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Keystone decision means Enbridge must account for climate affect of Northern Gateway, environmental group tells Joint Review Panel

Environment Energy

A coalition of environmental groups led by ForestEthics says the fact the US State Department included climate change in its decision to reassess the Keystone XL pipeline means that Enbridge just do the same for the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat.

Even before the Keystone decision, the environmentalists filed a motion with the Northern Gateway Joint Review that would compel the panel to consider the up-stream impacts of tar sands from the Northern Gateway pipeline, as well as climate change impacts.

The groups say they filed the motion with the Joint Review panel on October 10 and have not yet received a response, even though, according to the group, the NGJR panel should respond within seven days.

A news release from ForestEthics says:

The State Department and the Obama administration’s decision to delay the Keystone XL pipeline sends a clear signal to Canadian decision makers,” says Nikki Skuce, Senior Energy campaigner with ForestEthics. “In the context of the climate change threat, credible pipeline review includes climate impacts…”

The Keystone decision came down to the concerns of thousands of American citizens,” said Jennifer Rice, Chair of The Friends of Wild Salmon. “Citizen concern is just as strong in Canada. We’ve had a record-breaking 4000 citizens sign-up to speak on the Gateway pipeline, and we hope Stephen Harper learns something from President Obama’s listening skills.”

ForestEthics spokesman Nikki Skuce said:

The Joint Review Panel has been reluctant to consider climate change and tar sands impacts in their assessment of Northern Gateway, yet Enbridge argues the need for this pipeline based on tar sands expansion… [President Barack] Obama’s decision sets a new North American standard for credible pipeline review. We hope the federal government does the right thing for Canadians and the planet, by including climate and tar sands impacts in their review process.

Keystone “too important not to proceed” TransCanada CEO says

Energy Environment Politics

The CEO of TransCanada, Russ Girling, reacting to news that the US State Dept. has delayed approval of the Keystone XL pipeline said Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011, “This project is too important to the U.S. economy, the Canadian economy and the national interest of the United States for it not to proceed.”

While Girling also said, “”We remain confident Keystone XL will ultimately be approved,” but the news release from TransCanada also acknowledged:

… while Keystone XL remains the best option for American and Canadian producers to get their oil to the U.S. Gulf Coast, today’s announcement by the DOS could have potential negative ramifications, especially where shippers and U.S. refiners are concerned.

“Supplies of heavy crude from Venezuela and Mexico to U.S. refineries will soon end,” said Girling. “If Keystone XL is continually delayed, these refiners may have to look for other ways of getting the oil they need. Oil sands producers face the same dilemma – how to get their crude oil to the Gulf Coast.”

In the release, TransCanada says the company will be discussing its next steps with the U.S. Department of State after it said further analysis of route options for the Keystone XL pipeline need to be investigated, with a specific focus on the Sandhills in Nebraska.

TransCanada said the company has already studied 14 different routes for Keystone XL, eight in Nebraska. The earlier studies included one potential alternative route in Nebraska that would have avoided the entire Sandhills region and Ogallala aquifer and six alternatives that would have reduced pipeline mileage crossing the Sandhills or the aquifer. TransCanada said the company hopes this work will serve as a starting point for the additional review and help expedite the review process.

“If Keystone XL dies, 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,” concluded Girling. “That would be a tragedy.”

TransCanada said it has held more than 100 open houses and public meetings in six states since 2008, The company said thousands of pages of supplemental information and responses to questions were submitted to state and federal agencies. The State Department received over 300,000 comments on the project.

Pembina urges Harper to follow US “objective perspective” of Keystone in looking at Northern Gateway

Energy Environment

The Pembina Institute, the Alberta based environmental and energy think tank has reacted to the decision by the United States Department of State to delay approval of the Keystone XL bitumen pipeline by urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to under take a similar “objective perspective” on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline from the Alberta bitumen sands to Kitimat.

In a news release, Pembina spokesman Dan Woynillowicz said that US President Barack 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 State Department release on the decision did include “climate change,” which Pembina interprets as, “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.”

Woynillowicz said the US decision shows that the regulatory process should be ” based on the best available information and analysis, and will take into account the views and concerns of American citizens.”

He then goes on to say:

“This decision stands in stark contrast with the Canadian government’s approach to the proposed Enbridge Gateway pipeline that would transport oil sands 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.”

US State Department delays Keystone approval until 2013, new route likely if approved

Energy Environment Politics

Updated 1915 Nov. 10, with link to TransCanada statement, 1940 with more reaction.

The United States Department of State has delayed approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline until 2013.

A news release posted on the State Department’s website confirmed earlier media speculation about a delay in the pipeline project approval until after the current US presidential election cycle.

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 [Environmental Impact Statement]… 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… 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.

The State Department release also indicates that,if the Keystone XL pipeline is approved, it will likely be rerouted around environmentally sensitive areas, further delaying construction and likely raising costs for TransCanada, the company that wants to build the pipeline. The release says that the State Department has been “conducting a transparent, thorough and rigorous review of TransCanada’s application.”

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…

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 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.

The premier of Alberta, Alison Redford called the decision “disappointing,” saying in a news release:

“It is disappointing that after more than three years of exhaustive
analysis and consultation on this critical project, we find out that a
decision will be delayed until early 2013. Our position has always been
clear that we respect and understand that approval of the pipeline is a
U.S. domestic matter, but the fact remains that Keystone XL is a key
piece of infrastructure for our province. I sincerely hope that the
State Department made this decision based on science and evidence and
not rhetoric and hyperbole from very well-organized interest groups.

Alberta is steadfastly committed to this project and my government will
continue to advocate that we are the safest, most secure and responsible
source of oil for the United States. I will seek immediate answers
from U.S. officials to determine why this decision was made and how the
process will unfold going forward.

The industry group the American Petroleum Institute was less diplomatic than Redford, in its own words, the API “blasted” the decision and directly blaming what it called “radicals.”

This decision is deeply disappointing and troubling.
Whether it will help the president retain his job is unclear, but it
will cost thousands of shovel-ready opportunities for American workers,”
said API President and CEO Jack Gerard.

“There is no real issue about
the environment that requires further investigation, as the president’s
own State Department has recently concluded after extensive project
reviews that go back more than three years. This is about politics and
keeping a radical constituency opposed to any and all oil and gas
development in the president’s camp in November 2012.

There has been speculation that cancellation or delay of the Keystone XL project would increase pressure to build the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline.

Pembina urges Harper to follow US “objective perspective”
of Keystone in looking at Northern Gateway

Koch owned Flint Hills Resources is intervenor in Northern Gateway Joint Review

Energy Politics

Flint Hills Resources Canada LP, the energy and resources company owned by the controversial American brothers, David and Charles Koch, is one of the intervenors in the Northern Gateway Joint Review process, a check of the JR website shows.

Flint Hills Resources LP Canada registration at NGJR

The two men own Koch Industries, the second largest privately held company in the United States. According to a Forbes article quoted by Wikipedia, Koch Industries has a world wide annual revenue estimated at $98 billion.

Koch Industries website

Northwest Coast Energy News checked the JRP website after an article published online today by Columbia Journalism Review outlined the Koch brothers and their company’s involvement in the Keystone XL pipeline and their extensive holdings in Canada through Flint Hills Resources.

The Koch brothers are active in conservative American politics and numerous media reports say they are chief financial backers of the Tea Party.

Wikipedia says David and Charles have funded and libertarian policy and advocacy groups in the United States.

Since the 1980s the Koch foundations have given more than $100 million to such organizations, among these think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, as well as more recently Americans for Prosperity.Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks are Koch-linked organizations that have been linked to the Tea Party movement

On Nov. 7, 2011, The Guardian reported that the Koch brothers plan to launch a giant database listing all Americans with conservative leanings in an attempt to influence the 2012 elections, including the presidential race. See Koch brothers: secretive billionaires to launch vast database with 2012 in mind

An interactive from The Guardian lists all the Koch connections.

Koch replies to its critics on the KochFacts site.

Enbridge confident of avoiding Keystone XL woes: Globe and Mail

Energy Link

In Enbridge confident of avoiding Keystone XL woes, The Globe and Mail reports on Enbridge’s US bound pipelines. (So it is not really a story about Northern Gateway, although the Keystone and Gateway projects are similar)

Enbridge Inc. is expressing confidence that it won’t be harmed by the problems that have dogged its rival TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL line.

Enbridge has secured substantial support for two of its own new U.S. pipeline projects – one called Flanagan South, the other Wrangler. But because the Enbridge projects would run through existing pipeline corridors, chief executive Pat Daniel said he believes the company can avoid some of the loud environmental criticism that has caused delays – and the threat of serious new problems – for Keystone.

Great Bear photo exhibit makes it to Kitimat

Environment Arts

The Great Bear Wild photo exhibit arrives in Kitimat Wednesday. The exhibit will open in a Kitimat store front, in the City Centre mall, for a ten day run, on Wednesday Nov. 2, 2011, continuing to Nov. 12. The opening reception is Saturday, Nov. 5 at 7 p.m.

Bringing the exhibit to Kitimat took a lot of time and effort sources say. That’s because the District of Kitimat’s officially neutral stance on the Enbridge Northern Gateway precluded official venues such as the Riverlodge Recreation Centre and the Kitimat Museum. The local environmental sponsors of the exhibit also tried, unsuccessfully, sources say, to find a space in a number of other possible venues around town.

The local sponsors are Douglas Channel Watch, Kitimat Valley Naturalists and Friends of the Wild Salmon.

At the beginning of September. 2010, the International League of Conservation Photographers sent some of the world’s best shooters on a RAVE (Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition) into the Great Bear Rainforest. That photo exhibit was sponsored by Pacific Wild, Save Our Seas, the Gitga’at First Nation and National Geographic. The shoot concentrated on the area along the coast within the boundaries of the Great Bear Rainforest and the mouth of Douglas Channel around Hartley Bay.

The ILCP says

The 14-day expedition to the Great Bear Rainforest called upon 7
world-renowned photographers and 3 videographers to thoroughly document
the region’s landscapes, wildlife, and culture. The RAVE provided media
support to the First Nations and environmental groups seeking to stop
the proposed Enbridge Gateway pipeline project (and thus expansion of
the tar sands) and to expose the plan to lift the oil tanker ship
moratorium.

The photographers did not come any further up Douglas Channel. One ILCP photographer, Neil Evers Osborne, is photographing the route of the pipeline by air. That project is ongoing, hanpered, in part, by this summer’s miserable weather.

Oliver in media blitz hinting at pushing Northern Gateway in case US stops Keystone XL

Energy Environment Politics

Canada’s minister of natural resources, Joe Oliver, has embarked on a media blitz, quietly pushing the idea that

Canada will go ahead and build the Northern Gateway pipeline to send bitumen sands to Asia if the United States blocks the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Texas.

In a meeting with The Globe and Mail editorial board on Friday, and an interview with Reuters Monday, while attending the World Energy Council in Houston, Texas, Oliver warns the American that if they don’t buy bitumen sands oil, China will.

Speaking with the Globe and Mail editorial board Oliver said:

that he does not make this point to U.S. officials “unless they ask,” but “if they don’t want our oil….it is obvious we are going to export it elsewhere.”

China could be a key customer in the future, he said. “As a broad strategic objective we have to diversify our customer base…..[and] China has emerged as the largest consumer of energy in the world, so it is utterly obvious what we must do.

Speaking with Reuters, Oliver made similar statements

What will happen if there wasn’t approval — and we think there will be — is that we’ll simply have to intensify our efforts to sell the oil elsewhere,”

“It may be other parts of the United States, it may be a rerouted pipeline, and then, of course, there’s Asia.”

The Globe and Mail also reported that:

Mr. Oliver did not specifically endorse the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would carry oil sands petroleum to the west coast, where it would be transported to Asia by tanker, saying he will respect the regulatory process that is now evaluating that project.

Reuters also says Oliver did not specifically endorse Northern Gateway in that interview.

Which means that Oliver has changed his tune a bit since becoming minister, since in the past he has been openly supportive of Northern Gateway “in the national interest” months before the Joint Review hearings on the pipeline are even due to begin.

In the Reuters interview, Oliver, apparently determined to promote energy from the oil sands, for the first time apparently, hinted that a bitumen pipeline might head somewhere to the east.

“What we want to do in respect to Asia, that objective is not mutually exclusive with the Keystone pipeline. We have a lot of oil and we want to get it to welcoming markets and open markets,” Oliver said.

“And there are also possibilities of moving it east as well. We just have to look at the whole picture. But there would be a delay, and that wouldn’t be positive for either country in our view,” he said.

Oliver also told The Globe and Mail he does not use the “ethical oil,” agrument in talks with the United States, instead emphasizing that Canada is a reliable producer. Oliver also continued his criticism of the EUropean union for an initiative that would label crude from the oil sands as dirtier than fuel from conventional sources.
Oliver told the Globe that the European Commission’s proposed fuel quality directive is “discriminatory” and not based on science.

In a news release, summarizing Oliver’s speech in Houston, the Ministry of Natural Resources quoted Oliver this way:

“Canada’s vast energy endowments of oil, gas, hydro and uranium, along with an innovative clean energy sector, provide us with a unique advantage — one that strengthens our role as a safe and secure global energy supplier….

“We welcome international investment because it is good for our economy, for our jobs and for our energy future.”

Minister Oliver reaffirmed the Government of Canada’s commitment to ensuring the environmentally and socially responsible development of the oil sands, a strategic resource that is critically important to Canada and its energy partners. He noted Canada’s energy policy is rooted in free market principles, coupled with a regulatory regime that is “efficient, transparent and effective.”

“Canada is a responsible and reliable partner in achieving a secure and sustainable global energy supply. We are fully mindful of the need to balance economic activity and energy demand with environmental sustainability,” the Minister added. “The Government of Canada is committed to the development of our energy resources, including the oil sands, in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.”

(Photo Canada Ministry of Natural Resources)

Kinder Morgan aims to expand Trans Mountain pipeline: Globe and Mail

Energy Link

Nathan Vanderklippe writes in The Globe and Mail Kinder Morgan aims to expand Trans Mountain pipeline

A second project has been launched to carry major new volumes of oil-sands crude to Pacific waters, amid mounting industry interest in exporting Canadian oil to Asia.

Kinder Morgan Canada has begun accepting bids from companies prepared to ship oil on a proposed expansion of its Trans Mountain system, which runs 1,150 kilometres from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C.

The Trans Mountain pipeline system, which runs from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C., would be twinned to carry more crude.

The process is called an “open season,” and serves as an important kickoff to a project that has ambitions similar to the controversial $6.6-billion Northern Gateway pipeline proposed by Enbridge Inc. It also promises to raise a new front in the battle between industry and environmental critics over building infrastructure to move oil across B.C. and onto tankers.

Both Northern Gateway and the Trans Mountain expansion seek to open new access to Pacific tidewater, providing a connection to Asian markets for an industry that is increasingly eager to break its dependence on the United States as virtually its sole export destination…

Pipeline politics trump sisterhood of the premiers: Globe and Mail

Energy Environment Politics

Pipeline politics trump sisterhood of the premiers

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.