January 19, 2009 - No. 13 - Morning Edition On the Eve of Obama's Inaugural and Forthcoming Canadian Visit Energy Blackmail of the Rich• Energy
Blackmail of the Rich - Gary
Zatzman Who Said What On the Eve of Obama's Inaugural and Forthcoming Canadian Visit Energy Blackmail of the RichPart One
Among the urgent issues on the table will be the demands and expectations placed by the United States on the Canadian government regarding the further ongoing development of the Alberta tar sands. The U.S. energy sector and its principal financial backers have especially acute concerns at this particular time of deep economic crisis. These include: - any interventions by environmental or other
regulatory bodies in Ottawa and Edmonton; Tens of thousands of Canadians have already become engaged in recent years in opposing the severe environmental insults, from compromising groundwater supplies to complete disruption and destruction of the terrain, resulting from the strip-mining of bitumen, the raw material source of what is turned into synthetic crude oil. There is deep-going concern about the impacts of the additional pollution load created by the industrial "upgrading" of bitumen to extract the tar. There is also rising anger over the increasing diversion of the raw bitumen itself to facilities in the U.S. for "upgrading," at the cost of Canadian jobs. Over the last 15 years, the reliance of the upgrading plants on natural gas as their fuel source has greatly expanded and accelerated drilling for and extraction of natural gas throughout western Canada, in or near many populated areas, leading to widespread problems with "sour gas" -- pollution from the hydrogen sulfide emitted during the extraction phase -- and persistent and growing demands on governments to step in and regulate. The huge expansion of the oil sands as other industrial sectors have shut down or downsized across Canada has unleashed enormous social turmoil and pressures on workers' families. From Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, where the coal-mining, steel-making, fisheries and forest products industries were wiped out during the 1990s, thousands have been "commuting" every several months between their home towns in the East and work in the tar sands of the Athabasca. They have been joined by thousands more as manufacturing jobs have disappeared in other parts of Canada in more recent years.
The social dislocation unleashed in the wake of erecting Fort McMurray as some kind of renewed Klondike Gold Rush -- thousands of workers regularly "commuting" thousands of miles across the country -- hints at the exacerbation of the contradictions attending uneven economic and political development of developing and developed economies which is built into the U.S. imperialist course. Inside a so-called developed economy like that of Canada, we have another version of this uneven development. At bottom, it is the U.S. domination and dictate over how the country's energy sources are plundered that is responsible for engendering enormous distortions in the Canadian social fabric, whether it is the long-distance "commuting," the schemes for importing indentured labourers from offshore, or the TILMA-type schemes to "level the playing field" of the mobility of certain classes of skilled labourers. The media have played a most insidious role in shaping people's consciousness as to the basis of this transformation in social and economic existence and conditions occasioned specifically by the especially rapid expansion of tar sands development in recent years. The impression has been created that oil and gas are running out, permanently, and such "affordable" sources of future development as there are at this time -- the oil of the tar sands is virtually lying on the surface of the earth, simultaneously eliminating both the need to drill and the risks of failing to find oil or gas -- are humanity's last hope until some alternative energy sources as powerful as oil and gas can be developed to replace them. Not a word is mentioned in any of this, however, about the principal net effect of the large-scale commercial exploitation of tar sands as a source of synthetic crude oil. The principal effect is that this development has enabled the U.S. imperialists to keep their war machine fuelled and ready to strike anywhere on the planet without forcing rationing of non-military uses of oil and gas in their North American home area. The rate of expansion of tar sands development since 2001 has had to keep pace with the expanded demands on the U.S. war machine in unleashing aggression and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. The claims about oil and gas "peaking" or running out while imperialist aggression and occupations proceed feverishly apace constitute the energy blackmail by the rich of the working class and people, intended to engineer public compliance with an unsustainable status-quo. Part Two
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On Tuesday
January 20, 2009, Barack Obama will
be sworn
in as the 44th president of the United States. Soon after, he is
expected to undertake his first foreign visit as President to Ottawa
to meet Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
 "No to war and the destruction of our planet" |
These contradictions among the energy cartels continue to drive the empire ever more urgently towards unleashing new wars and interventions. Amid the euphoria over Obama's accession and the relief over the departure of the Bush-Cheney gang, it is instructive to recall the words of Dick Cheney while he was still CEO at Haliburton Corp. From the rostrum of an offshore oil and gas seminar in Halifax, Canada in May 1999, he declared that "we do War and Peace." ("Eastern Canadian Natural Gas Conference Report," Atlantic Progress, June 1999). As the Obama era gets under way, this is what the energy cartels will still do. No one can afford to underestimate the dangers inherent in such manipulation of the rhetoric and discourse about "green alternatives" by this ruling class.
For Your Information
Agenda for Obama's Meeting with Harper
According to Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
environmental concerns and the need for clean, secure energy will be
top priorities when he meets with U.S. President Barack Obama on his
first foreign visit to Canada shortly after his inauguration.
Speaking on a Calgary radio station January 13, Harper stated, "We will be making the point ... of saying we want to work together with the United States on environmental and energy issues."
He pointed out that the U.S. is "an energy-deficient country, and a country with enormous security needs and issues. There is no more reliable and secure supply of energy than from Canada. They need us in that sense."
Referring to concerns about the environmental impact of the oil sands, Harper stated, "To be frank on the oil sands, we've got to do a better job environmentally. We hear a lot of pressure on that. At the same time, the development of these things is pretty important, in our judgment, to North American energy security."
According to Harper, coal-powered electrical generation used extensively south of the border, "is pretty dirty, too," and the two countries should work together to find solutions. Obama has said he will fight America's "addiction" to dirty oil, which media reports say may include crude from Alberta's oil sands.
Harper was in Calgary January 13 for a meeting with members of the business community to get their input on what sort of economic stimulus should be in the January 27 federal budget. Those included in the business round table were oil company representatives Randy Eresman from EnCana, Murray Edwards of Canadian Natural Resources, Hal Kvisle from TransCanada, Rick George from Suncor and Ron Brenneman from Petro-Canada.
Following the Calgary meeting, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said the meeting with Obama will be a chance to bring the two countries together on an approach to climate change.
"I think there's enormous opportunity for Canada right now to take leadership, to work together with the new administration in the United States, and to do this in a way that suits our industry and our jobs," he said.
(Sources: Canadian Press, Calgary Herald)
Who Said What
Ottawa Must Harmonize Environmental Plan
with One Proposed by Obama Administration
Don't tell Canada's environment minister about "Hope" and "Change," the rallying cries of Barack Obama's election victory.
In the coming months, Jim Prentice must steer a complex proposal to essentially harmonize his government's much-criticized climate change plan with the one proposed by the Obama administration. The result will be a North American market for trading greenhouse gas emissions credits, giving companies the incentive to cut their carbon footprint.
To do that, Prentice will have to change considerably the Tories' environment blueprint and hope that the hoopla over Washington's re-engagement in the global warming fight will bring the Conservatives the breathing room they have been denied for the last three years.
"The election of Mr. Obama and the determination and the clarity with which he has spoken on climate change really is a fundamental change in terms of the situation," Prentice said Monday.
"I think it's fair to say that we are now in a position where the policy framework we're talking about as Canadians and the policy framework the new president has spoken about are very consistent."
Prentice believes Obama's America has come around to the Tory way of thinking on climate change.
But faced with a new U.S. administration that is stacked with climate change fundamentalists -- people on a first-name basis with former vice-president Al Gore -- it will be up to Ottawa to find religion.
The Obama team includes the likes of retired Marine Gen. James Jones, the proposed national security adviser, who touts the primacy of energy security and is well connected in Alberta's oil sands. But it appears more weighted with appointees like climate czar Carol Browner, who dubbed President George W. Bush's team "the worst environmental administration ever."
Obama's energy secretary nominee, Steven Chu, is a Nobel-prize winning physicist, a sign that science will regain supremacy over politics when it comes to issues such as climate change.
It's unlikely to have escaped the new administration's notice that Canada has been a Bush ally on climate change.
Watch for the Harper government's conversion to global warming orthodoxy that includes more stringent goals for cutting emissions, scrapping "intensity targets" -- a measure that allows overall emissions to rise -- long before the 2020 date it had planned, and signing on with some of the widely accepted standards that have left Canada isolated internationally.
Two previous environment ministers have spilled copious amounts of blood in the Commons defending such controversial policies.
"All of this is very technical but ... certainly a North American approach would have to start with reasonably consistent standards or targets, if you will," Prentice said. "Whether you talk about baselines or targets levels, there's a need to have a discussion about all of that."
One former official with a government agency said Canada is "going to be policy-takers on some of this stuff, but that does not mean that it does not serve our interests."
A North American pact to cut emissions could secure the U.S. as a destination for oil from Alberta's oil sands at a time when Congress is trying to cut reliance on what an Obama spokesperson once termed "dirty" oil, said John Drexhage of the International Institute for Sustainable Development in Ottawa.
"Many of the advisers on this issue to Obama have been quite critical and skeptical about the whole oil sands issue," he said, adding that it would be tough to imagine the U.S. shutting off the oil supply from both the Middle East and Alberta.
The biggest challenge for Prentice and the Tory government could be keeping pace with the change expected to grip the U.S. once Obama hits his stride on the environment.
Compare the scope and ambition of Washington and Ottawa's respective plans: Obama has promised $150 billion over 10 years to push the private sector toward clean technologies like solar and wind power and clean coal; the Conservatives pledged $700 million over three years in last year's budget to turn Canada, in its words, from an energy superpower to a "clean-energy superpower."
"The U.S. is going to lean on clean technology and they are about to make it an economic issue and a fiscal stimulus issue, and they are about to clean our clocks competitively in those sectors," said one Ottawa lobbyist.
There's also the challenge of corralling the provincial governments into a unified national position that could put most of the burden on oil producing regions. Already, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is complaining that he was blindsided by the Tory overture to Obama.
Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Manitoba, on the other hand, have already signed on to a cross-border cap-and-trade system with a number of U.S. states, and appear well-positioned for the proposed new pact.
Under the system, government sets a limit on carbon emissions as well as a cap for each major polluting industry. Industries below their cap can sell emission permits to those that exceed their limit.
Transition at the Top: Obama's Green Team
After eight years of Republican rule, environmentalists now believe they have a keen ally moving into the White House next week, and Canada's oil sands are high on their list of targets.
But they'll have to deal with General James Jones.
As a monumental battle over energy policy shapes up within the new administration of president-elect Barack Obama, Gen. Jones, a former NATO supreme commander who retired from the U.S. Marine Corps, may turn out to be Canada's best ally.
After next week's historic presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C., he will be the new president's national security adviser, and has sent clear signals that he considers energy security to be a key part of his mandate.
The fate of Canada's carbon-heavy oil sands projects hangs on the outcome of the fight over U.S. energy policy and climate change, which pits the "hawks," pushing for tough new standards to cut greenhouse gas emissions, against the "pragmatists," urging a go-slow approach to ensure nothing undermines the economy or energy security.
Gen. Jones, as it turns out, delivered a message to closed-door meeting of business and government elites in Banff this fall that was music to the ears of his Alberta hosts.
Energy security is a critical and growing concern for American national security, Gen. Jones said in his keynote speech to an audience that included Americans and Mexicans, as well as Canadians.
His message in Banff this fall dovetails with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's pitch to the new administration for a continental climate change agreement that reflects the need for energy security and growing oil sands production.
When he accepted his role in the Obama administration, Gen. Jones was chairman of the Institute for 21st Century Energy, a business-backed think tank that has several Canadian oil companies as supporting members.
Among its lengthy list of proposals aimed at boosting supply and reducing U.S. energy demand, the group warns against aggressive climate change policies that would undermine energy security or impose undue costs on the economy.
And it advocates that the United States look to Canada and Mexico as strategic partners in providing growing sources of crude oil as it attempts to reduce its reliance on Middle East supplies.
Soon after his inauguration, Mr. Obama will travel to Ottawa to visit with Mr. Harper, his first foreign visit as president. The Prime Minister will make similar arguments to those put forward by Gen. Jones -- that Canada is a critical source of secure energy and that the two countries need to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without hamstringing either the economy or Alberta's oil industry.
But while Gen. Jones and Mr. Harper will be urging caution in Mr. Obama's right ear, the new president will be getting a very different message from environmentalists in his left.
Mr. Obama has promised aggressive action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, by boosting low-carbon sources of energy, improving energy efficiency and adopting national emissions standards that could penalize high-carbon sources like oil sands projects.
He has loaded his cabinet with advocates of action, including former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Carol Browner in a new post as adviser for energy and climate change, and his energy secretary Stephen Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who has urged adoption of national emission caps.
But Gen. Jones and several economic advisers are expected to urge caution in moving ahead with costly regulations that could weaken an already fragile economy or interfere with the country's energy security agenda.
Included in that group is Lawrence Summers, Mr. Obama's top economic adviser, who clashed with Ms. Browner over environmental rules when he served as former president Bill Clinton's treasury secretary.
Gen. Jones's Institute for 21st Century Energy is part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and has provided one avenue for Canadian oil companies to use to help counter the opposition in the United States to oil sands development. At the same time, Canada's Ambassador Michael Wilson and Alberta's representative Gary Mar have aggressively lobbied senior members of the U.S. Congress and senior advisers surrounding Mr. Obama.
Alberta is spending $2-billion to develop the means of sequestering large amounts of carbon dioxide underground, and the federal government is expected to unveil new incentives in its upcoming budget.
At confirmation hearings this week, Ms. Browner, Mr. Chu and EPA administrator Lisa Jackson vowed to move quickly on climate legislation, in some cases granting states the right to impose their own standards.
This week, a group of Canadian and American environmental groups wrote to the president-elect and key members of his cabinet, urging them to resist Ottawa's push to grant "a pass" to the oil sands in meeting greenhouse gas emission targets.
Congress is expected to tackle climate change legislation in the first half of this year, after Mr. Obama's stimulus package and a broader energy bill, says Liz Barratt-Brown, a senior attorney at Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council, whose group was a signatory to the letter.
She expects the new president to rebuff any Canadian effort to water down emission targets to protect the oil sands.
"This is a president who instinctively gets how serious the climate change threat is," Ms. Barratt-Brown said.
Even some business groups are pressing for climate legislation that could force oil companies to spend on costly emission reductions programs, far beyond what the Alberta or federal government are requiring. Yesterday in Washington, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership issued a call for action that would include tough emission targets -- including on imported oil -- and low-carbon fuel standards that environmentalists insist would disadvantage the oil sands.
The USCAP includes blue-chip companies like General Electric Co. and Dow Chemical Co., and even heavy emitters like utility giant Duke Power Co. and oil major ConocoPhillips Co.
Obama's "Green Team"
Energy/Environment
CAROL BROWNER: Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. Former EPA administrator under president Bill Clinton supported U.S. signing on to Kyoto Protocol, and was active in environmental groups backing a national cap-and-trade system.
STEVEN CHU: Energy Secretary. Former head of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, he directed research on renewable energy. A staunch advocate of national greenhouse gas emissions standards.
LISA JACKSON: Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency. New Jersey state environmental administrator, chairwoman of the northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which established a cap-and-trade system among northeastern power utilities.
National Security
JAMES L. JONES: National Security Adviser. Former NATO supreme commander, Marine Corps four-star general, CEO of business-backed Institute for 21st Century Energy, which backed offshore drilling and energy trade with Canada and Mexico and opposed aggressive emission caps.
HILLARY CLINTON: Secretary of State. Former first lady and senator, who supported Senate legislation for national emissions standards, but insisted foreign countries must also embrace standards. At confirmation hearing said climate change and energy security are joint challenges.
ROBERT GATES: Defence Secretary, served as President George W. Bush's defence secretary. Department is world's largest consumer of fuel, and was prohibited in 2007 energy bill from buying unconventional, high-carbon fuel as secure alternative to imports. Many see it applying to oil sands.
Economy
LAWRENCE SUMMERS: Director of the National Economic Council. Former Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton. Opposed the Kyoto accord, is a backer of a carbon tax, rather than the cap-and-trade system proposed by most of the Obama team.
TIMOTHY GEITHNER: Treasury Secretary. Former head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (part of the U.S. central bank), participated in bailout of financial institutions last fall. Lobbied heavily by businesses who say new carbon emission caps would hurt weakened economy.
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