Policy doesn’t sway pipeline opponents
Russ Girling, the head of TransCanada Corp., has a message for the federal and Alberta governments: climate change policies aren’t working to lessen the resolve of opponents to block regulatory approvals for projects such as his company’s Energy East pipeline proposal.
“With folks like these, it doesn’t appear to be affecting their decision- making,” he told the Financial Post’s Claudia Cattaneo.
That raises the question, says Cattaneo, of how far down the road are Canadian governments prepared to go on carbon reduction plans aimed at winning “social licence,” if the loudest and most organized pipeline opponents won’t stop until fossil fuels are gone altogether?
Western Business Columnist TransCanada Corp. president and CEO Russ Girling, who knows a thing or two about pipelines, says climate change policies aren’t working to lessen the resolve of opponents who block regulatory approvals.
“It’s not evident at the current time,” Girling said in an interview Thursday, when TransCanada released its results for the second quarter. “I hope that over time that will change. With folks like these, it doesn’t appear to be affecting their decision making.”
This raises some questions: How far down the road are Canadian governments prepared to go on carbon reduction plans aimed at winning “social licence” if the loudest and most organized pipeline opponents won’t stop until fossil fuels are gone altogether?
Why would taxpayers accept aggressive carbon taxes that are putting their country at a competitive disadvantage, if their reward is continuing criticism that Canada isn’t doing enough? Meanwhile other oil producers, with fewer regulations, ugly human rights records, and no carbon reduction plans, get a free pass and sell their oil in increasing quantities without restraint, carbon taxes or criticism, in North America and elsewhere.
Girling was responding to the launch of a campaign this week against TransCanada’s proposed Energy East pipeline, which would transport oil from Alberta to New Brunswick, by U. S. environmentalists who led the campaign that defeated Keystone XL in the United States. TransCanada is challenging that project’s denial by President Barack Obama under the North American free- trade agreement and is seeking US$ 15 billion in damages.
Led by the New Yorkbased Natural Resources Defense Council ( NRDC), the campaign against Energy East, an all- Canadian project, is supported by a crowded field of local and U. S. groups and paints it as even more dangerous than KXL.
The NRDC’s objections to KXL were focused on the impact of oilsands produc- tion on climate change. Now that Canadian governments are pushing forward aggressive greenhouse- gas reduction targets, the group has changed the goalposts and its objections to Energy East are based on the dangers of increased oil tanker traffic to U.S. coastlines.
Public hearings by the National Energy Board on Energy East are scheduled to begin on Aug. 8 in Saint John, N. B., and a ruling on whether it’s in the public interest is expected in 2018.
But the NRDC isn’t waiting around for that. It is urging Obama to implement an oilsands’ t anker ban before the end of his presidency in January, and fundraising now to generate and milk indignation against the oilsands.
It’s noteworthy that 80 per cent of the world’s oil already moves by tanker — including heavy oil with the same characteristics as the oilsands from places like Venezuela and Nigeria — and that Canada isn’t yet participating in that market because its oil can’t reach its coasts. It’s that prospect of it that is throwing the anti-oilsands lobby into a tizzy.
“Canada dealt with their original argument of why they want to keep this oil in the ground, Alberta has moved with a significant carbon tax and put a cap on emissions that no place else in the world has, yet their latest argument is that tanker traffic is going to be the (cause of ) some major catastrophe,” Girling said.
“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t encourage conservation, reduce emissions. Those are good policies we should be pursuing. But for particular folks like this, there doesn’t appear to be any compromise.”
TransCanada has given up trying to meet their demands and is instead putting more emphasis on winning local support, such as explaining to emergency responders what it means to be close to a pipeline project, Girling said.
“Once we explain what we are doing, how we are doing it, the benefits and the risk and how we are managing the risks, we seem to get the traction and acceptance at the community level, which to me is the most important thing we could be doing,” Girling said.