Ex-wife bombshell hits as Newt surges

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 12:40 PM - 0 Comments

Maybe Newt Gingrich should have opened a second six-figure Tiffany account – for his ex-wife Marianne. ABC News is touting a new interview with Marianne, who was married to Gingrich for 18 years, in which she says Gingrich wanted an “open marriage” so he could have a mistress. He lacks the “moral character” to be president, she says. The interview is set to air tonight on Nightline.

This comes right as Gingrich is surging in the socially-conservative state of South Carolina where evangelical Christians have traditionally made up more than half of the primary voters. A new poll suggests Gingrich is leading Romney 34% to 28% ahead of Saturday’s vote, with Ron Paul in third place with 15% and Rick Santorum with 14%. Rick Perry had only 5% of likely voters. (Gingrich leads Romney 37-20 among evangelicals, according to the poll.)

In a boost for Gingrich, Texas governor Rick Perry today dropped out of the race and endorsed Gingrich – conceding “Newt is not perfect – but who among us is?” Meanwhile the news broke that Rick Santorum, not Mitt Romney, was the winner of the very close contest in Iowa.

Luckily for Romney, Gingrich’s personal life is diverting attention from Romney’s tax returns and tone-deaf comments such as he earned “not very much” from speaking fees last year – only $373, 327.62.

Tonight’s candidates’ debate will be worth watching.

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State: no ‘expedited’ process for new permit

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 5:00 PM - 0 Comments

On a conference call with reporters this afternoon, Assistant Secretary of State Kerri-Ann Jones said that if TransCanada applies for a new permit to build the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the permit review process — which includes an environmental review as well as a ‘national interest determination’ process — will have to start all over again. (The current process has been going on since 2008).

While TransCanada said in a press release today that they expected an “expedited” review that could lead to an in-service pipeline by 2014, Jones denied that.

“If it comes with a new application it will trigger  a completely new process. We cannot say that anything would be expedited at this time. It would go through all the requirements,” she said.

Jones said some of the information put together by the State Dept could be used in the new review, but declined to speculate whether that could make the process shorter, or by how much.

Jones  the State Dept. was forced to deny the permit because the legislation passed by Congress setting a 60-day deadline for a decision did not leave enough time to consider an in-depth analysis of alternative routes in Nebraska that would avoid the Sandhills region. Without a full analysis, State could not conclude affirmatively that the project would be in the national interest.

She also said: “We today recommended to the president that the permit be denied and also that he determine that it was not in the national interest. The legislation did not give us enough time to do a responsible evaluation of the factors. We continue to believe this has to be done the right way.”

I asked how it was that the State Dept. only concluded on Nov. 10 that it needed to analyze alternative routes within Nebraska, when the issue had been raised for years. Jones said it was the result of concerns raised at public hearings held this year in Nebraska and elsewhere.

The bottom line is that  State could have reached a permit decision by early 2013. By starting all over again, it’s unclear when a permit decision may be completed. That may depend in large part on the result of the November presidential election.

TransCanada: will try again, hope for pipeline in 2014

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 4:12 PM - 0 Comments

From TransCanada’s press release:

January 18, 2012 15:59 ET

TransCanada Will Re-Apply for a Keystone XL Permit

State Dept.: TransCanada can apply again

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 3:53 PM - 0 Comments

Here is the full statement on Keystone XL decision from the State Dept. It says the 60 day deadline imposed by Congress did not allow for full vetting of an alternative pipeline route  but that TransCanada can apply again.

For Immediate Release and Posting

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

For Immediate Release                                                                                                                                               January 18, 2012

2012/070

MEDIA NOTE

Denial of the Keystone XL Pipeline Application

Today, the Department of State recommended to President Obama that the presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline be denied and, that at this time, the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline be determined not to serve the national interest.  The President concurred with the Department’s recommendation, which was predicated on the fact that the Department does not have sufficient time to obtain the information necessary to assess whether the project, in its current state, is in the national interest.

Since 2008, the Department has been conducting a transparent, thorough, and rigorous review of TransCanada’s permit application for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline project.  As a result of this process, particularly given the concentration of concerns regarding the proposed route through the Sand Hills area of Nebraska, on November 10, 2011, the Department announced that it could not make a national interest determination regarding the permit application without additional information.  Specifically, the Department called for an assessment of alternative pipeline routes that avoided the uniquely sensitive terrain of the Sand Hills in Nebraska.  The Department estimated, based on prior projects of similar length and scope, that it could complete the necessary review to make a decision by the first quarter of 2013.  In consultations with the State of Nebraska and TransCanada, they agreed with the estimated timeline.

On December 23, 2011, the Congress passed the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011 (“the Act”).  The Act provides 60 days for the President to determine whether the Keystone XL pipeline is in the national interest – which is insufficient for such a determination.

The Department’s denial of the permit application does not preclude any subsequent permit application or applications for similar projects.

Obama: GOP forced rejection of Keystone XL

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 3:20 PM - 0 Comments

Basically, he says that because Congressional Republicans forced his hand through legislation to reach a decision within 60 days — the State Dept. did not have enough time to do a proper environmental review of an alternative route around the Sandhills — and therefore could not conclude that it was in the national interest.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 18, 2012

Statement by the President on the Keystone XL Pipeline

Earlier today, I received the Secretary of State’s recommendation on the pending application for the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.  As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment.  As a result, the Secretary of State has recommended that the application be denied.  And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree.

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.  I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil.  Under my Administration, domestic oil and natural gas production is up, while imports of foreign oil are down.  In the months ahead, we will continue to look for new ways to partner with the oil and gas industry to increase our energy security –including the potential development of an oil pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico – even as we set higher efficiency standards for cars and trucks and invest in alternatives like biofuels and natural gas.  And we will do so in a way that benefits American workers and businesses without risking the health and safety of the American people and the environment.

U.S. rejects Keystone XL pipeline

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 12:59 PM - 0 Comments

Note: This post was updated at 3:30 p.m. ET:

BREAKING: The U.S. State Department has officially announced its rejection of TransCanada’s proposal to build the Keystone pipeline at a briefing on Wednesday afternoon. 

There are reports today that the State dept. is going to reject the presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

The State Dept. was in the process of deciding whether the project is in the National Interest.  They administration had signaled that it could not reach this determination within the 60-day deadline that Congress imposed in December because officials needed more time to review an alternative route around the Sandhills of Nebraska.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said yesterday: “…certainly we made clear back in December that a political effort to short-circuit that process for ideological reasons would be counterproductive because a proper review that weighed all the important issues in this case could not be achieved in 60 days — according to the State Department, which, again, runs this review process.”

And: “… it is a fallacy to suggest that the President should sign into law something when there isn’t even an alternate route identified in Nebraska and when the review process is — there was an attempt to short-circuit the review process in a way that does not allow the kind of careful consideration of all the competing criteria here that needs to be done.”

According to the Washington Post, TransCanada will be allowed to reapply for the permit after it develops an alternative route around Nebraska’s Sandhills. The question is how long will that take? State had indicated they needed a year to consider the alternative route — which would put a final decision past the November presidential election. Perhaps that ends up being the ultimate timing after all?

But expect Republicans to keep pressing for a quick permit. House Speaker John Boehner declared, “This is not the end of this fight.”

This story is developing, please stay tuned for updates.

Santorum: Repeal Obamacare before Americans discover they like it

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, January 16, 2012 at 5:10 PM - 0 Comments

Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum spoke this afternoon to the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, (where he got a warm reception — but not as enthusiastic as the one given to Newt Gingrich who is running second place in the polls in this state.)

Here is Santorum explaining why he left political “retirement” to run for president:

“It was Obamacare.  It was this huge expansion of the federal government. I realized it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s one thing to have inexorable growth in government that we seem to be are lethargically marching along for those who are on the margins of society.

“Obamacare is different. They are going to make every single American dependent on the federal government for something that is essential to their very being, their life.

“Once that happens, it’s over.

“Margaret Thatcher said when she left the prime ministership of England that she was never able to do for England what Reagan was able to do for America: turn it back form the precipice of Statism. She said the reason was the British national health system.

“Once they have you – once they have your life, your health, they’ve got you.

“Why do you think that Nancy Pelosi and all those Democrats would vote for bills they knew would cost them the election? I’ll give you what Juan Williams told me in the green room of Fox three days before the vote on Obamacare in the House. I said, “You guys are committing political suicide. You are going to lose the next election by a landslide.” He said, “Let me tell you what the Obama administration told me: We believe, they said, Americans love entitlements and once we get them hooked on this entitlement, America will be changed and every one of those guys that got thrown out will be back in.”

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New Republican weapon on Keystone XL: a map

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, January 16, 2012 at 11:57 AM - 0 Comments

Congressional Republicans plan to keep TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline  high on their agenda when the US House of Representatives resumes its session tomorrow, two congressmen said this morning.

“We go back into session tomorrow. This issue will be first and foremost,” South Carolina congressman, Jeff Duncan, told me in an interview. “We’re going to ramp it up,” said Duncan, who sits on the Natural Resources committee and, a member of the Republican “energy action team” in the House.

“We’re going to keep attaching it to other bills. I’m not one who likes to attach non-related legislation to other pieces legislation, or bob-tailing, but this is an issue we’ve already passed its something we believe in and we’ll keep attaching it,” said Duncan. Last month, Republican lawmakers attached legislation that would give President Obama a 60-day deadline to decide on the Keystone XL permit to legislation extending a payroll tax cut by two months.

At an energy-themed breakfast in Myrtle Beach, SC, another Republican congressman, Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, showcased a map that he said would be making the rounds of Capitol Hill in coming weeks.

“We have an opportunity here to win the messaging war and we are going to push this as hard as we can over the next several months,” he told a packed ballroom of hundreds of assembled Republican officials and activists.

“What you are going to see over the next few weeks in Washington are these two maps,” said Mulvaney. Showing the audience an image of a map of the proposed pipeline route from Albert to the Gulf Coast of Texas, Mulvaney said: “This is what the president wants you to see.” Switching the slide to a map of thousands of pipelines that cover the US. “…And this is reality. Often those two things are divorced in Washington.”

“What you see here is that pipelines already exist. What the president would have you believe is the pipeline is somehow unusual or extreme. The truth of the matter is that there are pipelines all over this country that function each and every day without any environmental impact at all.”

(Environmentalists who oppose the pipeline have argued that few pipelines in the US carry diluted bitumen and that they have particular concerns about a pipeline in the Sand Hills area of Nebraska that crosses a large aquifer.)

The Obama administration has delayed a decision on a permit in order to review an alternative route that would take the pipeline around the environmentally sensitive region of Nebraska. Republicans accuse President Obama of delaying the process to appease environmentalists ahead of the November presidential elections.

The breakfast was hosted by a former US ambassador to Canada and a former Speaker of the South Carolina legislature, David Wilkins. He told the audience: “What most Americans view as common-sense or no-brainer energy policy, like drilling off our own shores, or in ANWR, or approving a pipeline to ship oil from Canada – a trusted ally, a stalwart partners in the pursuit of liberty, and a strong environmental steward – somehow has all fallen victim to the worst kind of partisan politics in Washington.”

(Note: this post has been updated with the same map used in Rep. Mulvaney’s presentation.)

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Move over abortion, here comes Iran

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 2:05 PM - 0 Comments

This morning’s prayer breakfast began predictably enough. In a hotel ballroom here in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where Republicans are gathering ahead of Monday night’s candidates’ debate, the room was packed with hundreds of social conservatives and evangelical Christians. The emcee’s opening remarks declared, “It is not in government we trust; it is in God we trust.” Then came a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. Organizers had forgot to bring in an American flag so the audience was asked to recite the pledge “to the flag inscribed upon our hearts.” (A flag was promptly rushed in.) Next a pastor led an invocation, asking God to help America “turn from our wicked ways” and “heal our land.” Some in the audience prayed with their eyes closed, others with a hand upraised. “Contrary to what so many believe,” he declared. “We are still a God-fearing Christian nation.”

But then, rather than turn to traditional social conservative issues of abortion, marriage, or school prayer, the agenda turned abruptly to foreign policy. (Almost an hour of breakfasting would go by before the word “abortion” was mentioned.) Continue…

Last minute fixes to Mitt Romney’s face

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 8:53 PM - 0 Comments

Here is “Mount Myrtle”, a massive sand sculpture by Team Sandtastic,  here in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, receiving finishing touches ahead of the Republican candidates’ debate on Monday evening.

I’m told it was built using shovels and pastry knives. Newt Gingrich’s head seems the most life-like of the lot. Mitt Romney’s, the biggest.

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The battle to define the post-Bush GOP

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 7:28 PM - 0 Comments

There are a few interesting things going on in the Republican presidential campaign beyond the immediate battle for who will be emerge from South Carolina as the strongest “Not Romney.”

Two big conversations have emerged from this campaign season that go beyond the question of “Who can beat Obama in November?”

The first is the relationship between Republicans and free-market capitalism, high finance, and the growing inequality gap in the U.S. Most recently, this issue has exploded in the form of Newt Gingrich’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s record while he ran Bain Capital, a private equity firm. Gingrich, quickly joined by Rick Perry, attacked Romney for buying up failing enterprises, saddled them with large debt used in part to pay Bain large management fees, and then downsized them or let them fail, resulting in large job losses. This is the theme of the film “When Mitt Romney Came to Town,” that Gingrich’s supporters are promoting around South Carolina.

Here’s Gingrich on Thursday: Continue…

US ambassador: border deal more baseball than football

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

This morning, I spoke with US Ambassador David Jacobson about the border deal.

First off, for the record, let me say that the ambassador rejects the football analogy – “game of inches” – used in my previous post to describe the incremental progress on border issues that this agreement represents.

Jacobson, a long-suffering Chicago Cubs fan, says it’s better to think about progress on the border in terms of baseball:

“For years the Cubs tried to success by getting home-run hitters,” said Jacobson. “But the way you win pennants and – or so they tell me – the World Series, is getting a lot of guys who can hit singles and doubles. This [border agreement] is a collection of singles and doubles and when you add them up you get a Championship. I think this is a more apt analogy.”

I asked him to respond to a few of the other issues:

Q: Who will be in charge of implementing the agreement and ensuring that the deadlines are met? Will there be someone at the White House?

Jacobson: There are different people in charge of the regulatory side and the “Beyond the Border” part. On the regulatory side, it’s Cass Sunstein, head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. On the border side, it is the people who have managed the process so far: Dan Restrepo [Special Assistant to the President and a Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council] and Peggy Cogswell [who heads the Screening Coordination Office at the Department of Homeland Security]. Ultimately, they are acting on behalf of the president of the United States.

This is a process. I flew home last night from Washington and crossed the border and it looked the same as when I flew down to Washington. Nothing changed at the border. But over the next several months and the next several years there will be changes – but only if we follow up on what we committed to yesterday. The Canadian and American people need to hold our feet to the fire.

A: The agreement mentions a May 30, 2012 deadline for coming up with joint privacy protection principles to guide the work under the action plan. Who will be in charge and what kind of input will they seek from the public?

Jacobson: We are already putting out Federal Register notices for the regulatory cooperation piece and the border vision piece. We are informally reaching out and I have already gotten God-knows-how-many telephone calls about this. We are reaching out for input not just on privacy but on everything.

With regard to privacy specifically, I personally feel very strongly about this. There are people who have expressed concerns — both in Canada and in the US – about the need for us to respect privacy. I agree that people should be concerned – and they are concerned on both sides of the border that privacy is honored and respected on both sides of border.

I have spent my whole life defending these issues – the first job I ever had was at ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union]. The president taught on these issues. Americas value these issues as much as Canadians.

Right now every agency in the US that will get access to this information has its own privacy officer. Every agency has an inspector general who is responsible for monitoring these issues and reporting to the president and to Congress. Personal information can only be accessed on a strict need-to-know basis and it is a felony for members of US government to use personal information for improper purposes. These are things we are concerned about.

We protect privacy in different ways – but our values are very much in synch. We want to make sure we give comfort on both sides of the border that privacy and individual rights will be respected in both countries.

There is a person in the White House responsible for this. Canada has a Privacy Commissioner and they will be involved, and privacy officers at each agency will be responsible for working with their counterparts to come up with [the joint statement on privacy protection]. These issues are really important to all of us.

The agreement includes many items that will require funding – from new computer systems to new infrastructure at the border. What can you say about the prospects for funding these items given the fiscal situation in the US and the desire of Congress to cut federal government spending?

Jacobson: Obviously at the moment there are budget issues in the US. What the agreement does is say the expenditures will be handled as part of budget processes in each country on a case by case basis. There is not a lot money to throw around. But some of these things will save money and some of them will cost money. We have to make sure we will implement them on the basis that both countries can afford. One of the things we need to do on both sides is to invest in things that will create jobs and this [agreement] is one of those things that will create jobs. The president spoke quite eloquently about that yesterday. There are some things we need to spend money on. I can’t tell you how much any one thing will cost or how the Congress will allocate the money.

What kind of assurances can you give to Canadians that the effort on regulatory cooperation will not lead to a watering down of health and safety standards, or a movement away from government regulation to self-regulation by industry?

Jacobson:  This is not a process of a “race to the bottom” or “we’ll take whichever is the least restrictive” or un-regulating or de-regulating. That is not our intention. People on both sides of the border understand that.

About that border deal between Canada and the U.S.

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 12:02 AM - 0 Comments

Amid the pageantry of a joint appearance at the White House alongside President Obama, the prime minister on Wednesday touted the new border security agreement in grandiose terms: the “most significant steps forward in Canada-U.S. cooperation since the North American Free Trade Agreement.” The agreement, though, is less a single leap than a series of many incremental gains, say the technocrats who labored in the shadows to put the multifaceted deal together. One Canadian official likened border negotiations to the cliché about football—it’s a “game of inches.” And this agreement covers a lot of inches—including myriad new ways in which the two nations will share data about travelers and cargo, the promise of a single on-line portal for importers and exporters who today have to schlep paper documents to a variety of government agencies, and pilot projects that will allow certain kinds of pre-inspected cargo to cross the border without stopping. It also includes a border wait-time measurement system and an inventory of border fees to help citizens and policy makers understand how well things are working—or not.

There is no doubt that Canadian officials have learned their lesson from years of trilateral “Three Amigos” summitry that resulted in lengthy bureaucratic to-do lists and more controversy than results. This time, they cut out Mexico, instead running a bilateral process focused on a limited number concrete high-impact results that could be implemented in a short period of time. Rather than endlessly negotiating over grand policy changes, they agreed to more modest pilot projects in complicated areas such as land border-preclearance in order to “build confidence” and demonstrate tangible results on the ground. Continue…

State Dept announces new Keystone study, delay

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 3:37 PM - 0 Comments

It’s official: the State Department has announced it will conduct additional “in-depth” study of an alternative route for the Keystone XL pipeline given concerns about the pipeline passing through the  Sand Hills of Nebraska.

This is something environmentalists had demanded for a long time, but State had shown little interest in until the politicalpressure was put onto the White House.

This move could push a final decision on the permit back by 12-18 months, according to Reuters, and therefore past the election.

I have not seen a statement yet from TransCanada in response. The company had indicated in the past that too much delay could kill the project.

From State:

For Immediate Release and Posting

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

For Immediate Release                                                                                                                                                           November 10, 2011

2011/1909

MEDIA NOTE

Keystone XL Pipeline Project Review Process: Decision to Seek Additional Information

Executive Order 13337 authorizes the Department of State to lead the review of Presidential Permit applications for transborder pipelines, granting the Department discretion in determining what factors to examine to inform a determination of whether the proposed project is in the national interest.  Since 2008, the Department has been conducting a transparent, thorough and rigorous review of TransCanada’s application for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline project.  As a result of this process, particularly given the concentration of concerns regarding the environmental sensitivities of the current proposed route through the Sand Hills area of Nebraska, the Department has determined it needs to undertake an in-depth assessment of potential alternative routes in Nebraska.

As part of the National Interest Determination process, the State Department held a public comment period, including public meetings in the six potentially affected states and Washington, D.C., to increase the opportunity for public comments.  During this time, the Department also received input from state, local, and tribal officials.  We received comments on a wide range of issues including the proposed project’s impact on jobs, pipeline safety, health concerns, the societal impact of the project, the oil extraction in Canada, and the proposed route through the Sand Hills area of Nebraska, which was one of the most common issues raised.  The comments were consistent with the information in the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) about the unique combination of characteristics in the Sand Hills (which includes a high concentration of wetlands of special concern, a sensitive ecosystem, and extensive areas of very shallow groundwater) and provided additional context and information about those characteristics.  The concern about the proposed route’s impact on the Sand Hills of Nebraska has increased significantly over time, and has resulted in the Nebraska legislature convening a special session to consider the issue.

State law primarily governs routes for interstate petroleum pipelines; however, Nebraska currently has no such law or regulatory framework authorizing state or local authorities to determine where a pipeline goes.  Taken together with the national concern about the pipeline’s route, the Department has determined it is necessary to examine in-depth alternative routes that would avoid the Sand Hills in Nebraska in order to move forward with a National Interest Determination for the Presidential Permit.

Based on the Department’s experience with pipeline project reviews and the time typically required for environmental reviews of similar scope by other agencies, it is reasonable to expect that this process including a public comment period on a supplement to the final EIS consistent with NEPA could be completed as early as the first quarter of 2013.  After obtaining the additional information, the Department would determine, in consultation with the eight other agencies identified in the Executive Order, whether the proposed pipeline was in the national interest, considering all of the relevant issues together.  Among the relevant issues that would be considered are environmental concerns (including climate change), energy security, economic impacts, and foreign policy.

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Condi Rice on her night with Peter MacKay

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at 3:24 PM - 0 Comments

In her new political memoir, No Higher Honor, Condoleezza Rice, devotes little ink to her dealings with Canada. Most mentions are fleeting and rate less than a sentence: there is Canada training police in Haiti, “standing aside” during the Iraq invasion, “bristling” while other NATO countries limited their own rules of engagement in Afghanistan, or participating in “unsettling” meetings on the lack of military coordination there. Former prime minister Jean Chretien gets a sentence all to himself for telling other G8 leaders he was “appalled” by a speech in which George W. Bush called for the ouster of Yasser Arafat.

And then there is Peter MacKay. He gets almost a page.

It turns out their evening together in Nova Scotia 2006 was more than just grist for the gossip mill — Rice credits it with helping her decide not to quit her job. Continue…

Oil sands pipeline gets final hearing in DC

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, October 7, 2011 at 2:33 PM - 4 Comments

After a series of public meetings along the pipeline route, the State Department held a final public meeting on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline today in Washington, DC.

The large hall at the Ronald Reagan Building on Pennsylvania Avenue seemed about evenly divided between opponents of the proposed pipeline and supporters, mostly members of two unions that support the project: the Laborer’s International Union of America, which represents construction workers, and the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters.

During the portion of the event that I attended, individuals took turns making three minute-long comments to a panel of State Dept. representatives. The presentations were often heartfelt, and the applause raucous, but generally the process was calm. As expected, the arguments boiled down to environmental concerns versus jobs. The issue of replacing middle eastern oil with Canadian oil came up, as did pipeline safety concerns. But environment v jobs was the bottom line.

Along 14^th Street, the LiUNA members staged a demonstration in favor of the pipeline. One chant was “Queremos Trabajo!” (We want work.)

Across, the street, an echo of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement had set up an “Occupy DC”encampment on Freedom Plaza. (A LiUNA spokesman said that they support that movement, underscoring the extent to which Keystone XL presents a strange issue for them because it puts them opposite many of the progressive groups they usually stand. But in a country where 1.2 million construction workers are unemployed, jobs are the paramount issue for the union, the spokesman told me.)

I recently wrote in Maclean’s that environmental groups have changed their focus from the official State Department review process, which is expected to wind up by the end of the year — to pressuring the Obama re-election campaign directly, by threatening to withdraw their financial and organizational support.

The anti-pipeline movement has gained a lot of steam lately — and there seems to me more pressure on the administration than ever before. But Keystone XL is still hardly a household word. Given the difficult job situation in the US, and the State Department’s TransCanada-friendly Final Environmental Impact Statement, and Obama’s repeated willingness to back down from some environmental rules on account of their economic impacts, it’s hard to see Obama nixing this project and giving Republicans another “job-killer” slogan to throw at him.

Political analyst Roland Martin notes in my Maclean’s piece:

“We are in such a difficult economic climate that anything that has the word jobs attached to it becomes kryptonite … Republicans have been beating the President over the head with ‘job-killing regulations’ and ‘job-killing taxes.’ At the end of the day, the sense I get from the Obama campaign is that they are thinking about how to target independent voters.”

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No border fence: top US border official

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, September 30, 2011 at 5:43 PM - 8 Comments

The mention of fencing in a recent environmental impact statement from the US Customs and Border Protection agency sparked concerns in Canada that the US government is planning a fence along the Canadian border.

Today I spoke with David V. Aguilar, deputy commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, and he told me unequivocally:

“There are no plans at all for a fence along the northern border.”

He added that any fencing under consideration would be for protecting infrastructure or buildings at individual “ports of entry” (border crossings):

“Any fence that is being considered at the northern border is specific to a port of entry footprint or complex. There is no intent at the current time to build a fence between the ports of entry,” said Aguilar.

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Dick Cheney, economist

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 3:10 PM - 5 Comments

It is an interesting exercise to read Dick Cheney’s new memoir, In My Time, amid the anti-Wall Street bailout and anti-deficit clamour among many Republicans in Washington and on the campaign trail.

Cheney writes of his support for the the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP):

“I had long been an advocate of keeping government intervention in the private sector to a minimum. What we were now talking about now was the largest such intervention in the history of the republic, and I was a strong supporter.  [...] There was no other option.”

Knowing that Republicans in Congress would hate it, the administration even considered acting unilaterally:

“We briefly contemplated not seeking congressional authority. [...] [Federal Reserve Board Chairman] Ben Bernanke made clear, however, that he would feel much more comfortable with congressional approval, so we went to work trying to secure it.”

Cheney goes on to defend the bailout of the banks as a “success.”

As for the Bush-Cheney administration’s contribution to the federal deficit, he writes about the resistance they faced in 2003 when they proposed a $550-billion second round of tax cuts. A few Republicans were worried about the cuts adding to the deficit:

“I have been quoted as saying around this time that ‘deficits don’t matter’ and citing Ronald Reagan to bolster the case, but of course I thought deficits mattered. I just believed that it was important to see them in context, to note that while Ronald Reagan’s dramatic increases in the defense budget and his historic tax cuts did push the deficit from 2.7 percent of the gross domestic product in fiscal year 1980 to 6 percent in fiscal year 1983, his spending on defense helped put the Soviet Union out of business, and his tax cuts helped spur one ofthe longest sustained waves of properity in our history. The result was a peace dividend, increased federal revenues, and, eventually, lower deficits.”

Not much of a Tea Partier, that Cheney.

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Rick Perry’s Ron Paul problem

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 2:32 PM - 12 Comments

Watching now front-runner Texas governor Rick Perry campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in New Hampshire over the weekend, it was easy to see how he had managed to leap over Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann in the polls. He has charisma and the kind of unapologetic swagger many conservatives are looking for and touts a record of job creation in Texas. Primary voters who came to see him speak found some of his more 0ver-the-top comments to be less evidence of un-electability than proof that  the guy sticks to his guns and “tells it like it is”. (Story in this week’s print magazine.)

But last night’s Republican debate threw up two red flags. First, calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” doesn’t play as well on national television as it does in a more intimate back and forth with voters when its couched in folksy, I’m-just-bein’-straight-with-ya rhetoric. Every time Perry repeated the phrase last night, it was hard not to imagine Democrats cutting an attack ad.

Second, having to share the stage with a fellow Texan familiar with the details of your record presents a problem — especially if he is a libertarian and you are trying to run against Romney from the right. It was Rep. Ron Paul who last night put the pressure on Perry over his executive order that Grade Six girls in Texas get vaccines against a sexually transmitted disease that causes cancer — portraying it as not only an assault on parental rights, but also as an abuse of an executive order to get around taking the matter to the state legislature. And in past years, it was Paul who has criss-crossed the country denouncing the toll-roads Perry tried to build in Texas, portraying them as part of a nefarious “Nafta Superhighway.”

It will be interesting to see what impact the debate has on Perry’s poll numbers — and how the Texan-on-Texan dynamic will unfold going forward.

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State Dept.: no major enviro probs with oil sands pipeline

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, August 26, 2011 at 2:14 PM - 6 Comments

August 26, 2011

Double-dip? Or 7-year “debt de-leveraging”?

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, August 8, 2011 at 10:11 AM - 14 Comments

In a depressing reality-check on the US economy, Ezra Klein quotes an economist who has studied the aftermath of various financial crises and finds they are quite different from regular business-cycle recessions.

Writes Klein:

“In a paper co-authored with her husband, economist Vincent Reinhart, Carmen Reinhart looked at the aftermath of the 15 post-World War II financial crises. “The monetary policies in these episodes were quite different. The fiscal policies were quite different. And the exchange rates were all over the place,” she says. But wherever there was a substantial overhang of private debt, there was a long road to recovery.”

“Debt de-leveraging takes about seven years. That’s the essence,” she says. “And in the decade following severe financial crises, you tend to grow by 1 to 1.5 percentage points less than in the decade before, because the decade before was fueled by a boom in private borrowing, and not all of that growth was real. The unemployment figures in advanced economies after falls are also very dark. Unemployment remains anchored about five percentage points above what it was in the decade before.”

Full article at the Washington Post: Don’t Call it a Recession.

Clinton & Baird on Keystone, Syria and Somalia

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 5:48 PM - 4 Comments

Foreign Minister John Baird met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department today. Their press conference afterward included a few notable word choices.

On bilateral issues, Clinton used language that should be music to the Canadian government’s ears. She described the border as a “connector.” That image certainly fits with the kind of conceptualization of the border that successive Canadian governments and the Canadian business community have been arguing for.

Clinton said: “As close neighbors who work, trade and interact with one another, we are seeking ways to create jobs for our own citizens, Canadians and Americans alike.  Therefore it’s critical that we ensure our border remains a safe, vibrant connector of people, trade and energy.  And today the minister and I discussed other ways to expand trade and investment — for example, by reducing unnecessary regulations that get in the way of our businesses doing business.”

It’s also notable that she didn’t just say connector of people and trade but also energy — given the controversy over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry oil sands crude to the US Gulf Coast, which is being reviewed by her department.

Later in the press conference, she was asked what environmental concerns the administration still has about the pipeline and why the process has been taking so long. Without getting into details, she said environmental questions are being closely examined along with pipeline safety issues.  “We are leaving no stone unturned in this process,” she said, and reiterated that there would be a decision by the end of the year. She added that pipeline safety was on the department’s “highest priorities.” But she also went out of her way to say that the department was “working very hard to understand” all the issues, “including the very important point the minister made to me about energy security.”

For his part, Baird presented the Conservative government’s parliamentary majority as a mandate for the perimeter security talks: “Our government recently received a strong mandate from Canadians to create jobs and to secure the global recovery.  To that end, even stronger cooperation between Canada and the United States simply makes sense,” he said. “We must speed up legitimate trade and travel between our two countries, while also enhancing security and protecting our citizens’ privacy.” And he called the proposed pipeline “tremendously important to the future prosperity of the Canadian economy.”

On Syria, Clinton said the US government believes some 2,000 people have been killed by the Syrian regime and expressed some frustration with the difficulty of raising international outrage at the sight of the Syrian regime killing its own citizens. She noted in particular the shooting of a one-year old child.

“We know that it’s taken time to pull together a broader international coalition to speak out against what is happening in Syria, but we are committed to doing all we can to increase the pressure, including additional sanctions, but not just U.S. sanctions, because frankly we don’t have a lot of business with Syria.  We need to get Europeans and others.  We need to get the Arab states.  We need to get a much louder, more effective chorus of voices that are putting pressure on the Assad regime, and we’re working to obtain them.”

She said there was progress because a UN Security Council Resolution condemning Syria that was adopted Wednesday night. “We are working very hard to increase that international will.  What happened last night in the Security Council could not have happened a week ago.” She said it was the “first step in what we hope will be a series of steps.”

With regard to the famine in Somalia, Clinton noted that Jill Biden, the wife of the vice president as well as Raj Shah, the head of USAID would be visiting aid operations in Kenya. She called on al-Shebab militants to allow access to food relief efforts. She also said that laws banning aid to terrorist groups would be waived for those groups attempting to help feed the starving people in areas controlled by al-Shebab.

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Q&A with the U.S. State Dept. official leading the Keystone XL pipeline review

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, June 20, 2011 at 1:06 PM - 4 Comments

Below is  my interview with Daniel Clune, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State — the official at the US State Department responsible for managing the review process of TransCanada PipeLines Ltd.’s application to build the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico.

The review process consists of two main parts: an Environmental Impact Statement and a National Interest Determination.

My article based on the interview is here: What’s blocking the Keystone XL pipeline?

(The transcript has been slightly condensed.)

Q – Why is this approval process taking so much longer than the ones for Keystone I and Alberta Clipper?

Continue…

U.S. EPA announces "environmental objections" to oil sands pipeline

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 12:32 PM - 13 Comments

The US Environmental Protection Agency has sent a letter to the State Department raising “environmental objections” to  TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry crude oil from the Alberta oil sands through the American Midwest to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The State Department is considering whether or not to issue a permit for the pipeline, which has the support of the Alberta and Canadian governments.

(The letter is in response to the State Department’s Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. The supplemental was issued after the EPA criticized the first EIS as inadequate. But the EPA says that State again did not provide sufficient analysis in its supplemental EIS.)

In yesterday’s letter, the EPA said that it has “environmental objections” to the Keystone XL project.

(The “environmental objections” rating is explained on page 8 of the letter — out of 4 possible rankings, this is the second-most negative and requires either “corrective measures” or “alternative actions” to be taken.)

The EPA says it has concerns about pipeline safety and spills, impacts on nearby communities, and greenhouse gas emissions, among others.

The full letter is here.

Meanwhile, yesterday the State Dept. said it would hold six additional field hearings on the proposed pipeline — something environmentalists had been asking for.  The move is a disappointment to House Republicans who have been urging the Obama administration to fast-track the project both as a means to “energy security” and as way to create construction jobs in the US. (They even introduced a bill that would require the administration to reach a permit decision by Nov. 1. State has said it will make a decision by the end of 2011.)

The letter comes after the US pipeline safety regulator ordered the existing Keystone pipeline shut down on Friday after a series of leaks. It was allowed to reopen the next day.

Environmentalists were encouraged by the EPA’s letter:

“With this rating, the EPA is standing up for the people who would be hurt by the Keystone XL pipeline, including Midwest farmers and low-income people around Texas refineries,” said Alex Moore, dirty fuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth. “All eyes are on Secretary of State Clinton. Will she comply with the law and ensure that these impacts are studied or not?”

Meanwhile, Andrew Leach argues at the Globe and Mail’s website that the pipeline’s potential impact on greenhouse gas emissions is being overstated.

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