By Daniel Tencer, The Huffington Post Canada, March 14, 2015
One of America’s most prominent oil men has issued an apology to Canadians over the Obama administration’s long delays to a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline.
“To my friends in Calgary and across Canada: I apologize on behalf of my fellow Americans for the United States government’s actions,” began the letter from T. Boone Pickens, published Friday in the Calgary Herald.
Pickens, a famed corporate raider from the 1980s who chairs BP Capital Management, said there was “no good explanation for Obama’s decision to veto” a bipartisan Congressional bill last month that would have authorized the long-delayed pipeline.
Pickens pointed to a US State Department report that argued Keystone XL would have little impact on greenhouse gas emissions, because Canadian companies would extract the oil regardless of the pipeline’s existence.
Pickens pointed to a US State Department report that argued Keystone XL would have little impact on greenhouse gas emissions, because Canadian companies would extract the oil regardless of the pipeline’s existence.
Pickens is the originator of the “Pickens Plan,” a strategy to get the US to energy independence through the development of natural gas and renewable energy resources.
He has long been an ardent supporter of the pipeline, and in his view, Canadian oil is a crucial element in a geopolitical struggle between the US and Middle Eastern oil producers.
He has argued that building the Keystone pipeline would break the back of OPEC, the Saudi-dominated oil cartel that has largely determined oil prices for the past 40 years.
“Canadians say they have 250 billion barrels [of oil]. That’s exactly what the Saudis claim they have,” he said in a 2013 interview on CNBC.
“You’re sitting there with the same amount of oil available to the United States from Canada … as Saudi Arabia.”
Some analysts say Saudi Arabia sees things the same way. The country’s decision last December not to cut production to prop up oil prices was seen by many as a sign it is trying to put Canada’s oilsands and the US’s shale oil play out of business.
Our Comment
My! My! It would seem that a political contribution is a common incentive, and alright if the influence it’s calculated to buy is in your best interest. If, on the other hand, it’s apt to further the common good, or profit some other corporation, the government must be held to account!
This is an excellent example of the need to free government from private control over policy – perhaps, by public funding of political campaigns.
So, how free is so-called free trade? How many Canadians of sound mind would wittingly support a deal that transfers such political clout to corporations to safeguard profit, but denies democratically elected governments equal power to safeguard life?
Could this be why trade deals are “negotiated” behind our backs?
Élan
