 - Call to action: Hundreds of Canadians step up the campaign for the environment
http://vueweekly.com/front/story/call_to_action/

September 22 – Huffington Post Canada – Gordon Pinsent And The Oil Sands: Elder Statesman Of Canadian Theatre Throws His Weight Behind Protests
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/09/22/gordon-pinsent-oil-sands_n_976519.html

Tagged with: canada, ottawa, civil disobedience

State Department Considered 2-Year Keystone Pipeline Delay—Briefly

News Articles Featured | Inside Climate News | September 27, 2011

Read the full article on the originating site

In June of 2010, in the midst of the BP Gulf oil disaster, someone deep in the bowels of the U.S. State Department was considering a two-year delay in the Keystone XL pipeline project, according to documents released last week. Public concerns about the oil industry were peaking, and the $7 billion Canada-to-Texas oil sands pipeline, which had looked like a shoo-in at the beginning of 2010, was getting a closer look.

At one point, the State Department even asked a lawyer for TransCanada, the Alberta-based company that was trying to get a federal permit to build the pipeline, to provide an assessment of how such a delay would impact the company.

What happened to that request—or to the idea of possibly delaying federal approval of the pipeline—remains a mystery, crucial to understanding the decision-making process behind one of the biggest energy projects pending before the Obama administration. The pipeline would allow an enormous supply of a particularly dirty form of oil, locked up in Alberta's tar sands, to reach refineries in the Gulf of Mexico and markets around the world.

The documents, which the State Department released last week in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Friends of the Earth, contain no further mention of a possible delay beyond an email thread that began on June 28 and petered out on June 30.

The documents do show, however, that TransCanada had special access to key State Department officials during this delicate period, when the future of the company's most important project hung in the balance. In 2009 TransCanada had begun ordering the large-diameter pipe it would need for the project. Evraz, the Russian company that got some of the business, announced that steel and pipe production for TransCanada’s order would begin in 2010.

TransCanada's most important link to the State Department was its Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist, Paul Elliott, who had been a senior member of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. A month earlier, Elliott had secured an exclusive meeting for TransCanada's CEO with a key State Department official, who coached him on what the company should insert into the public record. 

Now Elliott went to work again, relaying TransCanada's concern about the possible two-year delay to the office of the Secretary of State. His contact there was Nora Toiv, a special assistant who knew him from having also worked on the Clinton campaign. Toiv forwarded his note up the chain, and within two days it was slated for discussion with Secretary Clinton's Chief of Staff, Cheryl D. Mills. Like Elliott and Toiv, Mills had worked on Clinton's presidential campaign.

Nick Berning, the communications director with Friends of the Earth, said the newly released documents offer clear evidence of a conflict of interest involving the Secretary of State and her staff, which is unfairly tipping the scales in favor of the oil industry at the expense of public health and welfare.

"The State Department’s job is to act in the public interest, but this document implies State was looking out for a private oil firm instead," Berning said.

Friends of the Earth received 34 documents from the State Department in response to its freedom of information request, but plans to ask for more. Damon Moglen, the organization's climate and energy director, said attachments referenced in the emails are missing, along with notes that would have been routinely taken during meetings that TransCanada had with State Department officials. There is also evidence that some official business was being conducted between Elliott and State Department staffers via their personal email accounts, he said.

TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha referred questions about the possible two-year delay, and about TransCanada's access to high-level officials, to the State Department.

Keep reading

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, state department

Anti-oilsands activists stage huge Hill protest (photos and video)

News Articles | Ottawa Citizen | September 26, 2011

Read the full article on the originating site

Waves of protesters against oilsands development and TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline into the United States made crossed security barriers on Parliament Hill Monday in defiance of RCMP officers on security duty.

Tagged with: canada, ottawa, civil disobedience

Ottawa sit-in to protests federal support of oilsands

News Articles Featured | Vancouver Sun | September 24, 2011

Read the full article on the originating site

EDMONTON — Environmental groups are hoping to trigger what they call the "largest civil disobedience action in the history of Canada’s climate movement"Monday in Ottawa — a sit-in on Parliament Hill to protest federal government support of Alberta's oilsands.

“This isn’t about condemning anybody that works in the tarsands or oilsands industry. This is about presenting choices,” said Greenpeace campaigner Mike Hudema.

The Edmonton-based activist, who plans to be in Ottawa on Monday, said he hopes people do not see the protest as an attack on Alberta, but as a bid for a “clean-energy economy.”

Monday’s action takes aim at Alberta’s oilsands as a whole, but the effort piggybacks on growing American and Canadian attention to the proposed $12-billion Keystone XL pipeline extension.

As U.S. lawmakers draw closer to deciding whether to approve the massive project, expected to eventually pump 900,000 barrels of raw bitumen daily from Hardisty, Alta., across nine states to refineries in Texas, the pipeline proposal has become a magnet for wider environmental and economic debate on Alberta’s oilsands production. Where environmental activists weigh in against bolstering fossil fuel development, Canadian unions and even former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed have raised questions about exporting jobs. Across the U.S., meanwhile, local organizations worry about backyard environmental issues — including worst-case scenarios for the pipeline’s impact on the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska.

“It’s been an interesting year, and yeah, it’s been challenging,” said Shawn Howard, a spokesman for TransCanada, the Calgary-based company building the pipeline.

In the wake of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the 2010 Enbridge pipeline rupture that affected the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, however, Howard said it was no surprise to find the Keystone XL project in the cross-hairs.

“That changes how people look at an entire industry, not just a single project,” Howard said. “All we can do is point to our industry-leading safety and operating record as something we’re proud of.”

Despite industry assurances — and efforts by members of the Alberta government to intercede by meeting with their American counterparts — opposition to the project drew a range of activists to Washington, D.C. last month for a two-week protest during which about 1,250 people were arrested, including actresses Daryl Hannah, Margot Kidder and Tantoo Cardinal.

Hudema called the Washington action an inspiration for his and other organizations — including the Sierra Club, the Council of Canadians, the Polaris Institute and the Indigenous Environmental Network — which hope more than 100 people will meet in front of the House of Commons Monday and then move in groups into the building, where they anticipate arrest. Hudema said he expects protesters will arrive from across Canada, including from Alberta.

“It’s more about the tarsands in general, but of course the pipelines are a big part” of the fight, Hudema said. “The pipelines are what are going to allow or prevent the tarsands from expanding (or) the damage from getting significantly bigger.”

Business observers aren’t so sure the protests will capture public imagination to the point where approval for the Keystone XL project stumbles, however — even in light of mass arrests.

“When they put their mind to it they can really put on a good show of force and make a strong statement,” said David MacLean, vice-president of the Alberta Enterprise Group. Since 2008, MacLean’s Edmonton-based umbrella group has taken a cross-section of business leaders and politicians to Washington to talk about and defend the oilsands.

“The debate is so many levels,” MacLean said, including the need for oilsands companies to improve their environmental records.

But also, he said, there is a public-relations battleground.

“Sometimes it means getting your hands dirty because this is a fight.”

And the province’s role in the fight has not gone unnoticed by members of industry or the protesters taking on bitumen extraction, its carbon footprint, tailings ponds and pipelines. Where business people applaud the efforts of ministers and provincial politicians to tell Alberta’s oil story in the United States and abroad, activists like Hudema accuse the government of having become a “mouthpiece” for the oilsands.

“I think industry has asked the government to make sure that we represent what’s true in Alberta and what we represent when we go to America is the Alberta story, which isn’t so much in defence of industry,” International and Intergovernmental Relations Minister Iris Evans said.

Since January, her department and the premier’s office have spent about $92,500 on missions to the U.S. to discuss Alberta-produced energy and build relationships.

Evans is hoping the next premier — to be selected by Progressive Conservatives on Oct. 1 — will visit Washington later this fall as Keystone XL hearings continue, to gauge impacts on residents along the proposed pipeline route.

“I guess you could characterize (protests) as certainly distractions on that front, but I don’t want to belittle their intent,” Evans said.

“I think we have to do our due diligence so that we understand what elements of truth exist in any kind of protest, and make sure that we’re well prepared to defend what we do in the most positive way.”

Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/Ottawa+protests+federal+support+oilsands/5454666/story.html#ixzz1ZjWOPcFJ

Tagged with: canada, ottawa, civil disobedience

Pipelines to the B.C. coast more important than Keystone: HSBC

News Articles Featured | Vancouver Sun | September 24, 2011

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Pipelines for oil and gas through British Columbia are "significantly more important" than the controversial Keystone XL pipeline to the U.S., the president of the HSBC Bank Canada told a Business Council of B.C. conference Friday.

Citing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's statement that U.S. approval of the Keystone pipeline linking Alberta's oilsands to U.S. markets is a "no brainer," HSBC president Lindsay Gordon said a pipeline to the West Coast is more important.

"I'm not suggesting that pipelines to the West Coast across British Columbia are a no brainer, but I would certainly argue in terms of the strategic importance to Canada and B.C.'s future, they are actually significantly more important than pipelines to the U.S., including Keystone."

Gordon was one of several chief executive officers to stress the importance and urgency of developing access to Asian markets for Canadian energy at the conference, titled British Columbia's Asian Gateway.

They cited the fact that other energy producers are moving more quickly into Asia than is Canada and when it comes to natural gas, the U.S. has huge shale gas reserves that will continue to depress the price Canada receives from American customers.

"We are the only oil and gas exporter in the world that does not have access to a global market," Shell Canada president Lorraine Mitchelmore said "All of our eggs are in one basket in the U.S. That's been great, it's served us well, but things have changed and it's not fine any longer. U.S. demand for our energy is not growing and unless we diversify our markets, we could be in trouble down the road."

She said British Columbia's role as the Pacific Gateway was incomplete as long as it does not include oil and gas.

"B.C. is a real gateway," she said. "But the gate is not fully opened, for energy in particular. Canada really needs to diversify its customer base for energy products and create access to global energy markets."

Enbridge president Patrick Daniel said as long as Canada's energy sector remains dependent on the U.S. market, it will be isolated from higher global pricing. He stressed the economic significance of oil exports, a $50 billion annual export.

"It's not just one of our exports. It is the most important export."

He said Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline proposal from Edmonton to Kitimat "is the best way to move crude oil to the West Coast."

The proposed pipeline would move more than half a million barrels a day and would result in a $2 to $3 per barrel price uptick of every barrel of oil produced in Canada. It would create 63,000 person-years of employment.

The CEOs' call for pipelines received applause from the 300 business delegates at the convention, but oil pipelines would threaten indigenous cultures and salmon fisheries, Karen Tam Wu, of the environmental group ForestEthics said in an email to The Sun.

"Industry, like Shell and Enbridge, may be looking for an economic boom, but local cultures and livelihoods will go bust," she said "Shell and Enbridge's projects alone face unwavering opposition by locals, in no small part because the $110 million annual Skeena salmon economy would be threatened."

ForestEthics members were outside the Vancouver Convention Centre to present their case for no pipelines to the business delegates as they arrived.

Inside, the oil and gas industry's dependence on only one market was compared to the forest industry, which was subjected to export restrictions for softwood lumber and then had that market collapse when the U.S. housing crisis hit.

The country's oil and gas sector is now totally dependent on the U.S. market, and needs to follow the forest industry's lead in diversifying into Asia, said Daniel.

He said the forest industry's problems - first a trade dispute and then economic decline in its one and only market - summed up the issue oil and gas producers face in relying on a single market.

Hank Ketcham, president of West Fraser Timber, described how the forest industry had developed its China connection by establishing good relations at both the business and government level.

The development of the Chinese market was "fortuitous" for the forest industry, Ketcham told the conference. The forest industry, he said "is the poster child for what government and industry in collaboration and some really good luck can accomplish in opening up new markets."

He said diversifying into China, which has now overtaken the U.S. as the industry's largest market, has saved 6,000 jobs.

In a later interview, Mitchelmore said Shell is still in the feasibility stage for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in B.C.

She said Shell is also in discussion with potential customers in Asia and that Shell's proposed West Coast terminal would be of a global scale. It would cost "billions."

"It's significant size," she said. "We have a huge market; we have a huge resource in B.C. and we need to join the two up."

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, enbridge, northern gateway, hsbc

Keep Alberta oil off your hands, environmentalists warn British PM

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | September 23, 2011

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A British group that opposes the tar sands is warning Prime Minister David Cameron, who will visit Parliament Hill on Thursday, that it does not serve him well to get too close to his canadian counterpart, Stephen Harper.

In a strongly worded release, the UK Tar Sands Network demands that the “British government stop defending Canada’s criminal record on climate change.”“We would just like to say that David Cameron needs to look at how far he is sidling up to Canada in terms of pushing tar sands oil at a time when people in Europe and the UK are opposed to tar sands extraction,” Gemma Long, a campaigner with the group, said in a telephone interview from Britain.

She said Britain is one of the few countries that is trying to stop the Fuel Quality Directive that is before the European Union. It aims to tighten the environmental standards for transport fuels coming to the continent.

“We’re seeing that Canada is pushing to stop this legislation from going ahead because it sees it as a threat to oil sands development,” she said. “So we see that Canada’s interest to push tar sands oil to global markets is interfering with international legislation to help mitigate climate change.”

Canada’s oil sands industry counters that it is providing a secure source of energy while reducing its impact on the environment and providing economic benefits to society. “Our industry understands Canadians' concerns and is working with new techniques and technologies to reduce our environmental impact,” the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers says on its website.

Several advocates also argue that the tar-sands oil is more “ethical” than oil from places like Saudi Arabia, which discriminate against women.

At the moment, Europe does not rely on the tar sands for oil. But that could change if the Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport the bitumen extracted from the sands to the Gulf of Mexico for processing, said Ms. Long. From there it could be shipped around the world.

“The emissions from the tar sands will have a global impact on climate change initiatives that affect everyone,” she said. “Instead of moving away to renewable energy paradigm, the Canadian government is keeping the world stuck, not only in oil but the dirtiest form of oil.”

The union that represents Alberta oil-sands workers is on the Hill Thursday pressing MPs to oppose the Keystone pipeline. And aboriginal and other advocacy groups plan to rally against the oil sands with a sit-in in Ottawa on Monday.

Tagged with: britain

‘Ethical oil’ ad sparks war of words between Ottawa, Saudis

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | September 21, 2011

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A pro-industry group that promotes Canada’s “ethical” oil sands has sparked an international row with a television ad attacking Saudi Arabia’s record on women’s rights.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney on Tuesday slammed the Saudi embassy’s apparent effort to kill a 30-second advocacy ad that argues U.S. reliance on Canada’s oil-sands production is more “ethical” than buying oil from the undemocratic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The offending ad ran on the Oprah Winfrey Network in Canada, and is now appearing on SUN TV, but a planned run on CTV’s Newsnet was cancelled due to legal concerns after a lawyer for the Saudis wrote a letter of complaint.

The ad was produced by EthicalOil.org, an advocacy group that was the brainchild of Conservative activist Ezra Levant and was founded by Alykhan Velshi, a former aide to Mr. Kenney.

Oil-industry executives and Conservative government ministers, including Environment Minister Peter Kent, have echoed the ethical-oil argument, popularized in Mr. Levant’s book, Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands. Environmental organizations, meanwhile, have mounted high-profile protests aimed at stopping the expansion of oil-sands imports to the U.S.

In hiring a law firm to complain about an attack ad, the Saudis have thrown oil on the fire.

Mr. Velshi said lawyers from the international law firm Norton Rose LLP sent “cease and desist” letters to the national advertising watchdog, as well as to media companies, warning about potential legal action.

Bell Media, which owns CTV, confirmed it had been informed by the Saudis of a legal dispute over the commercial, and cancelled plans to run it.

“As the ad in question is the subject of a legal dispute between Ethical Oil and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, at the advisement of our legal department we will not accept the order until the matter is resolved,” the company said in a statement.

Mr. Kenney and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver both condemned the Saudi legal tactic.

“Canada is a country that is a champion of freedom of speech. That is a constitutional right,” the Immigration Minister said.

“And we don’t take kindly to foreign governments threatening directly or indirectly Canadian broadcasters or media for giving voice to freedom of speech. We think that’s inappropriate and certainly inconsistent with Canada’s belief in freedom of speech.”

Mr. Oliver said Canadians don’t “appreciate any attempt by a foreign country to undermine our freedoms.”

Mr. Velshi e-mailed the chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, asking that the MPs “investigate this brazen attempt by a foreign dictatorship to censor” what appears on Canadian television. The chair, Conservative MP Dean Allison, promised to consider the request.

Neither officials from the Saudi embassy, now its lawyer, Rahool Agarwal, responded to requests for comment on Tuesday.

The Saudi spat comes as the Harper government is aggressively defending the reputation of the oil-sands internationally. Ottawa has warned the European Union that it will complain to the World Trade Organization if the EU moves forward with a proposed fuel quality standard that would single out the oil sands as particularly dirty.

The federal government has also mounted an aggressive campaign to counter environmentalists’ efforts to derail a planned Canadian pipeline that would deliver 500,000 barrels per day of oil-sands bitumen to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The Canadians insist the U.S. would be better served purchasing its oil from Canada, rather than undemocratic suppliers from the conflict-plagued Middle East.

But environmentalists say that argument presents a false choice between Canadian and Saudi crude, when the goal should be to reduce dependence on all sources of oil.

“If Canada’s ambition is to be no worse than Saudi Arabia, then the Conservative government should be prepared to defend that before the people of Canada,” said Greenpeace spokesman Keith Stewart.

“I think Canadians expect our government to actually improve environmental performance and not simply get better PR.”

Mr. Stewart insisted the EthicalOil group is merely a “front group for “Big Oil,” noting that it is headquartered at a Calgary law firm, McLennan Ross, that promotes itself as an oil-sands specialist. Mr. Velshi said the group is grassroots and accepts donations from Canadian companies and individuals who support the oil industry.

Tagged with: ethical oil, alykhan velshi, ezra levant, jason kenney, saudi arabia

No new oil sands emissions rules this year: Peter Kent

News Articles Featured | National Post | September 19, 2011

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Ottawa will not bring out new rules for greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands this year, contrary to what Environment Minister Peter Kent said in May.

Mr. Kent said in an interview that the government is “in the early consultation stage” with the oil sector and “won’t have regulations immediately.” He said the process was slowed down by last spring’s election and budget negotiations.

He was speaking the day the Wall Street Journal reported the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it was delaying plans to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants because it needed more time to propose the rules. The newspaper said that the EPA is under pressure from businesses and Republican lawmakers not to put forward new regulations that would hinder recovery.

Mr. Kent said Canada and U.S. are distinct cases. “They do have those pressures because they’re in a much more fragile economic situation.”

But he added Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made it clear that the economic recovery is his first priority. “We’re doing all this with a great sensitivity not to strand capital, threaten jobs or impact on consumer pricing,” he said.

Last month, the Minister unveiled new coal-emission rules that will impose emissions standards on coal-fired power stations as stringent as those on natural gas power plants when the rules are introduced in 2015. The government is now working on regulations for gas-fired plants.

Mr. Kent made it clear that a cap-and-trade plan will not be part of the oil sands equation. The plan instead is to have guidelines that allow sectors to meet targets through technological improvements. For example, the coal sector will likely have to cut 70% of emissions, most likely through carbon capture.

Canada has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, the same target as the United States. Critics contend that emissions trends suggest the expansion of the oil sands will prevent Canada from hitting its targets, unless tough new environmental rules are put in place.

Mr. Kent was speaking from Washington, where he was attending the Major Economies Forum on Climate Change, a meeting of 21 countries attempting to get some pre-agreements in place before the major Convention on Climate Change conference in Durban, South Africa, in December. The Minister said he is starting to hear a softening of tone from some developing countries and a willingness to be more pragmatic in recognizing that there will be no deal unless it includes all major emitters. “They must recognize we’re in a post-Kyoto situation,” he said. “We share with the United States a concern that no new binding agreement is going to be created until we have something that all the major emitters will buy into,” he said.

Tagged with: greenhouse gases, peter kent, emissions

Pipeline to prosperity or channel to catastrophe?

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | September 16, 2011

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There are countless little brooks and rivulets garlanding the islands and inlets of the Great Bear Rainforest in remote northern British Columbia, many without even a name. But the salmon know them well, and return each September, paddling relentlessly against the current, leaping over rocks and little waterfalls, shedding their skin and dying from the outside in to give life to another generation.Because salmon are the keystone to this ecosystem’s food chain, many never make it back to their birthplaces to spawn. At this time of year, the banks of the streams are littered with salmon carcasses and splayed guts like the remains of some grisly bacchanal. Many are tidily decapitated and otherwise fully intact, because the local wolf packs feed only on the heads.

Later in the month, the black bears come, accompanied by a few of their elusive cousins, the kermodes, born with a recessive gene that leaves their coats a ghostly pale yellow. The locals call them spirit bears. Salmon give life to this lush band of forest stretching from Prince Rupert to the north shore of Vancouver Island, the largest pristine ecosystem of its kind left in North America. But the spirit bears are the icons: August’s National Geographic cover featured one, with the headline “The Wildest Place in North America.”

That wild place is set to become the front line of a battle over Canada's energy future.

At the beginning of 2010, the National Energy Board and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency formed a Joint Review Panel to consider an application made by Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. for permission to snake a pair of oil pipelines 1,172 kilometres from the oil sands north of Edmonton to the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest. Traversing the territories of more than 40 first nations, both pipelines would end at a new terminal in Kitimat, a small industrial town.

One pipeline would carry Alberta-mined bitumen to Kitimat for international shipping; the other would deliver condensate (needed to make bitumen viscous enough to flow through pipelines) back to Alberta. Transporting the product out of Kitimat would generate oil-tanker traffic of unprecedented frequency and scale.

Enbridge calls the project Northern Gateway, promising jobs, prosperity and expanded markets. Opponents, including nearly all of the first nations along its intended route, see it as an oil-spill catastrophe waiting to happen. Yet while pipelines are fast emerging as a flashpoint in the climate-change debate, so far the argument has been muted in Canada – a symptom of our conflicted feelings about the role our energy resources should play in our national destiny.

Oil pipelines are making headlines as never before. An all-star roster of climate-change activists staged a sit-in at the White House in the last two weeks of August over a pending State Department decision on the Keystone XL – a proposed expansion of an existing pipeline bringing oil from central Alberta to Texas refineries. More than 1,000 people were arrested, including climate scientist James Hansen, actress Daryl Hannah and authors Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein.

Nine Nobel Peace Prize winners signed a letter urging President Barack Obama to say no to the Keystone project, arguing that the pipeline would “endanger the entire planet.” If unconventional fossil fuels such as Alberta's bitumen were allowed to proliferate, Mr. Hansen said, it would be “essentially game over” in the fight to stabilize climate.

Meanwhile, politicians and industry leaders have been speaking another language entirely. Prime Minister Stephen Harper urged the U.S. to increase its oil imports “from the most secure, most stable and friendliest location it can possibly get that energy,” while Canada's ambassador in Washington talked up job creation. A spokesman for TransCanada Pipelines touted the “conflict-free” pedigree of Alberta's hydrocarbons.

The main dispute is about the dirtiness of Alberta's oil. Is it simply 700,000 barrels a day of petroleum like any other, delivered by a trusted friend? Or a singularly deadly “carbon bomb” (as Mr. McKibben has put it)?

Mr. Hansen argued that a fully exploited oil-sands operation could add 200 parts per million of carbon dioxide to the Earth's atmosphere. Andrew Leach, a business professor at the University of Alberta, crunched the numbers and determined that even at five million barrels a day – among the rosiest scenarios for Alberta production by 2030 and more than triple its current output – it would take until the year 3316 to reach Mr. Hansen's prediction. As Mr. Leach pointed out, advocates and opponents are using different kinds of calculations to yield the figures that serve them best.

This split on numbers reflects a much deeper division: To proponents, new pipelines are a matter of job creation and energy demand. To climate activists, the focus is on emissions and the long-term health of the planet. As Mr. McKibben wrote recently, “We're fighting back against the rise of this new energy paradigm, and this is the clearest place to make the fight.”

“People are debating in two different tones,” Mr. Leach said. “And I think that's still where we're at in Canada. We haven't been able to find a position that we're comfortable with, to say, ‘Here's why it makes sense for us to have an oil-and-gas industry,’ in a world that’s concerned about climate change.”

Keystone XL was mostly a U.S. conversation, but the Northern Gateway is a profoundly Canadian affair. When I visited the Great Bear Rainforest last year, I stayed in the remote village of Hartley Bay, a Gitga'at First Nation settlement of 160 accessible only by boat and float plane. If the pipeline is built, the Gitga'at will watch an oil tanker larger than anything that has ever navigated their fishing grounds churn past almost every day. They saw the B.C. ferry Queen of the North – less than half the size of a supertanker – sink in those waters just a few years ago, so they are not soothed by Enbridge’s promises of “world-class” marine safety.

Alberta's bitumen currently flows at the rate of 300,000 barrels a day down the Trans Mountain pipeline, operated by Texas-based Kinder Morgan, to the port of Vancouver. Northern Gateway would add 525,000 barrels and greatly expand the industry's access to the new market most coveted by Alberta's oil-sands industry, one not likely to greet it with a star-studded protest: The pipeline is, first and foremost, a gateway to China.

Since the plan was announced in 2005, Enbridge executives have talked vaguely about “the Pacific Rim” and name-dropped California, but recent talk has dropped much of that pretense. Two oil companies partly owned by the Chinese government – China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. Ltd. (Sinopec) and CNOOC Ltd. – have already invested.

Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert has suggested that such access to Chinese customers is critical to the growth of the whole industry. “If we don't soon figure out how to get the product to Asia, the investment is going to dry up,” he told a Bloomberg reporter recently. “The Chinese want to see things happen. If we want to continue to be open to Asian investment, there comes a quid pro quo in their mind and that's coming up fast.”

Northern Gateway's fate will be decided officially by a three-member Joint Review Panel, which will begin hearings in early 2012. Its trial in the court of public opinion, however, has already begun.

Opposition among the first nations along its route is strident; Enbridge offered them a 10-per-cent stake in the pipeline, and was flatly rejected. In March, 2010, the Coastal First Nations – an alliance of nine nations along the coast – issued a blunt declaration that “oil tankers carrying crude oil from the Alberta tar sands will not be allowed to transit our lands and waters.”

Should it pass, the Gateway surely would make a lot of money for companies headquartered in Houston and Beijing as well as in Calgary, and it would fulfill a certain vision of Canada as an “energy superpower.” It also may tether the Canadian energy economy to China's for a generation.

And symbolically, the pipeline would be a fitting monument to Canada's resource history – a horizontal exclamation point at the end of five centuries of exploitation, from beaver pelts to mining, forestry and cod. Indeed. Enbridge has touted it as a piece of national infrastructure, akin to the St. Lawrence Seaway.

There's a tendency in some circles to treat the oil sands as a prairie aberration, but part of the reason the industry has thrived is that it's so consistent with the country's traditional economy. The oil sands are as Canadian as a Hudson's Bay blanket.

There's a more recent Canadian tradition, though – the one that celebrates moderation, fair play, stewardship and compromise. It gave rise to the national parks, land-claims tribunals, Nunavut, Greenpeace and the Montreal Protocol. It argues that Canada can do more with its natural abundance than extract, export and exhaust it at maximum speed. When Enbridge touts its pipeline-safety measures and marine stewardship – the double-hulled boats, the master mariners tugging the tankers carefully past Great Bear's salmon streams – it is sincerely attempting to participate in that vision.

Yet sincerity is not the same as authenticity. Avoiding an oil spill is not a substitute for reducing greenhouse gases. The conversation has skipped ahead a generation while Canada slept. Catching up could begin with the simple agreement that the wild land of the spirit bear is no place for pipelines – but also that there will probably be a place for pipelines, at least for the near term. But that would be just the start of an honest discussion of Canada's uncharted energy future.

Chris Turner is a Calgary-based author. His book The Leap: How to Survive and Thrive in the Sustainable Economy is being published this month by Random House.

Tagged with: pipeline, enbridge, northern gateway, british columbia

Former premier Peter Lougheed raises job fears over Keystone pipeline plan

News Articles Featured | Calgary Herald | September 14, 2011

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The divisions between original Progressive Conservatives and the next generation of Tory leaders was on full display Tuesday as former premier Peter Lougheed said he doesn’t agree with shipping refinery jobs down south — specifically through the Keystone XL pipeline to the U.S.

It’s a policy stance supported by Alberta unions and opposition parties, but stands in stark contrast to the position of candidates in the race to replace departing Premier Ed Stelmach.

“What Keystone gives us is an opportunity to continue to have a lot of strong economic development in the province,” candidate Alison Redford said Tuesday.

“At this point in time, in terms of how our economy is structured, Keystone makes sense,” Redford said.

TransCanada’s proposed pipeline system expansion would run from Alberta’s oilsands through the U.S. to the oil-thirsty refineries of the Gulf Coast. But the controversial project has not yet been given final approval in the U.S.

Ted Morton and Rick Orman are in favour of the pipeline.

Former health minister and leadership candidate Gary Mar has pledged if he wins the premier’s chair, he will be in Washington, D.C., next month to advocate for the project at congressional hearings.

“Premier Lougheed is somebody that I have a great deal of respect for, but this is an important project for Alberta,” Mar said.

Leadership candidates Doug Horner and Doug Griffiths have more nuanced takes on Keystone.

“I think in general I’m in favour of Keystone,” Horner said at a Herald editorial board meeting Tuesday.

At the same time, Horner said he wants to see 60 to 65 per cent of all bitumen upgraded in Alberta, and that the government can be a “catalyst” for that economic development.

Griffiths, MLA for Battle River-Wainwright, said if the U.S. rejects the Keystone project, “I wouldn’t be upset. I’d smile and say, ‘Great, we’ll upgrade it here, and we’ll ship it to somewhere that does want it.’ ”

Lougheed, who served as premier from 1971 to 1985, has long called for “more orderly development in the oilsands,” saying the current system drives up costs for everything from labour to consumer goods across the province.

On Tuesday, he took on the issue of where Alberta’s hydrocarbons get processed into usable fuels. In an interview broadcast on CBC Radio, Lougheed said the Keystone pipeline will create thousands of new jobs in Texas, and he doesn’t agree with that.

“We should we be refining it in Alberta and we should make it public policy of the province. Hopefully the new premier, whoever he or she is, will deal with that issue pretty quickly.”

Lougheed’s comments on Keystone and bitumen processing mirror what Alberta’s opposition party leaders have said.

Newly elected Alberta Liberal Leader Raj Sherman indicated he doesn’t want raw bitumen shipped out of the country — he wants the processing jobs here.

NDP Leader Brian Mason, who has long said the Keystone pipeline will kill economic opportunities for the province, said he hopes Lougheed’s comments bring more attention to the management of Alberta’s non-renewable resources.

“I feel like I’ve been rescued by the cavalry,” Mason said of Lougheed’s words. “He can tell the difference between the interests of the oil companies and the interests of the province.”

But TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard said the company is simply delivering on a demand for its services, and there is no Canadian alternative for refining the product being brought forward.

“It’s up to the market to make choices,” Howard said.

In an e-mail, Canadian Energy Pipeline Association president Brenda Kenny said the Keystone project should be looked at from the broader perspective of North American energy infrastructure development.

“In some cases, bitumen upgrading in Alberta is part of the overall value proposition,” Kenny said. “In some other cases, due to different market conditions, it is not.”

Up until recently, the pipeline’s main public critics have been environmental groups who have panned everything from the increasing greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands, to the effects of the pipeline crossing over key American aquifers.

The final word on whether the project will be approved will come from U.S. President Barack Obama’s office late this year or early in 2012.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Former+premier+Peter+Lougheed+raises+fears+over+Keystone+pipeline+plan/5397764/story.html#ixzz1XyFzhlZ4

Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline, alberta, jobs, peter lougheed, progressive conservatives

Daryl Hannah’s ‘dirty’ talk has Brad Wall evangelizing ethical oil

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | September 14, 2011

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Brad Wall is taking on Al Gore and Daryl Hannah in their own country.

The Saskatchewan Premier believes “mythmaking” and “conspiracy” theories around the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project are hurting Canada’s trade relationship with the United States.

Embracing the Harper government’s ethical-oil defence, Mr. Wall said he spoke “bluntly” recently to a group of influential American politicians about the star-studded protests in Washington against the $7-billion pipeline project.

He reflected on his speech and the message he delivered in an interview with The Globe this week.

“Here you have a friend, here you have a country that has the same core values in terms of democracy, freedom and human rights ... and that’s the country you target when you are happy to import oil from places where women are not allowed to drive, where gays are persecuted, where there is no democracy and I think it’s time that we speak bluntly about that because overall the relationship is suffering,” the Premier said.

Mr. Wall delivered this message to about 35 state speakers at their annual conference, which was held in Charleston, South Carolina. State speakers are much more powerful and politically involved than the House of Commons Speaker, who usually remains above the political fray.

“I wanted to come at this dirty oil stuff,” Mr. Wall said. He was perturbed about the message coming from the recent protests in Washington – that saw the arrests of Hollywood stars and Canadian activist Naomi Klein – over the 2,700 kilometre project that will deliver oil from the Alberta oil sands to a refinery in Texas.

The project is in a 90-day review period and U.S. President Barack Obama is being urged by celebrities, including Ms. Hannah, and other activists to turn it down.

Mr. Wall says they are unnecessarily ramping up the debate. And he was critical of former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, who has said the oil inside the pipeline is “the dirtiest source of fuel on the planet.”

The Premier accused Mr. Gore of ignoring “inconvenient truths” about Canada’s oil sands – a sly reference to Mr. Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary on global warming. He argues that no other country is putting more public money into trying to reduce the carbon footprint of oil production than Canada.

Although his province does not have a stake in the pipeline, he is getting involved in the debate because he believes the rhetoric is hurting Canada-U.S. ties. “I think that this particular issue as large as it is especially if it goes to something like energy has the potential to lean into other parts.”

The use of “incendiary language” like calling labelling Canadian oil “dirty oil” is over the top, Mr. Wall added. “I really don’t think it helps the relationship.”

The Premier said he is not shilling for the federal government. In addition, he said his appearance at the speakers’ meeting has nothing to do with his upcoming election campaign. Rather, he has a relationship – personal and business – with former U.S. ambassador to Canada David Wilkins, who is also a former South Carolina speaker.

Mr. Wall said the “unique opportunity” – he was the only Canadian invited – was too good to pass up, especially since he is aggressively trying get his province known in the United States and internationally.

It seems to be working. South Carolina Speaker Bobby Harrell, who hosted the meeting, had never met Mr. Wall before. He told The Globe Wednesday the Premier received three standing ovations.

“I didn’t know what to expect. ... He had everybody sitting on the edge of their seats. His message was right on target. ... I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t have a greater future in Canadian politics.”

Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline, ethical oil, brad wall, daryl hannah

Enbridge misses river cleanup deadline as more oil discovered

News Articles Featured | Calgary Herald | September 09, 2011

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Pockets of submerged oil have been discovered in a Michigan river one year after an Enbridge Inc. pipeline ruptured, forcing the Calgarybased company to miss a key cleanup deadline set by U.S. regulators.

Enbridge said it could not meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency directive to completely recover oil in and on the Kalamazoo River by Aug. 31 because the scope of some contaminated areas had tripled.

The deadline had been issued before a reassessment of the spill had been completed in the summer, said spokeswoman Lorraine Grymala.

"Once summer cleanup began after the completion of the reassessment, we learned that some submerged oil locations had shifted since the reassessment and other areas expanded," Grymala said in an e-mail.

"The area actually worked to date has increased by 79 per cent over what was identified at the end of the spring reassessment."

The Line 6B oil pipeline break in July 2010 spewed more than 23,000 barrels, or three million litres, of heavy crude into a creek feeding the Kalamazoo River, tainting the lush recreational waterway for more than 50 kilometres.

Mark Durno, an emergency response official with the EPA who had been following the clean up efforts since the spill, said much of the remaining oil pollution was not immediately apparent.

"The river looks great," Durno said recently, to local media. "The problem isn't what you see. It's what you don't see."

Approximately 2,000 barrels of oil remain spread along 56 kilometres of the river, the EPA said.

The agency said it would continue to evaluate the company's work progress and expects Enbridge to complete the work as soon as possible. New timelines for the cleanup will be forthcoming in the coming weeks.

When questioned by the Herald if Enbridge faces additional penalties because of not meeting the August deadline, the agency said it is "evaluating additional steps."

The agency has spent $29.1 million so far in cleaning up the area, costs Enbridge will be required to reimburse.

The penalties would have to be extremely severe to affect parent company Enbridge, as much of the expense will be covered by insurance, noted Steven Paget, with FirstEnergy Capital Corp.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Enbridge+misses+river+cleanup+deadline+more+discovered/5375192/story.html#ixzz1XlSPyQRy

Tagged with: pipeline, enbridge, oil spill, michigan, kalamazoo, cleanup

Alberta must clean up oilsands or risk U.S. markets: Morton

News Articles Featured | Edmonton Journal | September 09, 2011

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EDMONTON - Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Ted Morton says if Alberta doesn’t clean up its act in the oilsands, Ottawa will step in to regulate and Americans will stop buying the province’s energy.

At a meeting with The Journal editorial board Thursday, Morton committed to improving environmental outcomes in the oilsands and highlighted the work he has already done to meet that goal.

“In the same way that conservatives think it is wrong to leave a financial debt to the next generation, I think it is wrong to leave an environmental debt, or environmental mess. I see that as part of being a conservative,” Morton said.

“In addition to it being the right thing to do, it’s also the necessary thing to do. If we don’t do it, we risk two things.”

The first, he said, is loss of jurisdiction to Ottawa. “Ottawa will take over,” he said, explaining the federal government “has lots of potential legal venues” it can use to come in and regulate the oilsands if the provincial government fails to do so.

“It also risks loss of market access, certainly to the United States. We’ve just seen the latest version of the campaign against Keystone XL (pipeline) — it’s really just a chapter in the larger saga of the campaign against the oilsands.”

Morton noted that the U.S. State Department’s recent report on the environmental impact of the $7 billion pipeline makes reference to the role the Land Stewardship Act will play in improving environmental impact of the oilsands.

Morton was a key driver behind the implementation of the act when he was minister of sustainable resource development.

The Wildrose Alliance attacked the legislation and successfully turned land rights into a political wedge issue that ignited political opposition, particularly in rural Alberta.

Morton told the editorial board the province was “slow to respond” to the attacks and could have done a better job explaining the law to Albertans. The legislation was subsequently revised to address Albertans’ concerns but rival leadership candidates continue to call for its repeal.

Morton maintains the law is critical to helping Alberta develop in an orderly way, balancing development pressures with environmental conservation.

“Anybody who cares about better environmental outcomes and just getting conservation and stewardship on the policy map realizes that to lose the Land Stewardship Act at this point would be giving up a decade,” he said.

“The anti-oilsands lobby is very smart, very well-financed, very well-educated, very well-connected, and relentless. Because they believe that increased CO2 emissions is going to do serious long-term damage to planet Earth and human life.”

He said activists tried for many years to force American legislators to increase the price of gasoline in an attempt to reduce driving, and when that didn’t work focused their attention on the source of the oil.

“The better our environmental results become in the oilsands, I suspect the more intense the campaign against them will become,” Morton said. “Because it’s not really about the oilsands per se, it’s about less expensive, or relatively inexpensive, gasoline.”

Morton, a fiscal hawk and social conservative, said he has abandoned plans for separate policing and pension plan programs and will instead focus on implementing policies that are within reach.

For example, he said he plans to continue supporting the right of parents to pull their children out of school when sex and religion come up.

“Policy making is the art of the doable,” he said.

Tagged with: alberta, ted morton, progressive conservatives

Pipeline Spills Put Safeguards Under Scrutiny

News Articles Featured | New York Times | September 09, 2011

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DENVER — This summer, an Exxon Mobil pipeline carrying oil across Montana burst suddenly, soiling the swollen Yellowstone River with an estimated 42,000 gallons of crude just weeks after a company inspection and federal review had found nothing seriously wrong.

And in the Midwest, a 35-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River near Marshall, Mich., once teeming with swimmers and boaters, remains closed nearly 14 months after an Enbridge Energy pipeline hemorrhaged 843,000 gallons of oil that will cost more than $500 million to clean up.

While investigators have yet to determine the cause of either accident, the spills have drawn attention to oversight of the 167,000-mile system of hazardous liquid pipelines crisscrossing the nation.

The little-known federal agency charged with monitoring the system and enforcing safety measures — the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration — is chronically short of inspectors and lacks the resources needed to hire more, leaving too much of the regulatory control in the hands of pipeline operators themselves, according to federal reports, an examination of agency data and interviews with safety experts.

They portray an agency that rarely levies fines and is not active enough in policing the aging labyrinth of pipelines, which has suffered thousands of significant hazardous liquid spills over the past two decades.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who oversees the pipeline agency, acknowledges weaknesses in the program and is asking Congress to pass legislation that would increase penalties for negligent operators and authorize the hiring of additional inspectors. That may be a tough sell in a Congress averse to new spending and stricter regulation.

“We need to know with great certainty that inspections and replacements have been done in a timely way that will prevent these kinds of spills from happening,” he said.

Federal records show that although the pipeline industry reported 25 percent fewer significant incidents from 2001 through 2010 than in the prior decade, the amount of hazardous liquids being spilled, though down, remains substantial. There are still more than 100 significant spills each year — a trend that dates back more than 20 years. And the percentage of dangerous liquids recovered by pipeline operators after a spill has dropped considerably in recent years.

The industry, however, believes the current system works and points with pride to what it considers a record of improvement.

“Data shows that releases from pipelines have declined over the last decade as the result of stringent regulation and the industry’s continued commitment to safety,” wrote Peter Lidiak, pipeline director for the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, in an e-mailed response.

Throwing more resources and money at the problem may not be the answer for the tiny agency, because there remain deeper concerns about how it works, especially its reluctance to mandate safety improvements or to level meaningful fines for wrongdoing.

Such concerns come at a critical time for the agency. The State Department last month gave a provisional green light to a controversial 1,661-mile pipeline from Canada to Texas, called Keystone XL, that will carry a trickier form of crude — and fall under the agency’s purview. And a just-released National Transportation Safety Board report on a natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, Calif., that last year cost eight people their lives, characterized the agency’s regulatory practices as lax and inadequate. In the report, the safety board urged the Transportation Department to go back and audit many of the pipeline agency’s safety and enforcement policies.

An analysis of federal reports and safety documents by The New York Times suggests that while the agency performs better than it did 10 years ago, it still struggles to safeguard a transport network laced with risks.

For example, the agency requires companies to focus their inspections on only the 44 percent of the nation’s land-based liquid pipelines that could affect high consequence areas — those near population centers or considered environmentally delicate — which leaves thousands of miles of lines loosely regulated and operating essentially on the honor system. Meanwhile, budget limits and attrition have left the agency with 118 inspectors — 17 shy of what federal law authorizes.

Pipeline operators, critics argue, have too much autonomy over their lines, and too much wiggle room when it comes to carrying out important safeguards, like whether to install costly but crucial automated shut-off valves.

Keep reading on the NY Times website

Tagged with: pipeline, enbridge, oil spill, pipeline safety, montana, new york times, kalamazoo, pipeline and hazardous materials safety administration, yellowstone

First nations group rejects pipeline ownership offer

News Articles Featured | Vancouver Sun | September 09, 2011

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A key first nations group has rejected Enbridge's offer to give aboriginal groups a 10-per-cent ownership stake in the proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline.

The five northern B.C. first nations that make up the Yinka Dene Alliance claim traditional territory that covers 25 per cent of the pipeline route.

First nations' support is considered critical to the project because land claims have not been settled along most of the pipeline route through northern B.C.

In its response to Enbridge, the Yinka Dene Alliance called the Calgary-based company's offer a "desperate and disrespectful attempt to buy our support for this pipeline."

Enbridge's one-page offer to the Nadleh Whut'en First Nation, one of the members of the alliance, said ownership would provide an estimated $7-million profit over the 30-year pipeline life. The offer was described as time sensitive. "Consequently, we strongly recommend that you meet with our aboriginal relations team at your earliest opportunity to receive the agreement," Enbridge said in the letter obtained by The Vancouver Sun.

It's an offer Enbridge officials said Thursday was just hammered out weeks ago and sent to all first nations with an interest in the pipeline, including the members of the Yinka Dene Alliance.

Enbridge had said earlier it would be offering an ownership stake to about 50 first nations in B.C. and Alberta whose traditional territory bordered on the 1,140-kilometre pipeline route.

However, this is the first time members of the Yinka Dene Alliance had been made a direct offer, said Nadleh Whut'en First Nation Chief Larry Nooski.

The Yinka Dene Alliance has been one of the most vocal opponents of the pipeline, citing concerns a pipeline spill would harm the environment, particularly salmon-bearing streams and rivers. Enbridge has said the pipeline will be built and operated to the highest safety standards, and that it is willing to address first nations' concerns.

The pipeline would have the capacity to transport 525,000 barrels a day of crude from the Alberta oilsands to Kitimat for export largely to China. A smaller twin pipeline would carry condensate, a kerosenelike liquid used to thin heavy crude in pipelines, back to the oilsands.

The proposed pipeline would pass just 10 kilometres north of the Nadleh Whut'en community, 550 kilometres north of Vancouver.

First nations on the coast have also cited concerns over the risk of an oil tanker spill.

"There is not any amount of money that compares to the possible damage should an oil spill happen. The replacement value of nature is priceless," Nooski said in an interview Thursday, speaking on behalf of the alliance.

The five first nations - which also include Takla Lake, Wet'suwet'en, Saik'uz and Nak'azdli - have traditional territory that encompasses dozens of streams and rivers, including salmon-bearing rivers like the Stuart and Morice rivers.

Enbridge spokesman Paul Stanway said the company is not surprised by the Yinka Dene's rejection.

"This response from the Yinka Dene is not representative of the general response to the equity offer. We've had a lot of positive response from aboriginal communities, and we remain in consultation and discussions with a number of communities," said Stanway.

The Enbridge spokesman would not say how many first nations the company is in discussions with, or name any of them.

Stanway said Enbridge wants ownership deals wrapped up by next spring, which is why the company hopes detailed discussions with first nations will happen quickly.

The Northern Gateway project is scheduled to begin regulatory hearings before the National Energy Board in early 2012.

University of Calgary law professor Nigel Bankes said Enbridge has offered the ownership stake to first nations because it wants to be viewed as supporting communities facing risks from the project.

But it is also aware first nations need to be consulted and accommodated, said Bankes, chair of the natural resources law department.

Even though it's a government responsibility, the last thing Enbridge wants is someone arguing to the National Energy Board the duty to consult and accommodate has not been satisfied, said Bankes.

Tagged with: pipeline, first nations, enbridge, northern gateway, british columbia, yinka dene alliance

Oilsands losing PR war, says energy pioneer

News Articles Featured | Calgary Sun | September 08, 2011

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The energy industry and its government supporters are being outgunned by environmentalists targeting the oilsands, said one of the project’s pioneering proponents.

Increasingly high-profile protests, highlighted by a letter opposing the Keystone XL pipeline signed by Nobel Peace Prize laureates including the Dalai Lama, shows more needs to be done to sell Canada’s marquee resource, said Don Thompson, president of the Oilsands Developers Group (OSDG).

“We are being outgunned in the PR arena — I can talk to 20 universities and not have the impact of a letter from the Dalai Lama,” said Thompson, who’s worked on the oilsands for the 32 years.

“The energy industry has not done enough to educate all its stakeholders ... our opponents are very skillful in leveraging media.”

In a presentation to Calgary energy industry workers, Thompson argued the oilsands’ environmental footprint has consistently shrunk and is being well-monitored, despite a federal panel last December raising strong concerns about industry surveillance and potential ecological threats.

Thompson implored his small audience to spread the word about the oilsands’ economic and environmental virtues.

Critics like the Nobel laureates, he said, hope that renewable energy resources can replace sources like oil more quickly than is realistic.

“We need to be expanding energy resources ... but it’ll take a long time — 30 to 40 years and it’s going to take trillions of dollars,” said Thompson.

And despite the rising eco-criticism, the northeast Alberta industry continues to pull in international participants who realize its considerable merits, he said.

“When I started out in this 32 years ago, the oilsands were an economic and technical curiosity,” said Thompson.

“We’ve gone from a curiosity to a global resource.”

And ultimately, he said, American politicians whose lands will be crossed by the Keystone XL pipeline carrying oilsands product are more concerned about energy security issues.

“Most U.S. politicians I talk to see environmental issues as something for Canadians to manage,” he said,

Over the next few years, Thompson added, the oilsands will be the basis of 900,000 Canadian jobs

Tagged with: oil sands developers group, don thompson, public relations

Who’s Behind New Pro-Oil Sands Ad Blitz?

News Articles Featured | TheTyee.ca | September 08, 2011

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Late last August, EthicalOil.org began running a 30 second TV advertisement on the Oprah Winfrey Network in Canada, chastising America's dependence on Saudi Arabian oil.

"We bankrolled a state that doesn't allow women to drive, doesn't allow them to leave their homes or work without their male guardian's permission," a female narrator said.

"Today there is a better way," she added. "Ethical oil from Canada's oil sands."   

A YouTube video of the advertisement ended with a plea: "Help keep this ad on the air. Visit ethicaloil.org and make a donation today."

If the subtext wasn't clear enough, EthicalOil.org founder and former federal Conservative Party staffer, Alykhan Velshi, later applauded "the grassroots support from across Canada" which had "made possible" this ad campaign.

In an email exchange with a Huffington Post reporter about the ads, he wrote: "We are 100 per cent independent of government and industry."

The Facebook page for Velshi's website, as well, describes his group as a non-governmental organization based in Toronto, Ontario.

Keep reading on TheTyee.ca

Tagged with: ethical oil, advertising, alykhan velshi, oprah

Landowners: DEQ is “Last Hope” for Keystone XL Safety Plan

News Articles Featured | Public News Service | September 08, 2011

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CIRCLE, Mont. - Thirty-four landowners who will see the proposed Keystone XL pipeline cross their properties are looking to Montana Department of Environmental Quality director Richard Opper as their "last hope." They've sent a letter asking for safety requirements before the state approves the pipeline.

Circle rancher Chuck Nerud signed the letter. The pipeline is set to cross his property for 3 1/2 miles, and over drainages that run to the Missouri River. His biggest beef is that there is no publicly available Oil Spill Response Plan - leaving local people and property at risk when there are pipeline leaks.

"The local people are the ones that are going to be first responders. Your sheriff's department, your fire department, your local medical people - they need to know how to deal with it."

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., outlined that same concern to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month, but the recently issued final environmental impact statement didn't include a response plan. TransCanada, which plans to build the line to carry tar-sands oil from Canada, says oil-spill response plans can't be made public because of terrorist concerns.

Nerud says landowners also would like to see thicker and better-quality steel used for the pipeline along the entire route. TransCanada plans to use lower-quality line through areas deemed "low-consequence" - but Nerud takes issue with that designation.

"My way of thinking is, it needs to protect all in Montana. The rivers are important, but the rest of it's important, too."

Nerud points to the 14 spills in the past year for the first Keystone pipeline, and the recent Bison Pipeline explosion and Yellowstone spill, as reasons the state should step in and require safety plans and standards.

Tester's letter to Clinton is online at northernplains.org.
Deb Courson Smith, Public News Service - MT

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, pipeline safety, montana, landowners

Government promise to restrict bitumen exports falls by wayside

News Articles Featured | Vancouver Sun | September 07, 2011

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OTTAWA — The Harper government has quietly buried a controversial promise to ban bitumen exports to countries that are environmental laggards, as Alberta and the energy industry formalize plans to ship oilsands product to lucrative Asian markets.

One person familiar with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's surprise announcement during the 2008 federal election campaign said the pledge was simply electioneering at the time and was to be "buried and never seen again."

Alberta's energy minister also wonders whether the campaign promise is even a government policy any longer, noting the issue has never been discussed with him during his two years in the portfolio.

However, a spokeswoman for federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said Wednesday the government policy — designed to halt the flow of raw bitumen and jobs overseas — remains in place but is being regularly examined.

"Our 2008 platform commitment remains in effect. We continue to review on an ongoing basis," said Julie Di Mambro, press secretary to Oliver.

As criticism mounts in the United States over oilsands development — and the potential for additional shipment stateside via the Keystone XL pipeline — Canadian politicians and energy companies have increasingly been eyeing emerging markets like China, India and Korea.

Space has already been fully booked on Enbridge Inc.'s proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline, potentially linking Alberta's oilsands to energy-hungry Asia-Pacific countries.

The line would carry raw bitumen or upgraded synthetic crude 1,170 kilometres from northern Alberta to the port of Kitimat, B.C. The project remains under review by the National Energy Board and could be operational by 2016.

Di Mambro noted the federal government has referred the Northern Gateway project to a joint review panel that's consulting with Canadians.

"We await the recommendations of this panel and remain committed to ensuring that any project is environmentally sustainable," she added.

However, plans for the pipeline to ship oilsands product to the West Coast, and then by supertanker to Asia, seemingly conflict with the prime minister's three-year-old promise.

In September 2008, Harper announced during a Calgary campaign stop his government would halt the flow of oilsands products and jobs to countries with greenhouse-gas emission standards weaker than Canada's.

"This is the right thing to do for our environment and our economy," Harper said at the time.

The Conservative policy — which was, at the time, to apply to bitumen exports to China — was to take effect in January 2010 and apply to new export deals and not impact existing contracts.

But barely a word has been heard of it since, as billions of dollars of Asian investment flood into Canada's petroleum sector and the federal Tories continue to mend what were once threadbare relations with China.

At the same time, companies on both sides of the Pacific Ocean have combined to pledge billions to build the Northern Gateway pipeline and premiers trumpet the need to feed Asia's insatiable energy appetite.

"That may not even be a policy of the federal government any longer," said Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert, who notes the federal Conservatives have been very supportive of opening up Asia-Pacific markets.

"It's something, that in the two years I've been in the ministry, hasn't been mentioned to me."

Canada currently produces approximately 2.9 million barrels of oil per day, with about 1.6 million barrels of it coming from the oilsands.

The United States is currently Canada's only bitumen customer, with roughly one million barrels of oilsands product (diluted bitumen and synthetic crude) exported each day to the U.S.

But American environmental groups — aided by some political and celebrity star power, and two weeks of protests outside the White House — have been ratcheting up their attacks on the oilsands in recent months. They've been urging President Barack Obama to block construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry up to 900,000 barrels of oil per day from Hardisty, Alta. to refineries in Texas.

However, the U.S. State Department recently released a final environmental impact study on Keystone XL that found the pipeline would have no significant impact on natural resources on its route.

Politicians in Canada point to the oilsands protests in the U.S. as more reason to build Enbridge's Northern Gateway project, increase pipeline capacity to the coast and look for new customers.

Officials with Enbridge said they've heard nothing from the Harper government about the promise and don't expect it will impede shipping oilsands product to new markets.

"It's certainly not an issue that has been raised with us," said company spokesman Paul Stanway. "It's not on our radar at the moment."

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, which has been fighting for the federal and provincial governments to keep oilsands value-added jobs in Canada, said he never expected the federal Tories to hold to their pledge.

"When the promise was made, we thought it had more to do with politics than real policy," McGowan said. "It was a reaction to the climate of the day . . . I'm not surprised to see very little is being done to see that policy becomes reality."

 

Tagged with: pipeline, canada, enbridge, northern gateway, bitumen, harper, asia, ron liepert, joe oliver

Nobel laureates ask Obama to block Keystone pipeline

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | September 07, 2011

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The Dalai Lama and eight other Nobel Prize laureates want President Barack Obama to block TransCanada Corp.’s (TRP-T42.620.050.12%) Keystone XL pipeline from the oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries.

The letter is the latest salvo in a high-profile campaign to persuade the Obama administration not to approve the $7-billion pipeline project, which will deliver up to 700,000 barrels per day of oil sands bitumen to the world’s largest refining hub.

In addition to the Dalai Lama, it was signed by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Irish peace campaigners Mairead Maguire and Betty Williams, Iranian activist Shirin Ebadi and American anti-landmine campaigner Jody Williams.

The Nobel laureates reminded Mr. Obama that he campaigned on a pledge to fight climate change, and argued that blocking the Keystone XL pipeline would represent solid action on that front.

“You spoke of creating a clean energy economy,” said the letter, which was released by the Nobel Women’s Initiative. “This is a critical moment to make good on that pledge and make a lasting contribution to the health and well being of everyone of this planet.”

Echoing the argument of U.S. and Canadian environmental groups, the authors argue the oil sands development represents the world’s second largest potential source of greenhouse gas emissions.

“Your rejection of the pipeline provides a tremendous opportunity to begin transition away from our dependency on oil, coal and gas, and instead increase investments in renewable energies and energy efficiency,” it said.

However, in an environmental impact statement released last month, the U.S. State Department concluded that the Keystone XL pipeline will not lead to more greenhouse gas emissions because the oil sands would be developed and transported to markets by other means if the pipeline is blocked.

With the release of the environmental statement - which found the pipeline posed no undue risk to most environmental resources - Obama administration is now reviewing whether the Keystone XL project is in the U.S. national interest. That process includes weighing environmental impacts, national security issues and economic factors.

Several construction unions have endorsed the pipeline, saying it will create much-needed work for their members.

Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said Wednesday that the Canadian government remains optimistic that the State Department will approve the pipeline.

Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline, desmond tutu, dalai lama

Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Urge Obama: Reject Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline

Media Releases Featured | Nobel Women's Initiative Media Release | September 07, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 7, 2011
CONTACT: Rachel Vincent, Nobel Women’s Initiative
(613) 569-8400 x113 or (613) 276-9030 (m)

Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama call on President to build clean energy legacy

OTTAWA (September 7, 2011) –  Nine distinguished recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize have written to President Obama, urging him to reject the proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, saying his decision offers “a critical moment” to make good on his pledge to create a clean energy economy.

“We urge you to say no“ to the pipeline and “turn your attention back to supporting renewable sources of energy and clean transportation solutions,” says the letter (PDF), sent today. “This will be your legacy to Americans and the global community: energy that sustains the lives and livelihoods of future generations.”

The letter was signed by nine Nobel Peace Prize laureates: Mairead Maguire and Betty Williams of Ireland, who shared the prize in 1976, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel of Argentina (1980), Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa (1984), His Holiness the Dalai Lama (1989), Rigoberta Menchú Tum of Guatemala (1992), José Ramos-Horta of East Timor (1996), Jody Williams of the United States (1997), and Shirin Ebadi of Iran (2003).

The Keystone XL, proposed by TransCanada Pipelines of Calgary, would carry dirty, toxic and corrosive oil from the tar sands of Alberta through six states in the American heartland to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast. The Obama Administration has said it will decide by the end of the year whether to permit the pipeline, after the State Department determines whether it is in the national interest.

Opposition to the pipeline has surged in recent weeks as more than 1,250 people were arrested in 14 days of sit-ins at the White House – perhaps the largest wave of civil disobedience ever for an environmental cause in the U.S. More protests are being organized for September 26 in Ottawa and the first week of October in Washington.

“In asking you to make this decision,” the Nobel Laureates wrote to Obama, “we recognize the thousands of Americans who risked arrest to protest in front of the White House between August 20th and September 3rd.  These brave individuals have spoken movingly about experiencing the power of nonviolence in that time. They represent millions of people whose lives and livelihoods will be affected by construction and operation of the pipeline in Alberta, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.”

The Laureates noted the risk of a pipeline spill contaminating the Ogallala Aquifer, the main source of fresh water for the Great Plains. Concern for the fragile Nebraska Sandhills, which lie above the aquifer, has led Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman to call for rejection of the pipeline in its current route. TransCanada’s existing Keystone I pipeline, which would connect to the XL, has leaked 14 times in its first year of operation.

The letter also called attention to tar sands oil as one of the dirtiest energy sources on Earth. If fully developed, the Alberta tar sands would be the second largest source of global warming gases in the world, which the laureates said “will not only hurt people in the US—but will also endanger the entire planet.”

The letter was released today by the Nobel Women’s Initiative, an Ottawa-based nonprofit founded in 2003 by six of the only 12 women ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline, desmond tutu, dalai lama, nobel women's initiative

Canadian author Naomi Klein arrested at White House pipeline protest

News Articles Featured | Toronto Star | September 02, 2011

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WASHINGTON—A Canadian native protester and social activist Naomi Klein were among dozens arrested Friday outside the White House near the end of a two-week civil disobedience campaign aimed at pressuring U.S. President Barack Obama to block TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Klein was arrested alongside fellow Canadian Gitz Deranger, from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, and several American native leaders on Day 13 of the protest.

“I have seen the devastation of our environment and people’s health with increased cancer deaths,” Deranger said before his arrest. “If Obama approves this pipeline, it would only lead to more of our people needlessly dying.”

Bill Erasmus, chief of the Dene First Nation in the Northwest Territories, was there to lend support to those who were hauled off to D.C. police headquarters in armoured vans in the dying hours of a protest that has resulted in the arrests of more than 1,000 people.

Erasmus said the oilsands are already having a grim impact on the Slave River, which flows from northern Alberta into Great Slave Lake, NWT.

“We’re downstream from the tarsands development; I live about 800 miles north and we’re already feeling the effects,” said Erasmus, who said water levels are dropping due to the mass amounts of water required to process the oilsands.

“Water is also being polluted ... we can no longer drink the water or eat the fish. We want the Obama administration to know this is not in the national interest of Canada, this is not in the national interest of the United States.”

Keystone XL would carry Alberta oilsands crude from northern Alberta through six U.S. states to refineries in Texas.

As they have been every day for almost two weeks, the protesters were arrested one-by-one by U.S. Park Police and escorted to police vans after sitting peacefully on a White House sidewalk holding anti-pipeline banners. As they were helped into police vans, their fellow activists shouted “thank you” on the other side of the police barricades.

Friday’s arrests came a week after the U.S. State Department released its final environmental assessment of the $7 billion pipeline, determining the project would cause minimal risk. Energy Secretary Steven Chu also suggested this week that the pipeline was likely to get approved due to Canada’s close ties to the United States.

While Daryl Hannah and Margot Kidder, both arrested during the two-week campaign, aren’t exactly at the height of their celebrity, former vice-president Al Gore, now a leading American environmentalist, has also weighed in.

In a plea to Obama earlier this week, Gore urged the president this week to block the pipeline, calling the oilsands “the dirtiest fuel on the planet.”

“The answer to our climate, energy and economic challenges does not lie in burning more dirty fossil fuels — instead, we must continue to press for much more rapid development of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies and cuts in the pollution that causes global warming,” Gore wrote on his blog.

The Obama administration says it will make a final decision on the pipeline by the end of the year, after it determines whether the project is in the U.S. national interest.

Opposing the pipeline has become a rallying cry for the American environmental movement in the aftermath of failed federal climate change legislation last year. Obama’s liberal base has warned him that approving the pipeline could cost him their votes.

Environmentalists say the pipeline is a disaster waiting to happen, pointing to several recent oil spills along pipelines in the past few months. Advocates for the project say it will create thousands of jobs and help end U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, protest, civil disobedience, washington dc, naomi klein

First Nations and American Indian Leaders Arrested In Front Of White House To Protest Keystone XL

Media Releases Featured | Reuters/IEN | September 02, 2011

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First Nations and American Indian Leaders Arrested In Front Of White House To Protest Keystone XL Pipeline.

PR Newswire

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2, 2011

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ - American Indian and Canadian Native leaders were arrested today in front of the White House. Representatives of Native governments and organizations from the United States and Canada traveled long distances to Washington DC to tell President Barack Obama not to issue a permit for the construction of a controversial 1,700 mile pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

"The Dene people in northern Canada passed a resolution standing in solidarity with Native Americans and other people opposing the Keystone XL pipeline. We want the people of America to hear our concerns, as people that live downstream from the tar sands development" said Chief Bill Erasmus, Dene Regional Chief of NWT and representative of the Assembly of First Nations.

Gitz Deranger, Dene from Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, living downstream from the tar sands, says, "I have seen the devastation of our people's health with increased cancer deaths. If Obama approves this pipeline, it would only lead to more of our people needlessly dying."

"Our Lakota people oppose this pipeline because of the potential contamination of the surface water and of the Ogallala aquifer," says Deb White Plume, Lakota grassroots leader, with Owe Aku, an Oglala Lakota organization in South Dakota.  "We have thousands of ancient and historical cultural resources that would be destroyed across our treaty lands. It's my responsibility as a woman to stand with Mother Earth against corporate male dominated greed.  White Plume stood proud as her hands were handcuffed behind her back and led away.

"This is a matter of life and death. Our human rights should not be on the altar of US energy policy," says Pat Spears, a Lakota, with Intertribal Council on Utility Policy, of South Dakota.

Chief George Stanley, Regional Chief of Alberta said the pipeline was initiated under the previous Bush administration and inherited by Obama. "Our First Nations in Alberta have been concerned of the lack of consultation of the pipeline and tar sand expansion. President Obama can do what's right. The President's approval of this pipeline is not in the national interest of US or Canada."

Tom Goldtooth, of the Indigenous Environmental Network, the organization that organized the Indigenous Day of Action in DC said, "The tar sands and pipeline infrastructure are weapons of mass destruction leading the path to triggering the final overheating of Mother Earth. President Obama made promises to Native Nations. Here is an opportunity for him to honor those promises and be a man of conscience by standing up to corporate power and saying no to the Keystone XL pipeline."

SOURCE Indigenous Environmental Network

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, first nations, protest, civil disobedience, washington dc

Heineman urges federal government to deny Keystone XL permit

News Articles Featured | Journal Star | August 31, 2011

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Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman has asked President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to reject the proposed Keystone XL petroleum pipeline because of the route selection through the Nebraska Sandhills.

In a letter dated Wednesday, Heineman emphasized that he was against the route, not against the project itself.

The governor said he disagreed with a portion of a final environmental impact statement issued by the State Department on Friday concerning the potential impact of a petroleum spill on the state's groundwater resources.

"I disagree with this analysis, and I believe that the pipeline should not cross a substantial portion of the Ogallala Aquifer."

He called the state's water supply "the lifeblood of Nebraska's agricultural industry."

Heineman has said Nebraska's one-house Legislature missed its chance this year to advance pipeline regulation, because none of the proposals introduced had support. Lawmakers and the governor did pass one watered-down bill during the session, related to land reclamation costs, but critics said it failed to address their main concerns.

The governor urged pipeline critics to lobby federal regulators and U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat considered vulnerable in the 2012 election. Nelson and pipeline critics have said responsibility for the pipe's route falls squarely on the state.

In an Oct. 12 letter to Clinton, Heineman urged regulators to make sure "an appropriate and safe route is chosen," but did not explicitly say the pipeline should be moved.

Clinton is expected to act on a final permit for the project by the end of the year.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, nebraska, dave heineman

The Keystone XL Pipeline: Oil for Export, Not for U.S. Energy Security

News Articles Featured | OilChange International Media Release | August 31, 2011

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 31, 2011

CONTACT: Stephen Kretzmann, (202) 497-1033, Lorne Stockman, (540) 679 1097

Industry Documents Reveal Scheme to Reach Lucrative Markets Abroad

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 – In pushing for the Obama Administration’s approval of TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, the North American oil industry and its political patrons argue that the pipeline is necessary for American energy security and its construction will help wean America of dependence on Mideast oil. But a closer look at the new realities of the global oil market and at the companies who will profit from the pipeline reveals a completely different story: Keystone XL will not lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, but transport Canadian oil in American refineries for export to overseas markets.

A new report (PDF) from Oil Change International lays out the case, based on data and documents from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the Canadian National Energy Board, corporate disclosures to regulators and investors, and analysis of the rapidly shifting oil market.

The facts:

Keystone XL is an export pipeline. The Port Arthur, Texas, refiners at the end of its route are focused on expanding exports to Europe, and Latin America. Much of the fuel refined from the pipeline’s heavy crude oil will never reach U.S. drivers’ tanks.

Valero, the key customer for crude oil from Keystone XL, has explicitly detailed an export strategy to its investors. Because Valero’s Port Arthur refinery is in a Foreign Trade Zone, the company can carry out its strategy tax-free.

In a shrinking U.S. market, Keystone XL is not needed. Since the project was announced, the oil industry acknowledges that higher fuel economy standards and slow economic growth mean declining U.S. oil demand, even as domestic production is booming. Oil from Keystone XL will therefore displace American crude from new, “unconventional” domestic fields in Texas or North Dakota.

“To issue a presidential permit for the Keystone XL, the Administration must find that the pipeline serves the national interest,” said Stephen Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International. “An honest assessment shows that rather than serving U.S. interests, Keystone XL serves only the interests of tar sands producers and shippers, and a few Gulf Coast refiners aiming to export the oil.”

Valero has contracted to take at least 100,000 barrels of tar sands crude a day from Keystone XL until 2030. Its publicly disclosed business model relies on refining heavy sour crude for export. It is upgrading its Port Arthur refinery to process heavy sour into diesel fuel. Its investor presentations clearly show it plans to ship diesel to Latin America and Europe.

Valero – the Texas independent behind last year’s attempt to overturn California’s clean fuel standards – is the only U.S. company among the six customers who have jointly committed to purchase 76 percent of Keystone XL’s initial capacity. The other refiners are Motiva, a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and the Saudi government, and Total of France, both of which have newly upgraded facilities in Port Arthur tax-free trade zones. There are also two Canadian producers and one international oil trading firm in the group of six customers.

“Oil is a fundamentally global market – the idea that the pipeline enhances our energy security is a scam.” said Kretzmann. “Let’s hope the Obama Administration doesn’t fall for it.  In fact, the only way to truly reduce our dependence on foreign oil is to reduce our dependence on all oil. Let’s not fool ourselves that we will achieve ‘energy independence’ by serving as a middleman for access to overseas markets.”

###

The full report can be downloaded here.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, jobs

Plan to protect oilsands region falls short

News Articles Featured | Edmonton Journal | August 30, 2011

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EDMONTON - On paper, the province's revised plan to protect the Lower Athabasca Region in northeastern Alberta is impressive.

The government is protecting 20 per cent of the oilsands region from development - two-million hectares of land devoted to conservation areas. That's an area three times the size of Banff National Park.

The government is also promising "strict environmental limits to protect air, land, water and biodiversity" as well as "timely and progressive reclamation of disturbed lands."

On paper, the government's plan will also help protect the province's endangered population of woodland caribou.

If only Mother Nature could read. She'd probably be very impressed. So would the woodland caribou.

It would certainly help if all the creatures of the Lower Athabasca Region had a grasp of the written word. A knowledge of maps would be great, too. Then they'd know precisely which 20 per cent of the oilsands region has been set aside for them and which 80 per cent has been set aside for the oilsands companies.

Actually, it would have been great if the government had decided to draw up a plan for the Lower Athabasca before it approved every oilsands plan that crossed the table. It would also have been great if the government had done an environmental baseline study of the region before the oilsands boom so we'd have a better idea of how the industry is affecting the air and water.

Instead, the government is playing catch-up on both fronts. It is only now improving the monitoring of air and water after the federal government promised action - and that only came after University of Alberta scientist David Schindler released an independent study one year ago into downstream pollution.

The provincial government is likewise playing catch-up with its landuse plan for the Lower Athabasca after all the prime real estate for oilsands extraction has been claimed by the industry.

The land being set aside for conservation is pretty much the land the oilsands industry doesn't want.

The government insists its revised plan for the Lower Athabasca released on Monday is an improvement from the plan released last April. It certainly is an improvement if you're an oilsands company.

The original draft plan created a bit of a stink because it would have affected the leases of maybe a dozen oilsands companies (but would not have affected any existing projects). At the time, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers actually said the plan was fair because in the grand scheme of things it would not have a significant impact on the industry.

The revised plan will be even more gentle, affecting even fewer companies. Sustainable Resources Minister Mel Knight was vague on how many companies might have leases cancelled or altered, but it's clear the government is trying its best not to antagonize industry.

And Knight is hoping industry will do its best not to antagonize wildlife. That hope is based on companies developing new ways to extract the bitumen from the oilsands.

"The technology is moving rapidly, and I don't believe we should get out there and say, 'We're not going to have sub-surface leases here because we don't want anybody to go on there and disturb it,' " Knight told reporters.

"They may never have to go on there and disturb it."

The industry wants to move to more in-situ mining, which involves injecting steam or hot water down one hole and pumping up the warm watery oilsands, or bitumen, through another. In-situ doesn't involve strip mining the surface soil away, but it's not exactly hands-off either.

If you've seen pictures of in-situ operations in Alberta, the forests look a bit like a waffle iron with networks of roads criss-crossing a forest floor dotted with well pads and compressors. The ecosystem ends up split into small islands of forest and wetlands.

That worries environmental groups such as the Pembina Institute, based in Calgary. Unlike Greenpeace, Pembina is not calling for the oilsands to be shut down. It wants what many Albertans want: for the industry to extract the bitumen in a more environmentally responsible way.

And it's afraid the newly revised plan to protect the Lower Athabasca Region doesn't really do that.

"The government's efforts to accommodate industry interests are apparent in this version," says Pembina spokeswoman Jennifer Grant. "They have adjusted some protected areas and they have new loopholes that were introduced last week that allow for further exemptions to environmental standards. There are very few significant changes. This was a missed opportunity to strengthen the document."

But it might all be a moot point. The plan to protect the Lower Athabasca might not survive the Conservatives' leadership race. Several candidates, including Gary Mar, have already said the plan has antagonized too many people and should be rethought.

Candidate Alison Redford is worried that "in the rush to get this through, government may not have taken the time to get the regulations right."

Even if the plan does go ahead as Knight wants, it won't actually set any limits on disturbing the land until 2013.

There is a chance that whoever becomes the new premier will bring in a much tougher plan to protect the Lower Athabasca.

And there's also a chance, of course, that we can teach the woodland caribou to read.

Tagged with: alberta, wildlife, lower athabasca regional plan, caribou

Hensarling postpones town hall meeting amid tar sands pipeline furor

News Articles Featured | CBS 19 | August 30, 2011

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QUITMAN (KYTX) -- TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline was the hot topic at a town hall meeting Tuesday morning.

Protestors came to let Representative Jeb Hensarling know they're upset over his support of the controversial project -- but he wasn't there. Hensarling's office started trying to spread word of the congressman's schedule change late last week, but some people never got the message.

"He really doesn't care," Teresa Crump said.

Disappointment was written all over Crump's face as she hand-wrote several large protest signs. She's part of a group against the tar sands pipeline.

They came to challenge Hensarling's position on the project, which seeks to pipe those controversial tar sands through East Texas.

"If someone will make the case that our current laws are inadequate for safety issues, then I will be happy to address it," Hensarling told CBS 19 in February 2011.

Pipeline opponents say that case has been made with a total of twelve leaks on the company's existing tar sands line, and they're not buying the company's claim that Keystone will benefit Wood County.

"We don't need the pipeline to come through here to create jobs," Eddie Radillo said. "I think that's a big fallacy."

Instead Radillo is asking for a renewed focus on the Wood County's medical community as a sustainable and permanent source of jobs.

Hensarling's staffers were at the civic center Tuesday to take questions for the congressman. They said he was caught in a mandatory committee meeting on Capitol Hill.

Toward the end, a physical altercation broke out. Neither of the men were connected to the tar sands group.

As the meeting dispersed, several people said they believe Hensarling is now dodging the people he works for.

"I just don't think Jeb wants to hear anything that he doesn't agree with," Patti Radillo said. "He doesn't listen to his constituents."

Others weren't ready to pass judgment.

"I don't know his reasoning and nobody knows the whole picture of everybody's decision behind something," David Munger said.

Representative Hensarling's staff said Quitman's town hall meeting will be rescheduled, but they have not set a date.

The congressman's press secretary told CBS 19 about the change Monday afternoon and we shared that information during our newscasts Monday night.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, texas, jeb hensarling

First Nations leaders join Keystone pipeline protest

News Articles Featured | CBC | August 30, 2011

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Indigenous people from across North America are joining the White House protest against TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry crude oil from northern Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries in Texas.

Several First Nations leaders from Canada are making the trip to join the protest Sept. 2.

Protesters have gathered outside the White House in Washington, D.C. since Aug. 20, with actors and scientists among those opposing the pipeline. Over 250 people have been arrested, including Canadian actors Margot Kidder and Fort McMurray, Alta.,-born Tantoo Cardinal.

The Indigenous Environmental Network is organizing the effort to bring indigenous people to the U.S. capital. Campaign organizer Clayton Thomas-Muller said they've seen a "tremendous" outpouring of support from across North America and Europe for local people in Northern Alberta.

George Poitras, former chief of the Mikisew Cree in northern Alberta, plans to join the protest. He believes the oil sands have already had a dire impact on people's health in his community of Fort Chipewyan.

"We would like President Obama to hear our pleas; perhaps he will not approve this pipeline," he said.
Chief concerned about water quality

Bill Erasmus, Regional Chief with the Assembly of First Nations in the Northwest Territories, plans to attend and has already written a letter protesting the pipeline to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Erasmus says he's concerned about water quality.

"Everything that happens in Alberta is part of the Mackenzie water basin, all that water comes north," he said.

The pipeline passed a major hurdle on Friday when the U.S. State Department said there was no significant risks to the six U.S. states it would cut through.

The assessment moved the administration of President Barack Obama a step closer to a final decision on the pipeline. It now has about three months to determine whether the controversial project is in the national interest of the United States.

Keystone XL has become a lightning rod for the environmental movement in the U.S. in the aftermath of failed climate-change legislation last year.

Proponents, meantime, say the pipeline will create thousands of jobs and help end U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil.

Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline, first nations, protest, civil disobedience, washington dc

Vermont group says pipeline may carry tar sands oil through state

News Articles | Burlington Free Press | August 26, 2011

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A tar sands oil developer might be planning to pipe its product to Montreal — and then across Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom in an existing pipeline to Portland, Maine, according to Canadian and American environmental groups.

That threatens the region’s air, water and wildlife habitat, the environmentalists say.

According to a story in Friday’s Montreal Gazette, the plan is to ship tar sands crude through a pipeline to Montreal. It was not clear whether the oil would be refined in Montreal, or whether it would be shipped south in its crude form. An existing pipeline carries oil from Portland, Maine, to Montreal. It passes through the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.

According to the Gazette, the pipeline company is considering reversing the flow through that pipeline, so it could carry product from Montreal to Portland. Jake Brown, a spokesman for the Vermont Natural Resources Council, said if the U.S. pipeline were to carry tar sands crude, that would be of concern because of the possibility of a pipeline rupture.

Tar sands oil is typically pumped at higher temperatures and pressures than traditionally extracted oil; it also contains more caustic and abrasive impurities. Those qualities increase wear and tear on pipelines, and are thought to be responsible for serious ruptures and spills in Alberta and Michigan.

The environmentalists’ concerns open up a new front in an increasingly public debate over the environmental hazards of mining, refining, transporting and consuming tar sands oil — most visibly in a civil disobedience campaign in front of the White House, and in Friday’s approval by the U.S. State Department of a Gulf Coast-bound pipeline that will cross the Great Plains and the Ogallala Aquifer.

Brown, of the Natural Resources Council, said a recently filed permit request by Alberta-based Enbridge Inc. for a small section of pipe in Ontario signals the possibility of wider distribution of the profitable, but potentially problematic, fossil fuel.

“This is a heads-up. It’s a wake-up call for New England,” Brown said.

Read more

Tagged with: pipeline, enbridge, maine, vermont

State Dept. Endorses Dirty Tar Sands Monstrosity

Media Releases Featured | Sierra Club Media Release | August 26, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 26, 2011

Contact: Eddie Scher, eddie.scher@sierraclub.org, 415-977-5758

Washington, D.C. – Today the Obama Administration released its final Environmental Impact Statement on foreign oil corporation TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline to transport high corrosive and toxic tar sands oil through America’s heartland.

In response, Michael Brune, Sierra Club Executive Director, issued the following statement:

“The U.S. State Department’s final report on the Keystone XL today is an insult to anyone who expects government to work for the interests of the American people.

“Americans don't want a 2,000 mile-long toxic crude oil pipeline running through our heartland for the benefit of a foreign oil corporation and they don’t want another oil spill. TransCanada's proposed tar sands pipeline would threaten our most productive farmlands and the drinking water of millions of Americans.  It would expose more Americans to cancer-causing carcinogens, and open the gates on the biggest source of carbon pollution in the northern hemisphere.

“The mathematics are simple but the stakes are incredibly high—the United States has nothing to gain from Keystone XL, and everything to lose.

“American innovation and technology are poised to deliver clean and safe energy solutions to power our economy, but we need corporate polluters like TransCanada to get out of our way. The Sierra Club and our 1.4 million members and supporters are looking to President Obama for bold action and we urge him to reject this abomination.”

///

The State Department’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS):

    Fails to examine threats to the Ogallala Aquifer – a drinking water source for millions of Americans – and the Sandhills of South Dakota, despite numerous requests from U.S. Senators;
    Ignores the effects of toxic pollution from corrosive tar sands refineries – cancer, asthma and heavy metal poisoning – on the millions of residents in Houston and Port Arthur, Texas and other cities;
    Disregards the fact that there are no existing federal safeguards in place for the safe transport of tar sands crude oil, known as bitumen, one of the dirtiest and most dangerous forms of oil on Earth.

###

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, state department, sierra club

Oklahoma Family Fights Keystone Pipeline And Wins

News Articles Featured | Huffington Post | August 26, 2011

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Opponents of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline won a small and perhaps only symbolic victory this week when TransCanada abandoned an eminent domain claim on the property of an Oklahoma family.

The Calgary-based company is planning a $7 billion pipeline that would carry oil some 1,700 miles from Alberta's tar sands through six U.S. states to the Texas Gulf Coast. It had planned to run part of that pipeline across the southwest corner of a 180-acre slice of land belonging to 69-year-old Sue Kelso and her siblings, who were profiled in The Huffington Post last month.

The family declined TransCanada's offers of compensation for the use of their land, and eventually refused to negotiate, at which point the company filed a legal claim for the right to run the pipeline through the property anyway.

But Harlan Hentges, the attorney representing Kelso and her family, said he received notice late Thursday that TransCanada had quietly abandoned that claim in a court filing submitted on Tuesday.

"They apparently decided to run the pipeline around the property," Hentges said, "through land belonging to someone willing to make a deal."

A query for comment from TransCanada on the reasoning behind the decision was not immediately returned.

The decision comes as controversy over the pipeline approaches a fever pitch. Hundreds of protesters opposing the pipeline have been arrested outside the White House amid acts of civil disobedience. They have been calling on President Obama to scuttle plans for the pipeline, which, among other things, would invigorate the development of vast oil sands deposits in northwestern Canada.

These so-called tar sands -- a gooey mixture of sand, clay, and oil -- require extensive processing, including large amounts of water and energy, to produce marketable hydrocarbons. Full-scale exploitation of the tar sands would add copious amounts of new greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, and some climate experts have suggested that doing so would essentially condemn the planet to runaway global warming.

Other opponents have expressed concern about potential leaks in such a pipeline, and they have pointed to earlier phases of TransCanada's Keystone project, which has experienced a dozen leaks in a year of operation, as reason to reconsider the Canada-to-Gulf extension.

Supporters of the pipeline, meanwhile -- including many Republicans in Congress -- say the pipeline would help ease the nation's reliance on less friendly sources of foreign oil. During its construction, they say, the pipeline would also create much-needed jobs in areas struggling to shake off the lingering effects of a broad economic slump.

House Republicans passed a bill at the end of last month that would force the Obama administration to render a decision on the pipeline by Nov. 1 of this year, though the bill had virtually no chance of getting through the Senate.

Because the pipeline crosses an international border, its fate rests largely with the U.S. State Department under Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. The department is expected to release its final environmental assessment of the project on Friday.

The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, reported Thursday that the assessment would find the project to have "limited adverse environmental impacts."

Clinton has previously stated that she was inclined to approve the pipeline.

TransCanada has cut deals with landowners up and down the pipeline's proposed route, offering compensation at various rates for the right to run and operate the pipeline through their properties. In most cases, according to TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha, the company has reached deals with landowners without incident.

Where deals can't be struck, the company has sometimes invoked eminent domain, a power that can be delegated by state authorities to public and private companies -- typically for the running of telephone and power lines, water, oil and gas pipelines and other infrastructure deemed to be in the "public good."

A controversial 2005 Supreme Court decision also extended the notion of "public good" to projects involving simple economic development.

Kelso and her family initially negotiated with TransCanada, but eventually decided they were opposed to the pipeline in general and contested the company's right to invoke eminent domain.

"Let's face it, our government is crooked," Kelso told The Huffington Post last month, expressing anger that the pipeline was being supported by state and federal legislators. Kelso said she feared the pipeline could leak and contaminate aquifers across the American heartland.

"Politicians are crooked and I don't trust any of them. They don't care if this stuff is dangerous -- until they don't have any clean drinking water. And then they'll wish they hadn't pushed for that pipeline."

Hentges, Kelso's lawyer, said late Thursday that if nothing else, TransCanada's decision to move the pipeline, however slightly, sends a message to landowners in other states.

"You can fight this," he said.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, eminent domain, oklahoma

TransCanada gets Keystone green light

News Articles Featured | Globe and Mail | August 26, 2011

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The U.S. State Department has concluded TransCanada Corp.’s (TRP-T41.680.050.12%) Keystone XL project will not cause undue environmental impacts, paving the way for likely approval of $7-billion project after a 90-day comment period.

In a environmental impact study released Friday, the State Department said TransCanada needed to conduct more study – and possibly add more spill protection – around the Ogalla aquifer in Nebraska.But it rejected claims by environmental groups that the pipeline represented a serious threat to water and air along the route, and would dramatically drive up greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands producers who will use it to ship crude to Gulf Coast refining hub.

The Keystone XL project is seen as a critical link for Alberta oil producer to diversify their market beyond the U.S. mid west into Texas, which houses the world’s largest refining hub and one that is particularly suited to processing oil sands bitumen.

The Harper government – along with Alberta – has lobbied heavily in Washington to win approval for the project.

The environmental assessment moves the Obama administration a step closer to a final decision on the pipeline. It now has 90 days to determine whether the controversial project is in the national interest of the United States.

The decision isn’t a surprise to the big U.S. environmental groups that are fighting the pipeline. An official for one group, the National Resources Defense Council, says State Department officials failed to conduct many of the studies the environmentalists were demanding.

Among them was an examination of whether Keystone XL could be rerouted to avoid environmentally sensitive areas in the U.S. Midwest, and to assess whether pipelines are prone to leaks.

The State decision comes as anti-pipeline activists continue a two-week civil disobedience campaign outside the White House.

More than 250 people, including Canadian actress Margot Kidder, have been arrested as they try to convince U.S. President Barack Obama to block the pipeline.

Keystone XL has become a lightning rod for the environmental movement in the U.S. in the aftermath of failed climate-change legislation last year.

Environmental activists say the project is a disaster waiting to happen and are opposed to Alberta’s oil sands due to the high levels of greenhouse gas emissions involved in their production.

Proponents, meantime, say the pipeline will create thousands of jobs and help end U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil.

Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, pipeline, state department

Nation’s Largest Environmental Organizations Stand Together To Oppose Oil Pipeline

Media Releases Featured | Media Release | August 24, 2011

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Washington, DC — The heads of the nation’s largest environmental organizations—often at odds on the best strategy for combating climate change—released a letter today calling on President Obama to block the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would span from the tar sands of Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. (1)

As another 56 people headed to jail today in the largest civil disobedience protests in the environmental movement’s recent history (2), the leaders of groups as diverse as Greenpeace and the Environmental Defense Fund told the president, “there is not an inch of daylight between our policy position on the Keystone XL pipeline, and those of the protesters being arrested daily outside the White House.”

“On an issue as complicated as climate, there will often be disagreements over tactics and goals—just recall the differences over the Senate climate bill this time last year,” said Bill McKibben, one of the organizers of the protests for tarsandsaction.org. “But there are some projects so obviously dangerous that they unify everyone, and the Keystone XL pipeline is the best example yet.”

The leaders of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Wildlife Federation, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the Rainforest Action Network also made it clear they counted on President Obama to take decisive action to block the pipeline. “We expect nothing less,” they said, describing the pipeline battle as “perhaps the biggest climate test you face between now and the election” and adding that denying the permit would trigger a “surge of enthusiasm from the green base that supported you so strongly in the last election.”

In their letter, the leaders cited dangers to the climate, the risks of disastrous spills and leaks, and the economic damage that will come from continued dependence on fossil fuel in their letter, concluding, “this is a terrible project.”

The civil disobedience protests—now in their fifth day, and scheduled to last through September 3—played some role in the leaders’ decision to take a stand, though many of the organizations do not themselves engage in such protest.

“I have worked in the environmental movement since the first earth day in 1970, and this is reminding me of the spirit and unity we had back then. We are all together on this,” said Gus Speth, a founder of the NRDC in the 1970s and head of the Council on Environmental Quality under President Carter, who was among those arrested last Saturday and spent two nights in DC’s Central Cell Block.

“For those of us out there in front of the White House, the best thing about this ringing statement is that the administration won’t be able to play one group off against another by making small concessions here and there,” said McKibben. “They’ve all shown that there is one way to demonstrate to the environmental base that the rhetoric of Obama’s 2008 campaign is still meaningful—and that’s to veto this pipeline. Since he can do it without even consulting Congress, this is one case where we’ll be able to see exactly how willing he is to match the rhetoric of his 2008 campaign.”

1. The text of the letter follows:

Dear President Obama:
Many of the organizations we head do not engage in civil disobedience; some do. Regardless, speaking as individuals, we want to let you know that there is not an inch of daylight between our policy position on the Keystone Pipeline and those of the very civil protesters being arrested daily outside the White House. This is a terrible project–many of the country’s leading climate scientists have explained why in their letter last month to you. It risks many of our national treasures to leaks and spills. And it reduces incentives to make the transition to job-creating clean fuels.

You have a clear shot to deny the permit, without any interference from Congress. It’s perhaps the biggest climate test you face between now and the election. If you block it, you will trigger a surge of enthusiasm from the green base that supported you so strongly in the last election. We expect nothing less.

Sincerely,

Fred Krupp, Environmental Defense Fund
Michael Brune, Sierra Club
Frances Beinecke, Natural Resources Defense Council
Phil Radford, Greenpeace
Larry Schweiger, National Wildlife Federation
Erich Pica, Friends of the Earth
Rebecca Tarbotton, Rainforest Action Network
May Boeve, 350.org
Gene Karpinski, League of Conservation Voters
Margie Alt, Environment America

2. To date, 275 people have been arrested at the White House protesting the Keystone XL pipeline.

Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline

Dogwood Initiative reacts to Enbridge Northern Gateway shipper agreements

News Articles Featured | Dogwood Initiative Media Release | August 24, 2011

Victoria, B.C. — Eric Swanson, director of Dogwood Initiative’s No Tankers campaign, made the following statement in response to today’s announcement by Enbridge regarding shipper agreements for the Northern Gateway pipeline.

“What Enbridge is saying today is that they have the support of shippers, but the support they need is that of British Columbians — and they don’t have it and they are unlikely to ever have it.

“More than 70 B.C. First Nations have declared a ban on oil tankers and pipelines through their territories. Additionally, Enbridge’s project is opposed by the Union of B.C. Municipalities, the United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union and 75 to 80 per cent of British Columbians, according to polls.

“Enbridge was more than a year behind in filing this information, which should have been in the initial application. We still don’t know who the shippers are and the agreements don’t appear to represent any real obligation on their part."

Contact:
Eric Swanson
No Tankers Director, Dogwood Initiative
250-858-9990

Dogwood Initiative is a B.C.-based land reform organization.

-30-

Tagged with: pipeline, enbridge, northern gateway, dogwood initiative

Yinka Dene Alliance reacts to Enbridge announcement of commercial agreements for proposed pipeline

Media Releases Featured | Yinka Dene Alliance Media Release | August 24, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – August 24, 2011

Nadleh Whut’en (BC) – Chief Larry Nooski of Nadleh Whut’en First Nation, a member of the Yinka Dene Alliance, made the following statement in response to today’s  announcement by Enbridge that it has commercial support for its proposed pipeline and tanker project.

“Enbridge’s pipeline isn’t happening, period. It doesn’t matter who they get a deal with. They plan to come through our territories and we’ve already said no, and we’ll use every legal means we have to stop them. Their proposed pipeline is against our laws because we refuse to put our communities at the risk of oil spills.

Getting industry to support their plan is not going to help them. These lands belong to First Nations and they will never get our permission because our lands and rivers are not for sale.

There are now more than 100 First Nations in western Canada who’ve said no to their pipeline and tankers. From the Rockies to the Pacific, every mile of their pipeline and tanker route goes through a First Nation that has banned their project.

This pipeline is dead in the water.”

The Yinka Dene Alliance includes Nadleh Whut'en, Nak'azdli, Takla Lake, Saik'uz, and Wet'suwet'en First Nations in northern BC who have banned the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines from their territories.

CONTACT: Geraldine Thomas-Flurer, Coordinator, Yinka Dene Alliance: (250) 570-1482

Tagged with: pipeline, first nations, enbridge, northern gateway, yinka dene alliance