Feeding off a new poll that shows two-thirds of Americans support TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is trying his own version of a “red line” on President Barack Obama.
Speaking to the Canadian American Business Council in New York at the end of September he told about 150 corporate leaders that a “no” from Obama does not necessarily mean a final “no.”
Harper said the fact that all U.S. states along the pipeline route, the business sector and most U.S. labor unions endorse Keystone XL convinces him that “you don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
In the process, he has effectively set the stage for an unheard of clash of wills between the leaders of Canada and the U.S., although he “remains an optimist that, notwithstanding the politics, when something is in everybody’s interest ... it has to be approved.”
In touch with president
Harper said he has been in touch with Obama “very regularly” on the project and “the president has always assured me that he’ll make a decision in what he believes is the best interest of the United States based on the facts. I think the facts are clear.
“The logic behind this pipeline is simply overwhelming,” he said, touting the economic and environmental benefits, including the U.S. State Department’s own finding that showed “the environmental impacts of Keystone XL are negligible.”
Harper suggested that five years of waiting for a final verdict from the White House is “just politics ... and over time, bad politics make bad policy (although) I believe that in strong, advanced countries and economies like ours bad policies ultimately get reversed.”
Poll favors Keystone
A September poll of 1,506 Americans by Pew Research Center showed that two-thirds of respondents favor Keystone XL, despite massive campaigning, notably involving well-financed celebrities.
The poll show construction is endorsed by 82 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of Democrats, with 69 percent of those polled in all six states the pipeline would traverse — Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas — strongly favoring the project, with 28 percent opposed, while the margin in other states was 64 percent to 31 percent, with the balance undecided.
Of those under the age of 30, 55 percent support Keystone XL and 39 percent are opposed, while 67 percent of those over the age of 30 favor the project and 28 percent are opposed.
Harper did not specify what action Canada was contemplating if the pipeline was rebuffed beyond noting that the demand for Canadian energy is building outside North America.
“If I were American the last thing I would want to see is Canada selling its oil anywhere else,” he said.
TransCanada spokesman Grady Semmens said that “having the support of our political leaders in sharing the facts is invaluable.”
Greg Stringham, vice president for oil sands and markets at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, suggested Harper was merely underscoring the “very strong history of really good (bilateral) relationships in energy” in taking his stand.
Hughes pleased with ‘stake in the sand’
Alberta Energy Minister Ken Hughes said he was “pleased to see the prime minister putting a stake in the sand. In diplomatic discussions, when a state says ‘this is really important to us and we cannot take no for an answer’ that is an important message to the other side.”
He said it was reasonable for Harper to rate unfettered access to markets for Canadian oil products as “a national imperative” for Canada, which relies on its natural resources for billions of dollars in government revenues.
Hughes also said it was important for Americans to understand that more than 80 energy pipelines already cross the Canada-U.S. border and that the oil transportation systems of the two countries are intertwined.
But he emphasized that Canada is not going to pin all of its hopes on continued ready access to the U.S. and, for that reason, Alberta is sending a delegation to South Korea, China and Japan in October to meet with potential energy buyers.
“It’s up to us to also ensure we have access to global markets because we’re at this critical juncture in the history of Western Canada where we now need to ensure that we have access to global markets,” Hughes said.
Rachel Wolf, a spokesperson for All Risk, No Reward, a coalition of anti-Keystone groups, said Harper’s comments seemed “pretty disrespectful of President Obama and the process the U.S. has in place to make this decision.”
Anthony Swift, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Keystone XL would “pipe some of the dirtiest oil on the planet through the breadbasket of America to be shipped overseas through the Gulf of Mexico,” shrugging off TransCanada’s insistence that the heavy crude from Alberta and light crude from the Bakken will be exclusively processed by refineries in the Gulf Coast region to be sold as gasoline and diesel in the U.S.
“Financial analysts, industry commentators and the environmental community agree that Keystone XL is a linchpin for tar sands expansion and the associated significant carbon pollution,” Swift said.
