A daily news update on the National Energy Board hearings into the Keystone Pipeline proposal -- plans by TransCanada Pipelines to export 500,000 barrels of raw bitumen a day from Alberta’s tar sands to the mid-west United States.
Barely minutes after the NEB Keystone Pipeline Hearing adjourned for the day, I received a “Google Alert” noting the headline in the Edmonton based Oilweek Magazine quoting Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan from his presentation to the hearing. The AFL president had come prepared to use the NEB hearing as a platform to put the Alberta labour movement’s campaign for value-added energy jobs in the spotlight, and he succeeded. The soundbites of the day were in his opening statement:
“Every barrel of bitumen shipped down the Keystone pipeline or other proposed pipelines is another barrel of oil no longer available for value-added production and job creation here in Alberta.
“I’ve been given a clear and emphatic mandate by my members to do everything I can to stop this pipeline and fight for more long term, value-added jobs,” he said. “Why should we sit on the sidelines while big, US controlled integrated oil companies use our oil to revive their aging refineries in the US Mid-West and the Gulf Coast, when that oil could be used, instead, to transform Alberta into North America’s newest hub for upgrading and refining.”
The main action Thursday at Keystone proceedings saw the focus shift from proponents to critics, as McGowan and AFL consultant Tom Pearson, a retired Dow Chemical business analyst, were called upon to defend their evidence filed in opposition to the pipeline under cross examination by oil industry and National Energy Board lawyers. That meant undergoing 3 hours of, at times, tough cross examination. The questioning of McGowan was clearly meant to portray the labour leader as having a political agenda beyond the scope of the NEB, an agenda that he readily admitted.
McGowan’s co-panelist, Tom Pearson, was a strategic planner for Dow Chemicals at Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. He was there with the AFL to reinforce the tragic outcome for the province’s petro-chemical industry after the 1998 approval by the NEB of the Alliance natural gas pipeline. Over the objections of Dow and Nova at the time, the pipeline was allowed to carry gas and natural gas liquids to the United States. “Not a cent of investment to expand the Alberta petrochemical sector has been made since that decision,” said Pearson.
Earlier in the day Keystone’s environmental and socio-economic evidence was examined. There was lengthy and substantial data about pipeline crossings of streams, wildlife, vegetation and air quality issues - but all within 50 km of the pipeline, or in some cases within 1 km of the pipeline. Virtually any impact, no matter how small, was scrutinized along this corridor. But not any impact, no matter how large, outside of the 50 km zone was considered. “Enviros” would pull their hair out over this, but that apparently is standard practice in the National Energy Board’s world of environmental assessment.
The scope of the socio-economic study was even narrower. A careful accounting of how much municipal taxes would be paid because of locating pumping stations was provided, but not a word of socio-economic analysis concerning the main issue in the Keystone hearing. Could there have been an analysis of jobs upstream and downstream of the pipeline, in Canada and the US, asked the AFL’s Leanne Chahley. Sure, if it had been requested in the scope of the study, was the answer.
Who is here and not here:
One of the questions to the AFL panel was why it is up to labour to make the case for value added, and there are not upgraders and refiners intervening to make the case themselves. Pearson replied that they should be. McGowan said that most of the oil companies that would upgrade in Canada don’t really care if the upgraders end up in the States. “That’s why we can’t rely on oil companies to uphold the public interest,” he said.
The void in the NEB hearing room is the silence from Conoco Phillips, which conveniently has escaped all questioning. Steven Shrybman asked Keystone about Conoco Phillips’ option to buy 50% of the pipeline company. That option, we learned, is not time-limited, but is “event based.” What events might invoke Conoco buying the pipeline? Sorry - a confidential business matter. Similarly, if Conoco Phillips owned half of Keystone, who would control the company and/or have veto power on future decisions? That, also, was none of our business. The absence from these proceedings of the main shipper and beneficiary of the Keystone Pipeline is every day more conspicuous.
Tomorrow: CEP President Dave Coles, Infometrica’s Mike McCracken and Parkland Institute’s Diana Gibson will be witnesses.