By Kevin McCauley
Bryan Cave is spearheading TransCanada’s effort to win federal approval for its $7B Keystone pipeline project that would transport heavy oil from the tar sands of Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
The State Dept. is expected today to give its preliminary approval of the pipeline, opening a 90-day comment period. President Obama expects to weigh in on the construction by the end of the year.
The New York Times ran an Aug. 21 editorial ripping the project, citing the risk of oil spills and greenhouse gas emissions connecting with extracting oil from tar sands.
A coalition of green groups (Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council) penned a letter to Obama on Aug. 25 that rapped Keystone as a “terrible project” that “risks many of our national treasures to leaks and spills” and “reduces incentives to make the transition to job-creating clean fuels.” They said Obama’s ruling is “perhaps the biggest climate test you face now and election.”
The groups noted “there is not an inch of daylight between our policy position on the Keystone Pipeline and those of the very civil protesters being arrested out the White House.” More than 275 anti-Keystone demonstrators , including Canadians actress Margot Kidder, were arrested this week.
TransCanada says the pipeline will create thousands of jobs and improve North American energy security. Canada’s natural resources minister Joe Oliver called approval of the pipeline a “very important” issue for both his country and the U.S.
TransCanada, according to federal records, has spent $530K for U.S. lobbying outlays during the first-half of 2011.
BC, which has received $240K in that period from TC, has fielded a team that includes David Russell, ex-chief of staff to former Alaskan Republican Senator Ted Stevens; Broderick Johnson, former Congressional liaison for President Clinton, and Jeff Berman, aide to former Democratic Majority Leader Dick Gephardt.
Nail Palmer & Associates has worked PR for the project.
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