US state governor notifies officials he approved new Canadian pipeline route through Nebraska

By Grant Schulte, The Associated Press - Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

LINCOLN, Neb. – Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman approved a new route for the Keystone XL oil pipeline on Tuesday that avoids the state’s environmentally sensitive Sandhills region.

Heineman sent a letter to President Barack Obama confirming that he would allow the controversial, Canada-to-Texas pipeline to proceed through his state.

The project has faced some of its strongest resistance in Nebraska from a coalition of landowners and environmental groups who say it would contaminate the Ogallala aquifer, a massive groundwater supply.

Canadian pipeline developer TransCanada and some workers’ unions say the project is safe and will create thousands of jobs.

The original route would have run the pipeline through a region of erodible, grass-covered sand dunes. The new route skirts that area, although the pipeline’s most vocal critics remain firmly opposed to it as well.

“Governor Heineman just performed one of the biggest flip-flops that we’ve in Nebraska political history,” said Jane Kleeb, executive director of the group Bold Nebraska.

Heineman said previously that he would oppose any pipeline route through the Sandhills region. In his letter to Obama, he said the new 195-mile (320-kilometre) route through Nebraska avoids the Sandhills but would still cross part of the aquifer. Heineman said any spills would be localized, and the clean-up responsibilities would fall to TransCanada.

The governor said the project would result in $418.1 million in economic benefits for the state and $16.5 million in taxes from the pipeline construction materials.

Alberta premier happy with Saskatchewan support for Keystone pipeline

By The Canadian Press - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 8:55 PM - 0 Comments

EDMONTON – Premier Alison Redford says she’s pleased to hear of a new effort to get U.S. President Barack Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has joined 10 U.S. Republican governors in sending a letter to Obama.

The letter says the proposed pipeline, which would carry bitumen from the Alberta oilsands to U.S refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, would create thousands of jobs on both sides of the border.

Redford says Alberta is pursuing its own avenues in support of the pipeline.

But she calls Wall’s letter “another arrow in the quiver.”

TransCanada is now hoping for approval from the State Department after filing a new application with an altered pipeline route.

Kerry has investments in pro-Keystone XL Canadian energy companies

By The Canadian Press - Thursday, January 17, 2013 at 10:46 PM - 0 Comments

WASHINGTON – John Kerry’s expected cakewalk to the U.S. State Department has delighted American environmentalists due to his stance on climate change, but the longtime senator owns stock in two Canadian oil companies that have pushed for approval of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline.

Federal financial disclosure records show Kerry has investments of as much as US$750,000 in Suncor, a Calgary-based energy company whose CEO has urged the U.S. to greenlight TransCanada’s controversial project.

The longtime Massachusetts senator, one of the wealthiest lawmakers on Capitol Hill with an estimated net worth of $193 million, also has as much as $31,000 invested in Cenovus Energy, another Calgary firm.

The lawmaker will likely have to divest of those holdings, or put them in blind trust if they aren’t already, following an ongoing federal ethics review that is standard procedure for would-be U.S. cabinet secretaries.

Continue…

Why Wall’s Keystone letter to Obama left out Alberta, Nebraska

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, January 17, 2013 at 5:18 PM - 0 Comments

Today Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama, co-signed by several U.S. governors, calling for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. The move was noted for two omissions: the absence of signatures of Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman, or Alberta Premier Alison Redford.

I asked Wall whether Heineman declined to sign the letter, or whether he was not approached because he is midway through a review process of a proposed alternative route through his state. Wall said Heineman was not approached:

“We knew he was in the middle of that [review].”

Wall said he is “pretty optimistic” that Nebraska will approve the alternative route.

Likewise, Alberta Premier Alison Redford was not invited to sign on:

“I don’t believe there was a specific request [to Redford],” said Wall. “This was our idea and we started phoning governors.”

The omission of Alberta was strategic, he suggested:

“I think it’s helpful sometimes if it’s not Alberta leading this,” said Wall, who noted that Alberta had long been “on top” of pipeline lobbying in Washington. “We [Saskatchewan] can be an honest broker because we don’t have commercial oil sands in our province.”

However, he said Alberta is “supportive of this initiative.”

So what is Saskatchewan’s interest in the pipeline? Wall said the province produces conventional crude oil for export to the U.S. and is concerned about pipeline capacity , especially as oil production ramps up in the Bakken formation that straddles parts of North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan:

“We won’t necessarily have oil in this pipeline, but any relief of the capacity issue is important to us.”

Wall also noted that Saskatchewan sells its oil at a discount of about $15 to $18 per barrel because it cannot reach refiners on the Gulf Coast of Texas:

“This costs our treasury $300-million a year that we could use to pay off debt or invest in infrastructure.”

I asked Wall whether he had any experience in dealing with Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, President Obama’s nominee to replace Secretary of State Clinton. Kerry has a long-standing concern about climate change and environmentalists consider him to be more amenable to hearing their concerns about the pipeline. Wall said he’d met the senator, and would continue to make the case:

“There has been a lot of work around increasing the sustainability of oil sands development. Canada has invested a lot. We need to do more, we are doing more. This is a chance to get that message out.”

And how sure is he that there is still an appetite for Canadian oil in light of America’s own domestic oil and gas boom?

“There is still going to be a need for imports. And when we talk about energy security, I’ve heard both parties in the last election talk about it in the North American context. If we’re serious about independence, we need to move energy across the continent.”

Dear Barack Obama

TransCanada shuts base Keystone oil pipeline after finding ‘anomaly’

By The Canadian Press - Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 11:46 PM - 0 Comments

CALGARY – TransCanada Corp. has shut down its Keystone oil pipeline after it detected a “small anomaly” on the outside of the pipe.

Company spokesman Grady Semmens says the line, which delivers oilsands crude to refineries in Illinois and a storage hub in Oklahoma, has been shut as a precaution.

He says no leaks have been detected on the system, which is expected to be offline for three days while the company goes in for a closer look at the pipe.

Semmens says the pipeline was shut down Wednesday and is expected to restart Saturday.

Once the pipeline is restarted the company expects “normal operations and flows” for the rest of October, but TransCanada may have to “make up some volumes in November,” Semmens said.

Heavy storms that have hit the area recently “are not helping” the operation, he said.

“But we have crews on site and will be doing excavation work to expose the pipeline so we can investigate the feature that was identified by the in-line inspection,” Semmens said.

The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said TransCanada reported shutting down the approximately 3,380-kilometre pipeline, which moves about 500,000 barrels of crude a day from Alberta to facilities in Illinois and Oklahoma.

Jeannie Layson, spokeswoman for PHMSA, says the possible safety issues were found on part of the pipeline that extends between Missouri and Illinois.

Layson says in an email that an agency inspector has been sent to review the test results, observe repairs and follow any necessary safety activities.

She says TransCanada hasn’t reported any leaks on the system.

TransCanada has a proposal called Keystone XL to expand the system and extend its reach to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

After a series of delays, the U.S. government is expected to make a decision on the controversial $7.6-billion expansion early next year.

Pipeline opponents argue the project is unsafe because it would be carrying heavy, acidic crude oil that could more easily corrode a metal pipe, which would lead to a spill. They also say refining the oil would further contaminate the air in a region that has long struggled with pollution.

TransCanada says its pipeline would be the safest ever built, and that the crude isn’t much different than oil currently arriving from Venezuela or parts of California.

Romney: North American energy independence by 2020

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Thursday, August 2, 2012 at 10:15 AM - 0 Comments

Evan Vucci/CP Photo

On the road today in Colorado where Mitt Romney is trying to turn the page form his fraught foreign trip with a laser focus on the economy.

His aides say he will announce a 5-point “Plan for a Stronger Middle Class.” From the sounds of it, the plan is a repackaging of the same economic policies Romney has already outlined in his campaign — cuts to income taxes and corporate taxes, deregulation, and reducing government spending to 20% of GDP.

Interestingly, the first plank of the “new” plan is a goal of achieving “North American energy independence by 2020.” It’s not an easy goal — that in practice would likely require both increases in production and reductions in energy consumption (and expensive investments in new technologies).

The Romney campaign said it would be done through increased domestic US production and building more infrastructure (including Keystone XL) within North America.

North American energy independence was for a long time the notion that Canadian representatives would pitch in Washington.

That changed with Stephen Harper’s comments on the subject during his April visit to Washington when he said continental independence was not in Canada’s interests any longer:

I’ve got to say that Canada’s interests  here are a little bit different, and particularly—I might as well be frank with you—in light of the interim decision on Keystone.  What it really has highlighted for Canada is that our issue when it comes to energy and energy security is not North American self-sufficiency; our energy issue is a necessity of diversifying our energy export markets.

We cannot be, as a country, in a situation where really our one and, in many cases, almost only energy partner could say no to our energy products. We just cannot be in that kind of position.

And the truth of the matter is that when it comes to oil in particular, we do face a significant discount in the marketplace because of the fact that we’re a captive supplier.

So we have made it  clear to the people of Canada one of our national priorities is to make sure that we have the infrastructure and the capacity to export our energy products outside of North America. Now, look, we’re still going to be a major supplier to the United  States. It’ll be a long time, if ever, before the United States isn’t our number one export market. But for us, the United States cannot be our only export market. That is not in our interests either commercially or even, as I say, in terms of price.

The southern view of Keystone XL

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 at 6:00 PM - 0 Comments

The Washington Post has dispatched a team to travel the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline. The team’s blog is here. And their first stories from Alberta are here.

The pipeline has become a powerful symbol and political pawn this election year. It is also a sort of Rorschach test of how Americans view energy issues: Are we energy rich or energy poor? How do energy policies affect job creation, tax revenue and U.S. manufacturing competitiveness? How pressing are ­climate-change concerns, and how do we balance them with economic priorities?

The American public is firmly behind the pipeline, seeing plenty of upside in potential jobs and limited environmental downside. A new Washington Post poll finds nearly six in 10 saying the U.S. government should approve the project. Its wide acceptance is rooted in the fact that 83 percent think it will create jobs. Nearly half think it will not cause significant damage to the environment.

The oil industry and many national security experts think that importing more oil from Canada, a stable neighbor and ally, will make the United States more secure, and they worry that, without the Keystone XL, Canada will send that oil to China. But the process of extracting oil from the sands, also called tar sands, has alarmed people worried about climate change.

Presumably the Post team will eventually visit the towns of Reklaw (pop. 379), Alto (pop. 1,225) and Gallatin (pop. 419), Texas, which are fighting the pipeline because they fear a spill could contaminate their water supply.

See previously: Keystone rhetoric and reality

Keystone rhetoric and reality

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

Charles Pierce traces those “environmental extremists” to Nebraska.

What gets lost in all of this is that the most stalwart opposition to the crazy notion of running a pipeline of the world’s dirtiest carbon-based fuel through what is literally the bloodstream of the nation’s farm economy is coming from landowners in Nebraska. Trans Canada, the company that wants to build the pipeline, already has folded and offered an alternate route that it says would keep the pipeline out of the Sandhills. (The danger to the aquifer remains.) But the ranchers whose property abuts this new route are not yet satisfied … ”We’ve been called radical environmentalists,” Frisch said, “but we’re just looking out for our livelihood.”

Separately, the New York Times’ Joe Nocera says “all of Harper’s ministers have been instructed to stop making comments that might be construed as interfering in the American presidential election.” It’s unclear (at least to me) if that much has been reported previously in Canadian media.

Sound familiar?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Newt Gingrich, yesterday. “He recently vetoed the Keystone pipeline. Now, think about it! He did it to appease left-wing environmental extremists in San Francisco.”

Joe Oliver, September 27. “The NDP has decided to stand against these jobs and ally itself with a few environmental extremists who want to shutter all oil sands development.”

You’ve got a friend in Newt

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 23, 2012 at 8:25 AM - 0 Comments

The winner of the South Carolina primary shouts out the Prime Minister.

“What Prime Minister Harper — who, by the way, is conservative and pro-American — what he has said is he’s gonna cut a deal with the Chinese and they’ll build a pipeline straight across the Rockies to Vancouver,” Gingrich said Saturday night. “We’ll get none of the jobs, none of the energy, none of the opportunity. Now, an American president who can create a Chinese-Canadian partnership is truly a danger to this country.”

See previously: Keystone rejected and Keystone and everything after

Keystone XL wars: Much ado about nothing, basically

By Erica Alini - Friday, January 20, 2012 at 4:38 PM - 0 Comments

Michael Levi, a  senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, has written a must-read list of myths about the (temporarily) defunct Keystone XL. Levi takes aim at climate change scaremongering with the same delight with which he debunks job creation and energy independence fairytales. Here’s a synopsis:

1. The pipeline would have been catastrophic for global climate change. Verdict: false.

2. The pipeline would have reduced U.S. reliance on oil from the Middle East. Verdict: pipe dream.

3. The pipeline would have created hundreds of thousands of American jobs. Verdict: gross exaggeration.

4. The pipeline would have set back the green economy. Verdict: umm… not true.

5. If we don’t build the pipeline and buy their oil, Canada will sell it to China. Verdict: so what?*

*hem, this, of course, from an American point of view.

Read the rest here.

Harper and U.S. protectionism: a trip down memory lane

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 9:25 PM - 0 Comments

On May 28, 2002, the House of Commons debated a supply motion from the opposition Canadian Alliance: “That this House has lost confidence in the government for its failure to persuade the US government to end protectionist policies…”

Stephen Harper rose to speak. “Mr. Speaker, this will be my first speech as the leader of Her Majesty’s official opposition,” he said. He offered the customary thanks to his electors and the people of Alberta, before shifting gears. “I do not have a lot of time so I want to focus instead on the issue we chose for today’s supply debate, which perhaps is the most important issue that ever faces Canada: our relationship with the United States and in particular the increasingly troubled relationship we have on the trade front.”

The motion of the day referred to softwood and agriculture disputes. “To this I could easily add a third, energy,” Harper said, “the issue of pipeline movement of Alaskan gas reserves to the lower 48.” Or a forth, border restrictions.

“The question we must ask is why this has occurred. Why do we find ourselves victims of protectionist, isolationist and unilateralist sentiments from the United States? Why are Canadian interests being systematically ignored in Washington?”

“In fairness,” Harper was willing to acknowledge ”the reality of the United States’ domestic political interests, this being an important election year in the United States.” But there was another reason: ”the consistent and complete inability of the present Canadian government to make our case to American authorities, to congress and especially to the Bush administration.”

Why was there a secretariat for the Asia-Pacific in Foreign Affairs but none for the United States? Why all the trade missions to China? The reason, Harper said, was the Jean Chrétien had never been a free trader. “The Prime Minister went back to the future. He tried to revive the failed trade diversification of the 1970s, the Trudeau government’s so-called third option strategy, which did not work then and is not working now.”

What was missing, Harper said, was a proper working relationship between the Prime Minister and the President. He quoted former Canadian ambassador to Washington Allan Gotlieb: “Without the Prime Minister in play, the president will not be in play.”

Here, at last, it is possible to see real light showing between the Prime Minister Harper was criticizing in 2002 and the one he has become in 2012. The reason Chrétien wasn’t taken seriously in Bush’s Washington, he said, was because Chrétien was soft on a bunch of security questions.

“It should not be surprising that when Canadian ministers suddenly show up in Washington and demand something be done about softwood duties or agriculture many high level American decision makers do not pay much attention.”

So now what? “On this I will make a very controversial observation. When it comes to United States-Canada relations, the government has much to learn from former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

“Whatever Mr. Mulroney’s shortcomings… he understood a fundamental truth. He understood that mature and intelligent Canadian leaders must share the following perspective: the United States is our closest neighbour, our best ally, our biggest customer and our most consistent friend. Whatever else, we forget these things at our own peril.”

The new opposition leader wrapped up his argument, the first he wanted to make on the subject he had selected in his parliamentary debut as a national party leader: “We will be unable to get the U.S. administration on board unless whoever is in the White House and leading members of congress value and respect what our Prime Minister brings to the table.”

Keystone rejected

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 11:53 AM - 0 Comments

(This post last updated at 6:57pm.)

So reports the Washington Post. With an asterisk.

The Obama administration will announce this afternoon it is rejecting a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate a massive oil pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border, according to sources who have been briefed on the matter. However the administration will allow TransCanada to reapply after it develops an alternate route through the sensitive habitat of Nebraska’s Sandhills.

The Prime Minister’s last comments on Keystone came Monday in his interview with the CBC.

I think what’s happened around the Keystone is a wakeup call, the degree to which we are dependent or possibly held hostage to decisions in the United States, and especially decisions that may be made for very bad political reasons. So I think that just … it puts an emphasis on the fact that we must perform our regulatory processes to get timely decisions on diversification of our markets.

Update 2:03pm. Maybe “rejected” is too simplistic a characterization. The New York Times has the project “on hold.”

The administration has until Feb. 21 to decide the fate of the 1,700-mile pipeline to carry heavy crude oil from formations in Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Officials are expected to announce that they cannot meet that deadline and that they are looking for ways to complete a thorough environmental review before making a final decision on the project … The State Department is expected to say that routing, environmental and safety concerns raised by the project are too complex to be decided on that abbreviated timetable and is recommending that President Obama reject it for the time being.

Update 3:17pm. And here is the official statement from the U.S. State Department.

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.

Update 3:28pm. A note from the Prime Minister’s Office on Mr. Harper’s conversation with Mr. Obama. Continue…

The Commons: Grumpy old men

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 6:02 PM - 144 Comments

Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press

The Scene. Whatever Joe Oliver and Peter Kent are actually accomplishing in their capacity as ministers of the crown, these two children of the 1940s have at least the basis of a promising buddy comedy.

If memory serves, Mr. Oliver’s first forays were mostly unmemorable. Then, at some point, the Natural Resources Minister started shouting.

Recent weeks have been spent metaphorically shaking his fist at the official opposition and imploring them to get off his metaphorical lawn. He has linked them to Hugo Chavez and “European socialists” and “jet-setting Hollywood stars” and, worst of all, “European bureaucrats.” He has said that their only priority is to protect the interests of “their foreign socialist comrades and billionaire U.S. limousine liberals.” He has accused them of standing in the way of social services for children and health care for the elderly. He has ventured, in the course of a single sentence, that “NDP members have never met a job creating private sector policy or project that they do not want to kill, a tax they do not want to raise, a regulation they do not want to impose, a freedom they do not want to curtail, an issue they do not try to use to divide Canadians, and a fictitious problem they do not want the government to solve at great cost.” One day he concluded his remarks with a cry of “send in the clowns!”

All of this, apparently, because the New Democrats have some reservations about the Keystone pipeline project. And all of it committed to the record in the sort of tone—grumbly and impatient—that is generally employed to advise hippies that they might cut their hair and get a job. Continue…

Just another casual allegation of treason

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 59 Comments

After explaining to the House that opposition MPs were no longer relevant and dissenting opinions would no longer be tolerated, Peter Kent stepped into the foyer yesterday and described the visit of two NDP MPs to Washington as follows.

As you have seen this week, one of the opposition parties has taken the treacherous course of leaving the domestic debate and heading abroad to attack a legitimate Canadian resource which is being responsibly developed and regulated.  

Treachery is synonymous with treason. During World War II, the British parliament enacted the Treachery Act to prosecute enemy conspirators. Sixteen people were subsequently executed for violations under the act.

Build the pipeline or Granny suffers

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 4:16 PM - 33 Comments

As Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver explained to reporters after QP, the Conservatives are appalled that NDP MPs would express a dissenting opinion about the Keystone pipeline within earshot of Americans. In other news, the Keystone pipeline is now an initiative to provide health care for seniors.

I was appalled when I heard the NDP intends to go down to the United States to talk negatively about the Keystone XL project.  This is a project which will generate hundreds of thousands of jobs for Canadians, billions of dollars of economic activity and it will fund important social services like education for our children, health care for the elderly. Frankly, I think what they’re doing is a disgrace.

On the question of the NDP MPs and their trip to Washington, at least one voice in the scrum noted the example of a former opposition leader who went on American television to express his concern for Canada’s refusal to go to war in Iraq.

Israel, Palestine and Brian Topp

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 11:35 AM - 36 Comments

A day after laying out his position on the Keystone pipeline, the NDP leadership contender lectures the Prime Minister on Middle East policy.

We can be friends of the friends of peace, on both sides. In stark contrast to the policy of the Harper government, which currently aims in the opposite direction. Which brings us to the question of the recognition of Palestine in some form by the United Nations.

The details will matter. Perhaps the Palestinians will overplay their hand at the United Nations in coming weeks or months, and make it impossible to help them – not for the first time.

But on the fundamental issue of recognition of a Palestinian state, as a step towards a peace in which both it and Israel live free from terror and violence, in recognized borders and at peace with all of their neighbors, it would be right for Canada to stand with most of the world. And to recognize Palestine.

‘I have some bones to pick with Stephen Harper’

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 3:44 PM - 18 Comments

With Roy Romanow in tow, Brian Topp outlines his differences with Stephen Harper (including the Keystone pipeline, the Canadian Wheat Board, pensions, health care and the corporate tax rate).

In everything Mr. Harper does, in everything he believes in, he is working to make Canada a more unequal society. I think it’s time to go in the other direction. It’s time, in everything we do, to work to make Canada more EQUAL. A Canada that leaves no one behind.