Tory policy delays may affect Keystone decision
OTTAWA — The Harper government’s long-delayed environmental regulations for the oil and gas sector could be a key card in the high-stakes poker game surrounding President Barack Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL pipeline.
Like everything else surrounding the pipeline approval, Obama’s latest public pronouncement is shrouded in ambiguity and is being read different ways, depending who you ask.
Analysts on both sides of the border appear to agree on one thing: Strong Canadian government policy may not be able to guarantee U.S. approval of the pipeline, but a lacklustre environmental approach doesn’t help.
Obama framed the debate over Keystone XL, a pipeline that would carry Alberta’s oilsands bitumen to refineries on the Gulf Coast, as a matter of U.S. “national interest” defined by climate change.
“And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution,” the president said. “The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward.”
Obama didn’t define whether those “net effects” were national, continental or global.
But coupled with comments in February by David Jacobson — the departing U.S. ambassador to Canada — that Obama’s environmental challenge extends to Canadian policy-makers, the speech could be seen as another prod for Canada to get its ducks in a row.
Fen Hampson, director of the global security program at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont., said Keystone approval will require “more than one move and a lot of political precision in this increasingly complicated game.”
“I think it fair to say Canada may to have to move on its long- promised oil and gas regulations, which has been long on promise and short on delivery, to help seal the deal and give the president some cover should he decide to approve it,” Hampson said in an email.
Paul Frazer, a former Canadian diplomat who was seconded briefly to the office of Conservative prime minister Kim Campbell and now is a consultant on energy and resource policy in Washington, framed Canadian policy in a more defensive posture.
“The administration didn’t want the president to be in a situation where he had to defend Canada or things Canadian in any way,” Frazer said.
Ottawa got the message and has responded with a series of policy announcements, said Frazer, including this week’s new rules on increased pipeline liability and stiffer penalties for infractions.
He says the oil and gas regulations won’t be a deal-maker or breaker. It is in the grey area of American public opinion that Canadian environmental policy may play a role.