TAR SANDS 2
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">918 see main for older</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see trans mtn pipeline</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.desmog.com/2022/07/26/climate-leader-netflix-donated-to-rightwing-think-tank/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.desmog.com/2022/07/26/climate-leader-netflix-donated-to-rightwing-think-tank/</font></a></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Netflix gives every impression of being one of the world’s most climate friendly corporations. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The streaming company responsible for the blockbuster climate movie “Don’t Look Up” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence plans to slash or offset all of its corporate greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2022, a goal known as net-zero.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Netflix is producing and providing a platform for documentaries, TV series, and feature films educating viewers about the climate crisis — about 160 million households globally watched one of these stories in 2020, <a href="https://about.netflix.com/en/sustainability" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">according to</a> the company.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The film industry needs a leader when it comes to climate action,” Katharine Hayhoe, a chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy who belongs to an independent advisory group of experts for Netflix’s sustainability plan, <a href="https://about.netflix.com/en/sustainability" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">has said</a>. “I’m thrilled at how Netflix is taking on this leadership role.” </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But away from the public eye there is one area where Netflix is anything but green.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The company has donated to a rightwing think tank in Canada that has also been supported financially by the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><a href="https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Locations/Canada" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Exxon-owned</a> tar sands producer Imperial Oil, and the Charles G. Koch Foundation, an organization linked to Koch Industries.</span></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Known as the </span><a href="https://www.desmog.com/macdonald-laurier-institute/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Macdonald Laurier Institute</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, this Ottawa-based think tank boasts of having “great influence” in pushing forward a massive tar sands pipeline expansion called</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Trans Mountain.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> That project’s greenhouse gas emissions could far eclipse any carbon reductions that Netflix promises in its “net-zero” plan</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Macdonald Laurier Institute is a relatively new think tank. Founded in 2010, its <a href="https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/about/who-makes-mli-work/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">board of directors and advisors</a> come from some of the top legal, lobbying and financial firms in Canada. It <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/18/conservative-us-network-undermined-indigenous-energy-rights-in-canada" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">is also a member</a> of the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/atlas-economic-research-foundation/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Atlas Network</a>, a U.S.-based coalition whose hundreds of partners worldwide include the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/cato-institute/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Cato Institute</a>, a libertarian think tank co-founded by Charles Koch.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Macdonald Laurier Institute has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/18/conservative-us-network-undermined-indigenous-energy-rights-in-canada" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">partnered with Atlas</a> on a campaign to discourage the Canadian government from implementing laws that would give Indigenous communities greater power to push against oil and gas projects on their land.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Netflix is listed as a donor to the Macdonald Laurier Institute in the organization’s 2018 annual report, alongside Imperial Oil, the Atlas Network and several dozen other supporters. “We believe that with your help we will bring Canada closer to becoming the best governed country in the world,” <a href="https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/files/pdf/2018_MLI_annual_report_Fweb.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">the annual report says</a> of donors like Netflix. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Macdonald Laurier Institute, also known as MLI, didn’t respond to questions about the Netflix donation.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This might seem like an odd pairing, because Netflix <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-companies-ranked-by-employee-donations.html" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">by some measures</a> is one of the most politically liberal tech companies, and MLI <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2014/11/19/what-can-a-little-birdie-twitter-tell-us-about-think-tank-ideology/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">is arguably</a> one of Canada’s most rightwing think tanks. But at the end of the day, Netflix is a large corporation with financial interests that could potentially be served by supporting a think tank <a href="https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/files/pdf/2018_MLI_annual_report_Fweb.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">that claims</a> it “has been regularly recognized for our influential thought leadership in Canada.” </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Just because the Macdonald Laurier Institute is seen as more conservative, and Netflix is seen as having a more progressive agenda, doesn’t necessarily mean that their interests don’t align,” Donald Abelson, a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario who is an expert on think tanks, told DeSmog.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Abelson cautioned against assuming that Netflix supports MLI’s full political agenda; more than likely, its donation had nothing to do with pipelines. “Let’s say you joined a political party, does that mean you agree with all the policies or platforms that emerge from that party?” he said. </font></p><figure id="attachment_47277" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-47277" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 1.25rem; max-width: 100%; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); width: 800px;"><picture class="wp-image-47277 size-large" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://www.desmog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Dont-Look-Up-Leonardo-DiCaprio-and-Jennifer-Lawrence-1024x433.png.webp 1024w, https://www.desmog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Dont-Look-Up-Leonardo-DiCaprio-and-Jennifer-Lawrence-300x127.png.webp 300w, https://www.desmog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Dont-Look-Up-Leonardo-DiCaprio-and-Jennifer-Lawrence-768x325.png.webp 768w, https://www.desmog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Dont-Look-Up-Leonardo-DiCaprio-and-Jennifer-Lawrence.png.webp 1135w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></font></picture><figcaption id="caption-attachment-47277" class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Netflix’s climate satire ‘Don’t Look Up’ broke viewing records when it was released in 2021. Credit: Netflix</font></figcaption></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Netflix didn’t respond to questions from DeSmog about the size of its donation or whether it was aware of MLI’s support for Trans Mountain, a pipeline designed to export an additional 590,000 barrels per day from the tar sands.</b> </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The think tank has an entire section about the pipeline in its report naming Netflix as a donor. That section doesn’t once mention climate change and claims that a failure to build Trans Mountain “threatens Canada’s economy.” </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the year that Netflix donated to the think tank, tensions were increasing over the <b>Trans Mountain project, a 714-mile pipeline expansion connecting the Alberta tar sands to oil-carrying supertankers in the west coast city of Vancouver.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Many environmental groups and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">First Nations were opposed to the project</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and so was British Columbia Premier John Horgan, whose government delayed issuing crucial permits while arguing that the environmental risks of a potential oil spill couldn’t be justified. </span></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I do believe we have a mandate to defend the coast,” Horgan <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/04/14/news/bc-issues-trans-mountain-pipeline-permit-update-horgan-heads-ottawa" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">said in 2018</a>. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kinder Morgan, the Texas-based company building the expansion, threatened to walk away entirely. All this constituted a “nightmare” to the Macdonald Laurier Institute, <a href="https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/mli-files/pdf/MLICommentary_April2018_Newman_FWeb.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">which argued in a report</a> that “the attractiveness of Canada as a place for major investments is at stake.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In May 2018, a senior fellow at the institute named Dwight Newman testified to Canada’s Senate, where he argued that the federal government had the legal authority to override environmental opposition to the pipeline in B.C. “Canada does have the legislative powers to get this project done if there is the will to do so,” Newman <a href="https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/newman-discusses-trans-mountain-issues-standing-senate-committee/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">said</a>. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two weeks later, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the federal government would pay $4.5 billion to buy the pipeline from Kinder Morgan, effectively nationalizing the project. Trudeau <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/29/615197549/canadas-government-buys-controversial-oil-pipeline-to-ensure-it-gets-built" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">called</a> Trans Mountain “a vital project in the national interest” in a tweet, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjvkqq/canada-justin-trudeau-declares-climate-emergency-then-approves-trans-mountain-pipeline-expansion" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">just one day</a> after his government had declared a national “climate emergency” in Canada.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Macdonald Laurier Institute was thrilled about the role it played in the pipeline fight. It <a href="https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/files/pdf/2018_MLI_annual_report_Fweb.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">claimed</a> in its 2018 annual report to have shaped “government efforts to deal with the constitutional issues surrounding Trans Mountain,” adding that, “We have been at the forefront of efforts to chart a way out of the pipeline impasse.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Macdonald Laurier Institute didn’t say in its report how much money Netflix donated that year. But it is possible to quantify the climate damage that will be caused by Trans Mountain. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The pipeline, whose cost <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trans-mountain-sees-expansion-project-cost-almost-doubling-ceo-retire-2022-02-18/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">has now risen</a> to CAD $21.4 billion, could result in up to 15 million tons of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere annually once it’s completed in 2023</b>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-paris-pipeline-paradox-97636" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">according to calculations</a> by Environment and Climate Change Canada. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Netflix, by contrast, is now promising to cut or neutralize roughly 1 million tons of greenhouse gases related to its operations by the end of the year. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trans Mountain threatens to wipe out those climate gains entirely. </font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ding dong!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/is-keystone-xl/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/is-keystone-xl/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">comm dr</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2653296908"><div class="body-description"><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After more than a decade of grassroots <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/here-s-how-we-defeated-keystone-xl-pipeline" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">organizing, agitation, and tireless opposition </a>by
the international climate movement, the final nail was slammed into the
Keystone XL's coffin Wednesday afternoon when the company behind the
transnational tar sands pipeline officially <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/09/energy/keystone-pipeline-canceled/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">pulled the plug </a>on its plans.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Following
consultation with Canadian officials and regulators—including "its
partner, the Government of Alberta"—TC Energy confirmed its "<a href="https://www.tcenergy.com/announcements/2021-06-09-tc-energy-confirms-termination-of-keystone-xl-pipeline-project/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">termination</a>"<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
of the project i</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">n a statement citing the revocation of a federal U.S.
permit by President Joe Biden on his first day in office on January 20
as the leading reason.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate campaigners, however, were
immediate in claiming a final victory after years of struggle against
the company and its backers both in Washington, D.C. and Ottawa.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"TC
Energy just confirmed what we already knew but it's a thrilling reality
all the same—the Keystone XL pipeline is no more and never will be,"
said David Turnbull, strategic communications director with Oil Change
International (OCI).</font></p>
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<div style="margin:1em 0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">OMG! It’s official. We took on a multi-billion dollar corporation and we won!!
Keystone XL is dead!! The People</span> m… https://t.co/BT5PAhBxmy</font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> — Dallas Goldtooth (@Dallas Goldtooth)
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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"After more than 10 years of organizing we have finally defeated an
oil giant, Keystone XL is dead!" declared the<b> Indigenous Environmental
Network (IEN) i</b>n reaction. "We are dancing in our hearts because of this
victory! From Dene territories in Northern Alberta to Indigenous lands
along the Gulf of Mexico, we stood hand-in-hand to protect the next
seven generations of life, the water and our communities from this dirty
tar sands pipeline. And that struggle is vindicated."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IEN said
that the win over TC Energy and its supporters was "not the end—but
merely the beginning of further victories," and also reminded the world
that there are "still frontline Indigenous water protectors like Oscar
High Elk who face charges for standing against the Keystone XL
pipeline."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Calling the news "yet another huge moment in an
historic effort," Turnbull at OCI said that while the Canadian company's
press statement failed to admit it, "this project is finally being
abandoned thanks to more than a decade of resistance from Indigenous
communities, landowners, farmers, ranchers, and climate activists along
its route and around the world."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jared Margolis, a senior attorney
at the <b>Center for Biological Diversity, declared the victory in the
drawn-out battle—which largely took place under the Democratic
administration of former President Barack Obama—"a landmark moment in
the fight against the climate crisis."</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We need to keep moving
away from dirty, dangerous pipelines that lock us into an unsustainable
future," added Margolis, who said he now hopes President Joe Biden will
take this lesson and apply to other polluting fossil projects. "We're
hopeful that the Biden administration will continue to shift this
country in the right direction by opposing fossil fuel projects that
threaten our climate, our waters and imperiled wildlife," he said. "Good
riddance to Keystone XL!"</font></p>
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<div style="margin:1em 0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After YEARS the #NoKXL fight is over. The Keystone Pipeline is finally dead. Now do #Line3 and #DAPL
https://t.co/A7YukN0GR0</font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> — RAN (@RAN)
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<p><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jamie Henn and Bill McKibben, both co-founders of 350.org and key
architects of the decision to make the Keystone XL pipeline a target and
symbol of the global climate movement, also heralded the news.</font></b></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"When this fight began, people thought Big Oil couldn't be beat." —Bill McKibben, 350.org co-founder</font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"When
this fight began, people thought Big Oil couldn't be beat," said
McKibben, who was among those arrested outside the White House in 2011
protesting the pipeline.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Keystone XL is now the most famous
fossil fuel project killed by the climate movement, but it won't be the
last," said Henn. "The same coalition that stopped this pipeline is now
battling <b>Line 3 </b>and dozens of other fossil fuel projects across the
country. Biden did the right thing on KXL, now it's time to go a step
further and say no to all new fossil fuel projects everywhere."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clayton
Thomas Muller, another longtime KXL opponent and currently a senior
campaigns specialist at 350.org in Canada, said: "This victory is thanks
to <b>Indigenous land defenders who fought the Keystone XL pipeline for
over a decade. Indigenous-led resistance is critical </b>in the fight
against the climate crisis and we need to follow the lead of Indigenous
peoples, particularly Indigenous women, who are leading this fight
across the continent and around the world. With Keystone XL cancelled,
it's time to turn our attention to the Indigenous-led resistance to the
Line 3 and the Trans Mountain tar sands pipelines."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McKibben also
made the direct connection to KXL and the decision now looming before
Biden when it comes to Line 3 in northern Minnesota. "When enough people
rise up we're stronger even than the richest fossil fuel companies," he
said. "And by the way, the same climate test that ruled out Keystone
should do the same for Line 3."</font></p><div class="around-the-web"><div class="from-your-site__headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From Your Site Articles</font></div>
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.vox.com/22306919/biden-keystone-xl-trudeau-oil-pipeline-climate-change" class="around-the-web__link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Biden shut down the Keystone XL pipeline. Here's what that means ... ›</a>
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-keystone-xl-is-dead/" class="around-the-web__link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Why Keystone XL Is Dead - Scientific American ›</a>
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</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmog.com/2011/02/01/american-petroleum-institutes-oilsands-advertising-campaign-pressure-state-department-approve-keystone-xl/">https://www.desmog.com<b>/2011/02</b>/01/american-petroleum-institutes-oilsands-advertising-campaign-pressure-state-department-approve-keystone-xl/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[map]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="http://www.api.org/" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">American Petroleum Institute (<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">API</span>)</a>, the oil and natural gas industry trade group, is set to launch a new misleading advertising campaign trying to convince the State Department to approve <a href="http://www.transcanada.com/" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">TransCanada Corporation</a>’s Keystone <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">XL</span> pipeline, which would carry dirty tar sands crude from Alberta to <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">U.S.</span> refineries.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>For a week in mid-December, TransCanada Corp. launched its <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/11/idUS180601569920110111" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">own promotional campaign</a> with <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">TV</span> and radio ads in Washington,</b> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">D.C.</span> Cindy Schild, <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">API</span>’s refining issues manager, clarified that the <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/132643-oil-industry-launching-campaign-to-promote-canadian-oil-sand-imports" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">new <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">API</span> campaign</a> would focus on the supposed economic, national security and jobs potential benefits of the tar sands oil. She <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/140673-oil-industry-ramps-up-oil-sands-advocacy" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">stated</a>:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="box-sizing: border-box;">“</span>We call on the department to grant the permit as a matter of<b> critical national interest.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">“There is virtually nothing the administration could do to create more jobs.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This month, Schild suggested that the project will create some 13,000 organized labour jobs and potentially thousands more over time, while <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/132643-oil-industry-launching-campaign-to-promote-canadian-oil-sand-imports" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">in December, Schild cited</a> a <a href="http://www.ceri.ca/Publications/documents/02-03-2010CERIEconomicImpactsintheUSandCanada.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Canadian Energy Research Institute study</a> from October 2009 that said oil-sands development could create 342,000 jobs in the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">US</span> between 2011 and 2015. <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/140673-oil-industry-ramps-up-oil-sands-advocacy" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Tony Iallonardo</a>, a spokesman for the National Wildlife Federation says the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">API</span> is wildly inflating the benefits of the Keystone <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">XL</span> project:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="box-sizing: border-box;">“</span>TransCanada has been greatly exaggerating the domestic jobs that would result from the pipeline.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“An analysis they paid for makes claims of thousands, while <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 600;">an official State Department analysis puts the number at just a few hundred, and many of those would be temporary.”</span></font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">API</span> contends that greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands oil are just 5-15% greater than conventional oil, while the <a href="http://www.epa.gov/" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Environmental Protection Agency</a> estimates that the <a href="http://yosemite.epa.gov/oeca/webeis.nsf/(PDFView)/20100126/$file/20100126.PDF?OpenElement" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">figure could be as high as 82%</a>. Regardless</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><a href="http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/clientsite/keystonexl.nsf?Open" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">John Kerekes</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, central region director for </span><span class="caps" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">API</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> made clear that his organization does not feel that global warming emissions should impact the State Department’s decision, expected before the summer.</span></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="dquo" style="box-sizing: border-box;">“</span>We’re doing everything we can to tell people that the greenhouse gas issue is not, we believe, an issue that should prevent oil-sands expansion.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Likely to be a part of the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">API</span>’s new campaign, just last week, TransCanada Corp. <a href="https://secure.globeadvisor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/gam/20110127/RBTRANSCANOILMCCARTHYATL" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">signed up enough customers</a> for the Cushing-Marketlink 150,000 barrel-per-day portion of the pipeline running from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Port Arthur refineries in Texas, near the Louisiana border.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Increasing numbers of residents in Oklahoma and East Texas are <a href="https://www.desmog.com/texans-fight-against-transcanadas-keystone-xl-pipeline-dont-mess-texas" target="_blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">standing up to TransCanada Corp. and the Keystone <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">XL</span> pipeline</a> over environmental, health, safety and property rights concerns. When the State Department makes its decision on whether or not to proceed with the pipeline, it will have to consider the full spectrum of impacts and issues that will result from dirty tar sands development. It ought to ignore <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">API</span>’s wildly innacurate ad campaign in those deliberations.</font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">221 desmog</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Meanwhile, an 18-month inquiry led by the province of Alberta into environmental groups opposed to Canadian tar sands is nearing completion — but a Canadian NGO wants the CA$3.5 million inquiry disbanded, alleging that it was improperly established to intimidate opponents of the fossil fuel industry. </span><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://desmogblog.cmail19.com/t/t-l-mydlujd-mgoiuir-t/" style="line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); transition: opacity 0.1s ease-in 0s;"><strong style="line-height: inherit;">Read more here</strong></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">420 just bewildering</font></p><p><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/6/headlines/construction_of_keystone_xl_pipeline_to_resume_despite_coronavirus_and_environmental_threats"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/6/headlines/construction_of_keystone_xl_pipeline_to_resume_despite_coronavirus_and_environmental_threats</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">environmental news, construction on th</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">e Keystone XL pipeline is set to resume. Officials in Alberta, Canada, said they would hand over more than </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">$1 billion to TC Energy — formerly known as TransCanada</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> — so that construction can continue, even though it risks putting construction workers and residents on the pipeline’s path — many of them from indigenous communities </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">— at heightened risk for contracting the coronavirus. South Dakota and several other states recently passed new laws criminalizing protests against pipelines.</span></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">teck mine killed, led by 1st nations</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/21/nobel-prize-winners-justin-trudeau-teck-frontier-mine" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">open letter</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, 42 Nobel laureates implored the federal government to "act with the moral clarity required" to tackle the global climate crisis and stop Teck Resources' </span><a href="https://www.teck.com/operations/canada/projects/frontier-project/frontier-project" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">proposed</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Frontier tar sands mine.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Brent Nelson, emergency manager for Walsh County, North Dakota, told the local Grand Forks Herald that the cleanup process could take months.</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><br /></div><div>“The roads around the spill area have been closed to assist with the cleanup,” the Herald reported. “Walsh County Sheriff Ronald Jurgens asks the public to avoid the area so the cleanup process can proceed. On-site security will stop and fine any driver ignoring the closed road signs.”</div><div><br /></div><div>TC Energy, previously known as TransCanada, denied that the spill had any impact on drinking water, a claim that was met with skepticism.</div><div><br /></div><div>@RuthH_Hopkins</div><div>Keystone Pipeline leak spills oil in northeastern North Dakota </div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Corp says the oil hasn’t contaminated any drinking water & they’re cleaning it up but<b> anyone who drives to the site will be fined by their security so who knows what’s going on. #</b>NOKXL</span> https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/4746575-Keystone-Pipeline-leak-spills-oil-in-northeastern-North-Dakota …</div><div><br /></div><div>Keystone Pipeline leak spills oil in northeastern North Dakota</div><div><br /></div><div>Corp says the oil hasn’t contaminated any drinking water & they’re cleaning it up but anyone who drives to the site will be fined by their security so who knows what’s going on. #NOKXL https://t.co/7H6Dcz4bsm</div><div><br /></div><div>— Ruth Hopkins (@RuthH_Hopkins) October 31, 2019</div><div><br /></div><div>Catherine Collentine, associate director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels initiative, said “this is not the first time this pipeline has spilled toxic tar sands, and it won’t be the last.”</div><div><br /></div><div>“We’ve always said it’s not a question of whether a pipeline will spill, but when,” said Collentine, “and once again TC Energy has made our case for us.”</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Keystone’s leak in North Dakota was detected just hours after the U.S. State Department held a public hearing in Billings, Montana to solicit comments on the department’s new analysis (pdf) of the potential environmental impact of the Keystone XL project.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Trump administration has worked hard to approve and accelerate the project over the protests and legal challenges of indigenous rights organizations and green groups</span>.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Joye Braun, frontline community organizer with the <b>Indigenous Environmental Network,</b> said the State Department meeting on Keystone XL “seemed more like an industry showcase rather than public comment hearing.”</span></div><div><br /></div><div>“We stand firm in opposing this project as the latest spill is further evidence of just how dangerous pipelines are,” said Braun.</div><div><br /></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> ==</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">icn 4/19</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /> home province of Canada's tar sands elected a combative, conservative leader this week who came out swinging on the side of the
country's struggling oil industry. Jason Kenney<a href="https://calgaryherald.com/commodities/energy/kenney-vows-oil-fight-as-conservatives-regain-power-in-alberta/wcm/5a375b35-5613-4856-a159-6be73fa08277"> promised</a>
to cancel Alberta's carbon tax, lift a cap on greenhouse gas emissions
from the tar sands and create a "war room" to combat the oil industry's
opponents.
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But while his victory Tuesday threw more uncertainty into Canada's
efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, there may be little Kenney can
do on his own to reverse what has been a steady decline in fortunes for
Alberta's tar sands over the past few years.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead, the fate of the tar sands industry, also known as oil sands,
may rest more in the hands of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the
courts hearing legal challenges to proposed new oil pipelines—and,
ultimately, with international energy markets and the macroeconomic
forces that shape them.</font></p><div class="widget widget-newsletter-block mc-embed-signup embed-horiz fbia-strip">
</div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his acceptance speech, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jason-kenney-justin-trudeau-notley-alberta-1.5100903">Kenney told the crowd</a>: "As long as there is growing global demand for oil and gas, the question is who will provide it."</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Major oil companies have been asking themselves the same question,
and increasingly, they've been saying it won't be the tar sands.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><h3><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Oil Majors Question the Economics</font></h3><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New tar sands mining projects tend to be big and expensive, and they
can take years or even decades to provide meaningful returns on
investment. While details vary, they also tend to be among the <a href="https://earth.stanford.edu/news/measuring-crude-oils-carbon-footprint#gs.5rr48a">most carbon-intensive sources</a> of oil, raising the risk that future climate change policies could further increase their costs or even shut them down.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As governments try meet the goals of the <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/paris-climate-agreement">Paris climate agreement</a>,
advocacy campaigns and investors have been increasing pressure on oil
companies to explain what a world of dwindling oil demand would mean for
their balance sheets. And, increasingly, oil companies have been saying
that, even if they're not turning away from their core product, they
are focusing on the lower-cost, most efficient sources of oil.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ConocoPhillips described in a <a href="https://static.conocophillips.com/files/resources/climate-change-report.pdf">report in February</a> its pivot toward low-cost oil and gas production, a process that included selling tar sands assets.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Executives at Chevron <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-07/chevron-pledges-alignment-with-paris-accord-but-won-t-cap-output">have said they plan</a> to cut the company's emissions, not by producing less oil and gas but by doing so more efficiently.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, issued a filling with the London Stock Exchange earlier this month that <a href="https://www.axios.com/saudi-aramco-climate-change-oil-pitch-b21b71ed-592f-421d-8f62-6187436eb2ad.html">made the case to lenders</a>
that the nation's reserves are well positioned because, it says, they
can be produced relatively cheaply and with comparatively lower carbon
emissions.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In recent years, as global oil prices fell from their highs in 2014—and with <a href="https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts">Canadian oil prices among the lowest</a>—most of the major international oil companies with a significant investment in Canada's oil sands <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13042017/canadian-oil-sands-tar-sands-climate-change-conocophillips-exxon">sold their stakes</a>, primarily to Canadian companies.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><h3><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Push for Pipelines and End to Carbon Taxes</font></h3><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite all this, Kenney answered his own question: The world needs
more Canadian energy, he said. For that to happen, Canada is going to
need to build more pipelines. But it's unclear how much leverage Kenney
may have in making that happen.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As production increased in recent years without more capacity to ship
it, oil companies have had a harder time exporting tar sands crude to
refineries in the United States or overseas.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A series of proposals for <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18032019/major-pipelines-delays-leave-canada%E2%80%99s-tar-sands-struggling">major pipelines</a> to the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and to the U.S. heartland—including <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11042019/trump-pipeline-executive-order-environmental-review-keystone-xl-clean-water-act-states-rights">Keystone XL</a>—have been delayed by court fights, denied or canceled over the past few years.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX-t5lqwCag">acceptance speech</a> on
Tuesday, Kenney blamed other Canadian provinces, the Trudeau
administration and a "foreign-funded campaign of special interests" for
blocking pipeline expansions, and he called on Quebec and other
provinces to help Alberta get its oil to markets overseas <a href="https://www.albertastrongandfree.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Alberta-Strong-and-Free-Platform-1.pdf">if they want to share</a> in its resource wealth.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Attempts to build a pipeline to the East Coast have in the past been
stymied by opposition in other provinces—opposition that Quebec Premier
Francois Legault made clear on Wednesday remains strong. "There is no
social acceptability for a new oil pipeline in Quebec," Legault told
reporters on Wednesday, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/jason-kenney-bc-quebec-1.5102373">according to the CBC</a>.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alberta has also been pushing for the expansion of the Trans Mountain
pipeline, which carries tar sands crude to a port in British Columbia.
U.S.-based Kinder Morgan had been trying for years to triple the
pipeline's capacity, but British Columbia and some indigenous First
Nations opposed the project. Last year, the <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01062018/canada-climate-action-oil-trans-mountain-pipeline-alberta-oil-tar-sands-paris-trudeau">Canadian government bought</a> the pipeline to keep expansion hopes alive, but a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/30/trans-mountain-pipeline-latest-canada-court-overturns">court rejected the pipeline's permit and ordered</a> a new federal review of the project in consultation with First Nations along the route.</font></p><div class="media media-element-container media-image_centered_medium"><figure id="file-270588" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-png">
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[map]<br /><br /> </font></figure></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While a new decision on the project is expected by the end of May, Kenney's win adds uncertainty to the process.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's support for the expansion was widely
viewed as one half of a grand bargain with Rachel Notley, the outgoing
Alberta premier and member of Alberta's New Democratic Party, who lost
the election this week to Kenney.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trudeau had been pushing provinces to enact their own carbon taxes as
part of his plan to meet Canada's pledge under the Paris climate
agreement. Those that didn't would fall under a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tasker-federal-carbon-tax-explainer-1.5077445">new federal tax</a>,
which is currently being challenged in court by the government of
Ontario. Notley enacted a tax in Alberta along with a cap on emissions
from the tar sands, and many political observers said that tax was
central to securing Trudeau's support for the pipeline.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With Kenney now promising to scrap both the tax and the cap, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2019/04/16/jason-kenney-justin-trudeau-transmountain_a_23712908/">the political calculus changes</a>.
Trudeau could use the pipeline project as leverage over Kenney,
pressing the provincial leader to maintain a carbon tax or for other
concessions. Or he could decide to abandon the expansion altogether.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/oil-lobby-groups-epa-secret-science-proposal-clean-water-rules-9de63644deed/">https://thinkprogress.org/oil-lobby-groups-epa-secret-science-proposal-clean-water-rules-9de63644deed/</a></font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx twt?</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>EPA’s ‘secret science’ proposal being used by Big Oil to undermine clean water rules</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Fossil fuel trade groups don't want the EPA to update a 1970s-era list of polluting petroleum chemicals.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">KYLA MANDEL</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">MAR 22, 2019, 8:00 AM</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Internal emails reveal two major fossil fuel trade groups are lobbying to stop the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from updating a decades-old list of toxic chemicals found in petroleum wastewater — and they’re using the Trump administration’s controversial “secret science” proposal to make their case. </b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The EPA currently monitors for 16 types of chemicals in wastewater, or effluent, released by petroleum refineries under the Clean Water Act. However, in the more than 40 years since the list was developed, scientific understanding around the number of chemicals and their toxicity levels has grown. As a result, the EPA is in the early stages of determining whether the priority list of chemicals needs to be updated.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>But according to emails released to the Sierra Club and reviewed by ThinkProgress, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) are lobbying to limit the scope of the EPA’s study.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The fossil fuel trade groups want to ensure that two categories of chemicals known to be toxic to aquatic life, and potentially harmful to humans, are excluded from the study: alkylated polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (alkylated-PAHs) and naphthenic acids (NAs). The industry even goes so far as to state that including these in a study would risk “legal challenges.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">These two sets of chemicals are not currently on the EPA’s priority list. There are hundreds of different variations of PAH chemicals and levels of toxicity (alkylated-PAHs, for instance, are a derivative of the main “parent” PAH compounds). Burning coal and oil is the main source for these chemicals.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Yet, according to Jan Andersson, a chemistry professor at the University of Münster in Germany who has studied the EPA’s list, roughly 97 percent of the PAH chemical compounds found in crude oil are alkylated chemicals, making any lobbying against their inclusion quite significant. Meanwhile, NAs are found primarily in the byproduct of <b>tar sands oil</b>; the non-biodegradable compounds are stored in giant tailings ponds.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Excluding these types of chemicals from the EPA study would therefore serve to preemptively limit the scope of any potential rule changes in the future.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“They’re trying to cook the books at the very earliest stages of a study for petroleum refinery and ignoring the considerable data that’s out there that alkylated-PAHs are absolutely at least as toxic, if not more toxic, than the ones everybody monitors for right now,” Betsy Southerland, former director of the EPA’s Office of Water’s Office of Science and Technology, told ThinkProgress. Southerland worked for the EPA for 30 years before resigning in 2017 in response to the change in leadership.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At high or prolonged exposure, PAH chemicals can cause tumors in aquatic life and birds as well as impact their reproduction, development, and immunity. Studies show that NAs have similar impacts, along with causing liver and heart damage in mice. Some known health effects to humans from PAH exposure include eye and skin irritation, nausea, and diarrhea, as well as longer-term impacts such as kidney or liver damage and asthma-like symptoms.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Scientists are still studying how the various chemicals impact humans; a range of PAH chemicals are classified as suspected or possibly carcinogenic to humans. What is known though, is that alkylated-PAHs are likely more toxic than other types of PAHs. They also take a longer time to biodegrade in the environment.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The ‘secret science’ argument</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Issued by the EPA in 1976, the list of 16 types of PAH chemicals is used to determine which chemicals must be monitored for risks to drinking water and human health. Under the Clean Water Act, petroleum wastewater effluent guidelines establish a national floor — a baseline limit — for these chemicals. So, if there is a discharge of waste such as the release of industrial wastewater, stormwater runoff, or oil spills, only these 16 chemicals are tested to determine the level of toxicity.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The simplicity of the list has made the process easily applicable and cost-effective, and other countries have also turned to it as a resource. The list hasn’t just been used to monitor wastewater, either — environmental studies frequently use it as a basis for research. However, as a 2015 article co-authored by Andersson and published in the academic journal Polycyclic Aromatic Compounds notes, the list leaves out three large groups of these chemical compounds, including alkylated-PAHs. As the paper states, crude oil and coal are “rich” in alkyl compounds.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Despite the potential impact on human health and the environment, the levels of these chemicals currently found in petroleum wastewater is unknown; that’s one thing the EPA’s study would determine. PAH concentrations can vary from site-to-site and by the source of the crude oil. The findings would then help guide any necessary changes to the list of chemicals that should be regulated.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As part of its argument against the EPA measuring these chemicals, the trade groups are using the EPA’s proposed “secret science” rule to argue against disclosure of NAs because that would constitute a risk to companies’ proprietary data.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The proposed rule, also known as the “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” rule, was introduced last April by former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. The rule has been supported by climate science deniers and effectively aims to restrict the use of scientific evidence in the rule-making process. The plan has been stalled under Administrator Andrew Wheeler, but if adopted, it would require the EPA to rely only on scientific studies where the underlying data used by the researchers is made public. Critics argue the bill would severely limit the kind of science the EPA could use in justifying regulations (excluding public health data, for instance) and would place a number of unnecessary burdens on EPA scientists.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Some in the chemical and fossil fuel industries, both of which maintain close ties with the Trump administration, have also warned that the rule would expose confidential corporate information. In a June 8, 2018 letter attached to an email to Brian d’Amico, branch chief at the EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, API and AFPM wrote that using the industry’s own proprietary method of analyzing naphthenic acids would be a “clear contradiction” to the EPA’s proposed secret science rule.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Independent validation is clearly not possible when a proprietary analytical method is used to generate the data,” the organizations argued. “In the interest of transparency, per its own proposed rule, EPA should abandon the use of this proprietary method in the Detailed Study.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Data derived from these methods could result in the EPA facing substantial scientific and legal challenge,” API and AFPM warned.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In other words, under the hypothetical scenario where the EPA decides to update its chemicals list at a time when the secret science rule is officially adopted, it would require the results of the EPA’s effluent study be made public, as that would be considered underlying data used to introduce the new chemicals rule. But doing so would, in the eyes of the fossil fuel industry, violate their proprietary methods used to analyze the chemical and so the chemicals should instead be simply excluded from the very beginning to avoid such a scenario.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Quoting a rule that has not even gone final yet for the reason why [the EPA] shouldn’t be allowed to monitor it is pretty outrageous,” said Southerland.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The EPA did not respond to a request for comment from ThinkProgress about whether or not it will be studying the two types of chemicals the fossil fuel industry has been lobbying against. The API and AFPM also did not respond to requests for comment.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">‘Obsolete’ list</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The fossil fuel industry is also arguing that the EPA doesn’t have sufficient data to claim that these two groups of chemicals should be regulated. As Roger E. Claff, senior scientific adviser at API, wrote in a February 2018 email to d’Amico, among the concerns is a “lack of toxicity data for decision-making.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But as Southerland explained, that’s precisely why the EPA is initiating its study; growing scientific findings suggest these chemicals are highly toxic and therefore updates might be warranted. Meanwhile, she said, “API is saying ‘hell no.'”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Andersson made the case for updating the list in his 2015 paper. The 1976 list was created based on what was commercially available at the time, but many more variations of PAH chemicals exist now. Meanwhile, toxicology has improved understanding of the adverse health impacts of a wide range of these chemicals, and “a wealth of new compounds have been added to the inventory of confirmed or suspect carcinogens.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“This list of compounds is not suitable,” Andersson told ThinkProgress. “Most of them are pretty innocuous… [there are] many that are much more toxic that don’t appear on this list because in 1976, people didn’t know about them. This list looks pretty obsolete.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">‘Collaboration through the years’</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The first meeting between the EPA and the fossil fuel trade groups on this issue occurred in May 2016, under the Obama administration. And as a January 2018 slide show presentation to the Trump administration shows, the industry highlighted its “collaboration through the years” with the EPA.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Internal emails released to the Sierra Club show a January 2018 presentation by API to the EPA.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">INTERNAL EMAILS RELEASED TO THE SIERRA CLUB SHOW A JANUARY 2018 PRESENTATION BY API TO THE EPA.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Of course, some degree of collaboration is needed in order for the EPA to properly conduct its study and gather the necessary data. However, the internal emails provide insight into the scale of influence the fossil fuel lobby is trying to exert at the very early stages of decision making.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dalal Aboulhosn, who works on federal water policy for the Sierra Club, said this shows how under the current administration industry “is allowed to come in and pretty much write their wish list.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On water specifically she said, there has been a pattern of industry approaching the EPA under both Pruitt and Wheeler with policy ideas before the EPA has actually decided to move on the issue. Shortly after, a change is announced.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“It’s very blatant and it’s across the board when it comes to issues in the agency, and we’re seeing it very starkly on water issues,” Aboulhosn said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Indeed, after arguing last June that “the science and data for the toxicity of NAs and alkylated-PAHs are still a work in progress,” the two trade groups go so far as to suggest that, should the EPA wish to study them, the agency must address these two groups of chemicals “in a project outside of the Study.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">They argue the EPA should make a new official rule in order to create a new “method” for studying these chemicals. This separate project should undergo “the appropriate public notice and comment period required to gain method approval,” the trade groups’ letter states.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This, however, would be highly uncommon given public notice and comment periods typically apply to new regulations, or changes to existing regulations (such as repealing the Obama-era Clean Power Plan or introducing the “secret science” rule); it would also serve to delay the process by several years.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“It sounds like they’re trying to set some new bar to any future detailed studies,” Southerland said, “where no analyses can be done unless there’s a standard method… that would be a bar not just for petroleum refinery but every industry category.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It quickly becomes a “chicken and egg” situation, Southerland said; you need a study to determine if a new rule is needed, but the industry is arguing you need a new rule before conducting the study.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But as the June 2018 industry letter to the EPA reads, “API and AFPM members believe in due diligence and support EPA in developing sound science.”</div></div><div><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> const local regs maine</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28082018/tar-sands-pipeline-court-ruling-south-portland-ban-public-health-constitutional-big-oil-maine">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28082018/tar-sands-pipeline-court-ruling-south-portland-ban-public-health-constitutional-big-oil-maine</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A federal judge has ruled that the coastal city of South Portland, Maine, did not violate the U.S. Constitution</b> when it passed an ordinance that blocked a local pipeline company from bringing tar sands oil through its port.</font></p><div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">For the city of 25,000, the ruling was a surprise victory after years of fighting what <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02112017/oil-pipeline-tar-sands-banned-south-portland-maine-industry-lawsuit-home-rule" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">felt like an impossible battle</a> against some of the world's biggest oil companies, which lined up to support the Portland Pipe Line Corporation (PPLC).</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Provided the ruling survives an appeal, it slams the door on a significant plan to ship Canadian tar sands oil</b>, one of the most carbon-intensive fuels on the planet, to the East Coast for export to international markets, and it could offer a guide for other communities hoping to block energy projects.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"For other communities looking at opposing fossil fuel infrastructure, this case is a blueprint for how you should do it,"</b> said Patrick Parenteau, an environmental law professor at the Vermont Law School. "It's a strong opinion, and it could result in a really significant precedent for local control on petroleum-based industries." The pipeline company's plan involved a 70-year-old pipeline system that currently carries conventional crude oil in the opposite direction, from a tanker facility in South Portland to refineries in Montreal. After Canada's tar sands oil boom crippled the market for oil travelling from Maine to Montreal, PPLC saw its business dwindle.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A plan to reverse the flow and provide a route for tar sands oil to reach global markets through the port at South Portland represented a golden egg for the company—a way to redefine its business model, provide jobs and become a linchpin for oil exports.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But it also would have come at a steep price, the grassroots group Protect South Portland argued.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The plan called for the construction of a pair of 70-foot-high smokestacks next to a beloved waterfront park to burn off volatile compounds from the tar sands oil before it could be loaded into tankers. Concerns about emissions from those smokestacks led to the creation of the so-called Clear Skies Ordinance, which banned the bulk loading of crude oil onto tankers.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the City Council passed the ordinance in 2014, it sought to protect South Portland citizens from air pollution. The ordinance's foundation lay in Maine's "home rule authority," a stipulation of the<b> state Constitution</b> that allows municipalities to create regulations that go beyond state rules to protect public health and welfare.</font></p><div class="media media-element-container media-image_centered_medium" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 648px; margin: 0.25em auto;"><figure id="file-271228" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" class="file file-image file-image-png" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 100%; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[map]</font></figure></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The pipeline company filed its lawsuit in 2015, and a lengthy, expensive legal battle ensued. <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05012018/south-portland-maine-oil-sands-pipeline-local-control-environmentalists" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Late last year</a>, a federal district court judge threw out all but one of the industry's claims against the city, but left open the key question of whether the ordinance violated the Constitution.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In his 92-page decision issued on Friday, Judge John A Woodcock, Jr., found it did not.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The decision "gives communities a powerful tool," said Ken Rumelt, a Vermont Law School professor who led students at its environmental law clinic in advising groups involved in the case. "</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It says that a community, assuming there is<b> no state law</b> preempting what they're trying to do, can say no, we don't want to suffer these impacts."</span></font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Tale of Two Portlands</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Maine decision echoes one issued earlier this month in the other Portland—Oregon.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">There, a group of industry and business groups had sued over a 2016 ordinance that banned the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure. As in Maine, the petitioners argued that the ordinance violated the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/commerce_clause" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Commerce Clause</a> of the Constitution, which regulates commerce with foreign nations, among states and with Native American tribes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">After years of volleying through the courts, the Oregon Supreme Court <a href="https://portlandtribune.com/sl/402320-298953-court-decision-means-portland-can-sharply-restrict-fossil-fuel-terminal-expansion-" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">opted not to hear a challenge</a> to the ordinance.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The two Portlands are setting the stage for lots of other communities in between the two coasts," said Sean Mahoney of the Conservation Law Foundation, who has advised South Portland. "The lesson is that communities have the right and the obligation to protect the public health of the people who live in them, whether that is from air pollution or water pollution or lead in drinking water or housing."</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Goes Maine?</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the Maine case, the local pipeline company enlisted powerful allies as it opposed the ordinance. The <b>American Petroleum Institute</b>, whose members include most major oil and gas companies, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat a 2013 ballot measure that would have blocked the project. After the ordinance was passed, API and the <b>U.S. Chamber of Commerce both supported PPLC in its lawsuit.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Josh Axelrod, a policy analyst with Natural Resources Defense Council, said that support laid bare just how much the industry wanted to use the PPLC pipelines to gain access to the East Coast for exporting tar sands. "This is a huge win to stop that from happening," he said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>One by one, viable options to export the tar sands via pipeline have run into challenges.</b> TransCanada <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05102017/transcanada-tar-sands-oil-pipeline-canada-energy-east-climate-emissions" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">abandoned its plans</a> for the Energy East Pipeline in 2017, announcing it was uneconomical. Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered a <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16082018/keystone-xl-oil-pipeline-map-new-route-environmental-impact-statement-nepa-transcanada-tar-sands" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">new environmental review</a> of the Keystone XL project. And later this week, a Canadian court <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4408816/federal-court-of-appeal-trans-mountain-pipeline-august/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">will rule </a>on whether First Nations groups were adequately consulted in the plans for the Trans Mountain pipeline—a decision that could delay or cancel the plans for that pipeline.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These challenges "put some upper limit on where the industry would like to go," Axelrod said. "Back almost 10 years ago, they would talk about growing to 9 million barrels of oil per day of [tar sands] production. Their most optimistic projections now are less than 4.5 million barrels of oil per day."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And that's premised on the construction of at least two new pipelines, Axelrod said—a prospect that's seeming less likely given the opposition and court rulings.</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'Committed Citizens Can Change the World'</font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The South Portland case will most likely be appealed. But for now, the decision is being met with surprise, and relief.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mayor Linda Cohen praised the ruling in a written statement, saying, "Faced with the prospect of hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil being loaded onto marine tank vessels in the City and threatening the health of the residents and preventing redevelopment of the waterfront, the City Council prohibited this new activity. We are pleased that the Court upheld the ordinance."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rachel Burger, the co-founder and president of Protect South Portland, said she was overjoyed. "I didn't count on this happening, necessarily. I thought the ruling was more likely to be negative," she said. "I'm just amazed that a group of people can do something like this."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thinking back on years of canvassing, fundraisers, marches and grassroots organizing, Burger said she keeps coming back to a Margaret Mead quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."</font></p></div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><label style="box-sizing: inherit; display: block; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED UNDER:</font></label><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/oiltar-sands" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">OIL/TAR SANDS</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/regulation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">REGULATION</a></div> <div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/activism" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">ACTIVISM</a></div></div></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div>