FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

TRUMP PICKS REX TILLERSON AND RICK PERRY A BOON FOR ENERGY INDUSTRY.

Canada’s oil and gas industry would have friends in Washington’s highest places with Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and Rick Perry as energy secretary.

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Tillerson, who was expected to retire in March as CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., is his choice to head the State Department and praised him as a successful international deal-maker who leads a global operation.

“He will be a forceful and clear-eyed advocate for America’s vital national interests and help reverse years of misguided foreign policies and actions that have weakened America’s security and standing in the world,” Trump said in a statement. “His relationships with leaders all over the world are second to none.”

Meanwhile, Trump has offered the Energy Department’s top job to Perry, the former Republican presidential candidate and former Texas governor.

The incoming Trump administration couldn’t have picked better oil advocates.

Both Tillerson and Perry are familiar with the sector, its economic contribution, its efforts to strengthen environmental protection — in contrast to their predecessors, John Kerry and Ernest Moniz, who were more interested in replacing it with green energy. President Obama famously saw the oilsands as “dirty oil.”

If the appointments stick, Canada could find itself out of sync with the fastchanging reality south of the border by pressing ahead with greenhouse-gas reductions and keeping the oilsands on a tight leash.

Both Tillerson and Perry have been supportive of Canadian oil and gas.

Exxon is an industry leader in Canada, where its majority-owned affiliate, Imperial Oil Ltd., has vast operations in the oilsands, the East Coast offshore and refining.

Under Tillerson’s watch, Imperial grew its oilsands presence by building the Kearl oilsands project and expanding the Cold Lake project.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), where Exxon Mobil has big influence, was a champion of Keystone XL.

API president and CEO Jack Gerard praised Tillerson’s nomination: “Rex Tillerson is world class. He has decades of experience working with global leaders and overseeing the creation of thousands of jobs,” Gerard said in a statement. “He understands that American voters want to strengthen our national security, grow jobs, and protect American interests globally.”

Tillerson oversaw Imperial’s revival of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, which would have promoted the development of large gas resources in Canada’s Arctic. The pipeline was shelved after a long regulatory review made it uncompetitive with new shale discoveries in the U.S.

Imperial has kept its distance from Alberta’s leftleaning premier, Rachel Notley, who is pushing through aggressive climate-change measures, including a cap on oilsands emissions and an economy-wide carbon tax.

Instead, Imperial has been a top supporter of Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, the industry consortium that is accelerating environmental improvements through innovation.

Tillerson, 64, has been chief executive of Exxon Mobil since 2006 and was expected to retire in 2017, when he reaches the company’s mandatory retirement age of 65. Exxon Mobil said Tuesday its board would meet shortly to discuss the transition.

Perry, 66, was the longestserving governor of Texas and an advocate of “American energy.” Texas is the biggest producer of oil in the U.S., the home of top tight oil discoveries, and a major wind producer.

The U.S. Energy Department manages the national nuclear weapons complex and under Obama prioritized the advancement of clean-energy technologies.

Perry has supported the Keystone XL pipeline, whose southern leg has been completed and ends near Houston. The project would strengthen already deep ties between Alberta and Texas by linking the world’s thirdlargest oil deposit to the largest refining complex.

In an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal in 2012, after Obama’s first rejection of the northern part of the pipeline that crosses the Canada/U.S. border, Perry said KXL would have “provided a shot in the arm for our nation’s uncertain economy, and it could have provided economic opportunity for tens of thousands of families, stretching from here in Texas all the way to the Canadian border.

“It’s all reflective of a wrong-headed approach that vilifies energy companies, ignores the realities of energy markets, squeezes the pocketbooks of struggling Americans, and doesn’t take us one step closer to energy independence,” Perry wrote.

Trump’s picks are controversial and are raising concerns about conflict of interest and, in Tillerson’s case, unseemly ties with Russia.

But if Tillerson and Perry become part of Trump’s inner circle, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will find himself isolated as he pushes ahead with a national carbon price to achieve globally insignificant greenhouse gas reductions, while the U.S. chooses unfettered oil and gas production — and even more oil imports from Canada if the Keystone XL pipeline gets built.

STRENGTHEN ALREADY DEEP TIES BETWEEN ALBERTA AND TEXAS.