To the BC KM17, Your Next Career

... from Kim , who used to blog at sistersagesmusings ....

BC 17, Your Next Career

Dear BC(LIB) MPs;

Your photogenic leader has just tanked your career as a politician in BC. I hope you feel ashamed and embarrassed. If that is the case, I would suggest that you strongly consider crossing the floor or resigning your post, because, clearly, you have no mandate in your constituencies. You all know how we feel about our coast. You all know how important this ocean is to our economy. You all swept into office on promises of a new Nation to Nation relationship, how you basked in the glow of "Governments give approval, but only communities give permission". How you embraced UNDRIP and the Paris Accord. Unless you part ways with your Party leadership on this, you are liars and cheats and not fit for representing your constituents in Ottawa. You all know that there is no world class oil spill response, ask the Heiltsuk Nation in Bella Bella. How the Oil cleanup company is owned by the Oil Titans. How the coast guard comms system has failed many times since Harper closed the network. I would suggest that you people start reflecting deeply on these issues, and the fact that you have just allowed massive protests to endanger our people.

I just sent this to the 17 Liberal MPs in BC.

Jody.Wilson-Raybould@parl.gc.ca; 604-717-1144, 613-992-1416 
Harjit.Sajjan@parl.gc.ca; 604-775-5323, 613-995-7052 
John.Aldag@parl.gc.ca; 604-575-6595 , 613-992-0884 
Terry.Beech@parl.gc.ca; 604-718-8870, 613-992-0802  
Sukh.Dhaliwal@parl.gc.ca; 604-598-2200, 613-992-0666 
hedy.fry@parl.gc.ca; 604-666-0135, 613-992-3213
Stephen.Fuhr@parl.gc.ca; 250-470-5075, 613-992-7006 
Pam.Goldsmith-Jones@parl.gc.ca; 604-913-2660, 613-947-4617  
Ken.Hardie@parl.gc.ca; 604-501-5900, 613-996-2205  
Ron.McKinnon@parl.gc.ca; 604-927-1080, 613-992-9650 
joyce.murray@parl.gc.ca; 604-664-9220, 613-992-2430  
Joe.Peschisolido@parl.gc.ca; 604-257-2900, 613-992-1385  
Carla.Qualtrough@parl.gc.ca; 778-593-4007, 613-992-2957  
Dan.Ruimy@parl.gc.ca; 604-466-2761, 613-947-4613  
Randeep.Sarai@parl.gc.ca; 604-589-2441, 613-992-2922 
Jati.Sidhu@parl.gc.ca; 604-814-5710, 613-992-1248  
Jonathan.Wilkinson@parl.gc.ca; 604-775-6333, 613-995-1225  
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Kinder Morgan pipeline spill in Burnaby 2007

A 10-meter geyser of crude oil spewed from a broken Kinder Morgan pipeline in a Burnaby neighbourhood in July 2007. Eight homes were flooded and 92 were put on evacuation notice.

Part of the TransMountain Pipeline system, the broken pipeline was carrying crude oil from a pipeline terminal at the foot of Burnaby Mountain to a tanker-loading facility on Burrard Inlet. After four years in court, Kinder Morgan pled guilty.

Justin Trudeau's new Kinder Morgan pipeline will ship 900,000 barrels of dilbit a day from Alberta through the same neighbourhood to the supertankers waiting in Burrard Inlet.

We are currently waiting to see what piece of First Nations apparel Christy Clark will wear to her presser...
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Thursday update : So what is that stuff spewing into the air? Not crude oil after all.

This industry report : A STUDY OF FATE AND BEHAVIOR OF DILUTED BITUMEN OILS ON MARINE WATERS  identifies it as Albion Heavy dilsynbit containing toluene, pentane, butane, benzene, hydrogen sulfide ....

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Pay to Play in BC with Spectra

Six years ago the BC government decided not to bother doing its own environmental assessments any more because it was so much more efficient to hand that responsibility over to the industry-captured federal National Energy Board for rubber-stamping. That deal was called the Environmental Assessment Equivalency Agreement.

In January the BC Supreme Court ruled that the BC government did not have the authority to pass off its constitutional obligations onto the NEB and found this agreement "invalid" as it served as an end run around the province having to consult BC First Nations over major pipeline projects on their territories. Score one for Gitga'at First Nation.

Now this equivalency agreement can be cancelled by either the NEB or the BC Environmental Assessment Office at any time with 30 days notice but Christy Clark opted instead for another end run - passing an Order In Council last Thursday exempting five Peace region natural-gas projects from the provincial environmental assessments the Supreme Court says it must now carry out: 

The Spectra South Peace pipeline, Spectra's Dawson gas plant, Spectra's Fort Nelson North plant, Nova Gas Transmission's Groundbirch pipeline, and Nova Gas Transmission's Horn River mainline extension.

As noted by Charlie Smith in the Georgia Straight : Christy Clark cabinet issues order-in-council to get around court ruling on environmental assessments

"Premier Christy Clark's former deputy chief of staff, Kim Haakstad, is Spectra Energy's manager of technical workforce strategy."

Ms Haakstad was forced to resign her position as Christy's chief of staff in March 2013 over the "Quick Win" ethnic vote election scandal but was back in May stumping for Christy in her bid to win a seat in her home riding of Vancouver-Point Grey - which she lost, making her a Premier without a riding until a safer seat could be found for her. 
Haakstad made the jump to Spectra three months later in August 2013. 

Over at RossK's killer reporting and banjo emporium, some of his commenters wondered if Spectra contributed to the $50,000 top up salary Christy receives from the BC Libs each year.   
Dunno, guys, but Texas-based Spectra has been pretty good to the BC Libs : 

From the BC gov press release : 

"EAO has begun a process for the projects which are also impacted by the court decision but have not been approved or constructed. These projects include: 

Approved Projects – not yet constructed

North Montney Mainline Pipeline Project; andEnbridge Northern Gateway Project. 

Projects currently under review

Trans Mountain Expansion Project; andTowerbirch Expansion Project.

Following a process set out by EAO including consultation with Aboriginal groups, ministers will make environmental assessment decisions on these projects according to the act."

Extra homework : Why Do So Many BC Liberal Operatives End Up in Trouble?

Criminal charges, convictions, and more plague the party.

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National Energy Board Ok's Trans Mountain Pipeline

You're shocked, I'm sure.

National Energy Board presser in Calgary today, Robert Steedman :  

"The NEB recommends that the Government of Canada find the Trans Mountain expansion project to be in Canada's public interest. ... The project would not likely cause significant environmental effects."

The Texas-based Kinder Morgan twinned pipeline will run from Alberta to Burnaby and Burrard Inlet BC, increasing tanker traffic by 600%. 

Here is the Kinder Morgan pipeline in the community of Burnaby in 2007, sending geysers of crude 12 meters into the air for half an hour before spilling into Burrard Inlet:




In January the National Energy Board sided with Kinder Morgan in refusing the Province of BC's request for more details on how KM would handle an oil spill, citing "commercial, security, and privacy reasons".  

Former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen referred to the NEB as "industry-captured" and their Trans Mountain hearings as "a fraudulent process" and "a public farce" in his letter of resignation from the hearings. 

Not to worry, said the Federal Liberals on the campaign trail in BC in the October federal election : 

“We are going to redo the National Energy Board process. We’re going to broaden the scope. We’re going to make sure it’s objective, fair and based on science.”

So what did we get? A three-person mini-NEB announced just two days before NEB gave the Trans Mountain its blessing - to listen to us alongside the same old NEB :

“The panel is not going to come back with a formal recommendation about whether the process should go ahead. It’s going to come back and tell the minister that this is what we heard from communities..."

Dear mini-NEB, let me save you the trouble. Here's three just from today :

First Nations vow to kill Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion with lawsuits

Local governments "deeply disappointed" by NEB ruling on Kinder Morgan expansion

It's kayaks vs tankers as pipeline battle heats up in BC

Meanwhile, back at mini-NEB base camp :
NattyPost, April 11, 2016 : Trudeau convinced that pipeline strategy must be top priority

"Justin Trudeau has told his senior lieutenants to draw up plans to make the Energy East pipeline and the Trans Mountain expansion in British Columbia a reality.
The prime minister has been convinced by his finance minister, Bill Morneau, and other influential voices around the cabinet table that the pipelines have to be built to achieve the ambitious economic growth targets his government has set."

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DILBIT does the Nebbies

The National Energy Board has sided with Kinder Morgan in refusing the Province of BC's request for more details on how KM would handle an oil spill from KM's proposed $5.4-billion Edmonton-to-Burnaby Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. 
None of our business apparently. Kinder Morgan cited "commercial, security, and privacy reasons" for their redactions.

The NEB is also rather coy when it comes to identifying the former energy industry links among the members that make up their own ranks.  NEB bios are full of expressions like "contributed to the creation and development of major energy projects" without getting into exactly which projects and companies they represent. So to augment that lack of info - here's the Nebbies...

Not to pick on "Bob" in the toon specifically here but rather than the NEB stating that Mr. Bob Vergette was once "Vice President, Operations with a major North American liquids pipeline company", it would seem rather more to the point given NEB's current Trans Mountain review to include the info that company he was VP of was Trans Mountain Pipelines - even if it was a decade ago.

NEB Chair and CEO Peter Watson - formerly Deputy Minister of the Alberta Executive Council til last June - is at least straight up about NEB priorities. Last November he explained that "the board's main job is to ensure proper construction of the pipeline" while he saw environmental concerns as more "the job of the provinces and pipeline company".

NEB Vice Chair Lyne Mercier : 29 years with Gaz Metro.

Roland George : according to NEB "worked primarily in the private energy sector for over three decades", is also a Gaz Metro alumni, and held senior positions with the Canadian Energy Research Institute, or CERI, a not-for-profit tarsands booster. 

Philip Davies : Vice-President, Law and General Counsel of SaskPower ; VP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Encana Gas Storage

Shane Parrish : Manager of Business Development for Canadian Petroleum Engineering

Ron Wallace : From NEB : "At AGRA, he was involved in major oil and gas operations throughout the former Soviet Union and Russia where he managed major project assignments in conjunction with the World Bank."
Also "senior management positions with Petro-Canada and CanStar Oil Sands Ltd."

Kenneth Bateman : "VP of Legal Affairs for Enmax, a large energy distribution, supply and service company"

Alison Scott : Deputy Energy Minister of Nova Scotia and offshore oil promoter

James Ballem : former Conservative MLA and PEI Minister of Environment and Energy.

Mike Richmond : energy lawyer and Co-Chair of the Energy and Power Group at McMillan LLP; and on the board of the Ontario Energy Association.

Jacques Gauthier : one time personal envoy to Harper in 2010 for the Vancouver Olympics, served on the Prime Minister's Advisory Committee on the Public Service, and was "senior VP and CEO of Kruger Energy Inc., where he headed up a new division dedicated to the development of renewable energy" . 
NEB bio : "Mr. Gauthier has contributed to the creation and development of major energy projects in Canada, the United States and Europe."

The only NEB member who doesn't seem to fit comfortably into the oil and gas sector insider mold is David Hamilton - Chief Electoral Officer and Deputy Minister and Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories. 

Could be it's possible to be just a bit too much inside : 
NEB : Onshore Pipeline Regulation Incidents 2000 to 2012 :

"A truly captured regulator " said Marc Eliesen, a senior energy executive who once served as CEO of BC Hydro, when he quit his role as a NEB intervenor in the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain tarsands-to-tankers expansion project.

This post an update to Norm Farrell's from 2013 as more players have been added since.

Collected DILBITs
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Astroturf Illustrated!

Heh. After slagging off on the protesters on Burnaby Mountain for days for being "professional protesters", SunNews ran this headline banner reading "Ineffective Kinder Morgan Protests" under their friendly coverage of four huge pro-oil signs up on the mountain. 

But wait ... haven't we seen those counter-protest signs somewhere before?

Oh here they are! 
Back in May at the "No Enbridge!" protest on Sunset Beach in Vancouver, representing :  

CodyinCalgary's Canada Action 
"Full Value for Canadian Resources - Support Northern Gateway"

Just a couple of guys on a grassroots website with four counter-protest Canada Action banners big enough to block the view of the ocean.... and

• a *surprise* visit from Ezra Levant for Sun News, and

• an op ed in the CAPP/Postmedia partnership world of the Vancouver Sun :Pipeline fear factor is inappropriate, and 

•  an endorsement on their Support the Northern Gateway Pipeline pledge from CEO/ founder Bruce Lounds of local astroturf lobby group, British Columbians for Prosperity or BC4P -- currently managed by Brittany Allison, who is now also an *Energy Citizen* at CAPP's own astroturf site, Energy Citizens.ca, which is in turn a sister org to the American Petroleum Institute's astroturf group, Energy Citizens.org.

The big banner guys above signed up earlier this year at the email-harvesting site, Power of Canada, part of a public relations campaign meant to mobilize the public called the Partnership for Resource Trade. It's hosted by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. 

Power of Canada Advisory Council Members include  Perrin Beatty, Martha Hall Findlay, David Emerson, John Manley, Kevin Lynch, Ted Menzies, and reps from CAPP, TransCanada, Enbridge, Rio Tinto, Teck, Suncor, TransAlta, CD Howe, BMO, Asia-Pacific Foundation, Mining Association of Canada, Port Metro Vancouver, etc. etc. 

From the Power of Canada P4RT mission statement (italics -mine) :

"We aim to foster a favourable environment for policy decisions that enable responsible resource development and trade.We will do that by informing, energizing and mobilizing a broad coalition of Canadian thought leaders, stakeholders, small- and medium-sized businesses and informed Canadians in a countrywide fast-to-action, grassroots public education and advocacy campaign."

In May, CCC CEO Perrin Beatty offered a $2000 student scholarship for producing a video on the merits of P4RT and its objectives. Rule # 1 : 

"In order to be eligible for the contest, students must be registered as full-time students as well as like the Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CCC) on Facebook, follow the CCC on Twitter, and subscribe to the CCC’s Youtube channel. In addition, students must sign themselves and five friends up on the PRT website: Power of Canada."

So I guess we can be expecting a lot more 

"Canadian thought-leaders" with their 

"fast-to-action grassroots" websites and banners in the near future.

P.S. I'm reliably informed that fake grassroots ad campaigns are commonly known in the adbiz as "blowjobs".

Here's one to get them started : We Heart Blow Jobs.

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Kinder Morgan: Taking the BY out of NIMBY

h/t Waterbaby

That's very good, isn't it? "Kinder Morgan has solved the NIMBY problem by taking the backyard".

I also liked his debunking of the attempt to de-legitimize protest itself - the argument that "protesters undermine the rule of law by claiming to speak for the whole community".

Hey, here's one now from the senior editorial board of the Vancouver Province!
Mountain mob don't speak for the rest of us

The Province senior editorial board wonders why the protesters are available to protest in the middle of the day and aren't at work "generating taxes", and whether the protesting "clever university professors" understand where their salaries come from. 
My personal fave here - Are their tents made from oil products? Oh, the hypocrisy! 
This one is akin to the argument that First Nations should only have 'preferential fishing rights' if they are restricted to using 14th century tools.

But then of course the protesters don't speak for you, Province editorial board, because you're already speaking for your editorial partner CAPP, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.




And a bang up job you're doing of it too -  introducing Postmedia stories that "CAPP needs to bring to the forefront of Canadian consciousness".

Last month, backed by its major shareholder New York hedge fund GoldenTree Asset Management, Postmedia added to its stable of CAPP-promoting opportunities with its purchase of Sun Media and 175 more newspapers and websites across Canada, including the 24 Hours daily. 
At left is the before and after effects of the buyout - just another day of tarsands-friendly media concentration in your backyard.

Fun story : Seven years ago, Texas Governor Rick Perry was pushing to build the Trans-Texas Corridor, a quarter-mile-wide swath of truck-only toll lanes, railway lines and multiple traffic lanes rolling from Mexico to the Oklahoma state border. The prime bidder was Cintra SA, Macquarie Infrastructure Group's partner in the Ontario Highway 407 ETR 99 year lease, of which Australia's Macquarie is the largest shareholder. 

To many Texan ranchers and farmers, Perry's superhighway just looked like a royal pain in the ass and opponents of privatizing roads came out against it in the thousands. All up and down the proposed route, ads and editorials critical of the proposal ran in the local newspapers. Macquarie bought those local newspapers out. All 40 of them. 
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Update : Carol Linnitt : Canada’s Petro-Politics Playing Out on B.C.’s Burnaby Mountain

Meanwhile on BC's Burnaby Mountain, RCMP act as Kinder Morgan's private security force, protecting a foreign corporation against the municipality of Burnaby and the people protesting in a public park who actually live here.

Updates from Burnaby Mountain

DILBIT : The smartest guys in the room

Burnaby To Appeal NEB's Kinder Morgan Access Decision 

Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Advertising Blitz During Election Doesn't Count as Elections Advertising: Elections BC Ruling

Kinder Morgan slaps Burnaby residents with multi-million-dollar lawsuit

Kinder Morgan questions how much B.C. First Nation still eats fish

Gay serum rumour riles Burnaby politics

Ok, I don't think we can pin that last one on the smartest guys in the room, but meantime ...

Energy Executive Blasts Kinder Morgan NEB Review As “Fraudulent,” Quits

Former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen referred to the NEB as "industry-captured" and their Trans Mountain hearings as "a fraudulent process" and "a public farce" in his letter of resignation from the hearings. 

After the cross-examination phase of the review was inexplicably shelved, intervenors were instead invited to submit their questions in writing. Trans Mountain refused to answer them "or referred back to the inadequate information in the original application that gave rise to the question in the first place."

"Out of the approximately 2000 questions not answered by Trans Mountain that Intervenors called on the [National Energy] Board to compel answers, only 5 per cent were allowed by the Board and 95 per cent were rejected."

"The Board has sided with Trans Mountain dismissing the Province of BC’s need for answers in pursuit of its duty to British Columbians. The Province should cancel the Equivalency Agreement with the NEB on this project and undertake its own environmental assessment as the only meaningful way in which it will be able to effectively obtain the answers it seeks."

BC, you will recall, gave up its right to do its own environmental assessments so as not to unnecessarily duplicate the work of the National Energy Board; in 2010 BC signed an Equivalency Agreement promising to accept the NEB's decisions.   Ha. 

Economist Robyn Allen :  The National Energy Board Guaranteed Kinder Morgan a Fund to Push Pipeline Expansion Through Regulatory Review

"In a precedent setting NEB decision in 2011, the Board granted Kinder Morgan the right to pre-fund future expansion applications from five firm shipping customer contracts to its Westridge terminal. Two of the five companies funding Kinder Morgan’s pre-development costs are Chinese National Oil Companies PetroChina and Nexen, while the remaining three are US Oil, Astra and Cenovus. These companies pay an average premium of $1.45 per barrel to guaranteed $28.6 million per year is allocated to the special account.

Over a ten year period, Kinder Morgan will amass $286 million to push its expansion plans through regulatory review. Pre-funding through shipper charges means that the Canadian public and the Canadian economy bear the risk and the cost of Kinder Morgan’s pre-development process, rather than the risk and cost being borne by Kinder Morgan’s US based shareholders.

Kinder Morgan has confirmed that $136.3 million of its special fund has been allocated to finance the current NEB public review process."

Texas-based Kinder Morgan is the third largest energy company in North America, valued at $120 Billion. 

Update : Crowdfunding campaign raises thousands to support legal defence of Kinder Morgan protesters

Donate towards the legal costs to challenge Kinder Morgan in the courts.

Boris in comments : "Meanwhile, the price of oil and therefore the lucrativity of pipelines keeps falling as US production ramps up due to fracking and renewables reach cost parity with fossil fuels. The pipeline mayn't even be built but we'll be left with a fracked process to be abused for the next big thing."

More DILBIT

ETA : Eliesen's descriptive quotes re NEB hearings
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Rachel Maddow rips Kinder Morgan

                                                        see update below 

A clearly "gob-smacked" Rachel Maddow rips into Kinder Morgan for touting the local economic benefits of oil spills :

"Spill response and clean-up creates business and employment opportunities for affected communities" depending on "the willingness of local businesses and residents to pursue response opportunities" 

in a 90 second clip from Press Progress who broke the original story.

Maddow's full show on pipeline and crude oil train transport safety opens with the "12 meter geyser of crude oil" spraying over a Burnaby BC neighbourhood in 2007 after a Kinder Morgan pipeline was accidentally punctured by a backhoe doing streetwork. 

Maddow notes that the Houston, Texas-based Kinder Morgan has applied to triple the capacity of its Trans Mountain pipeline from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day in a $5.4B expansion proposal bringing tarsands crude to Westridge Marine Terminal in ... Burnaby!

Maddow :

"Turn that frown upside down, oil-soaked neighbourhood! You can get a job cleaning it up if you just have the right attitude ... We’ll make it worth your while - you'll get a job out of it! That is seriously what Kinder Morgan is arguing to the freaking Canadian government about why they should be allowed to triple the capacity of their pipeline. More oil means more chances for oil spills and more oil spills means more jobs cleaning up oil spills! ... If you let us triple the size of our pipeline, we might spill more oil and then you could hire yourselves to clean it up."

The whole show is well worth a watch if only for the collected video footage of oilspill after tanker train spill in towns and rivers and wheatfields being allowed to burn themselves out for four days before any clean-up even starts because apparently that's the best oilspill  emergency response we've got.

No wait ... we do have a better emergency response actually. 

It's called the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, located right across the Burrard Inlet from the Burnaby terminus of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline, and they are launching a legal challenge to the National Energy Board's review of the tarsands-to-tankers pipeline.

"The process to review Kinder Morgan's proposed pipeline expansion and tanker project was designed without First Nations consultation or public participation. The timelines appear to have been designed to rush through approvals," says Chief Maureen Thomas.

I guess the Tsleil-Waututh Nation aren't too excited by the promise of "employment opportunities for affected communities" in Kinder Morgan's oil spill proposal.

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Tuesday update : Kinder Morgan was unhappy at being pilloried by Rachel Maddow and issued a statement that their remarks were taken out of context :

“it’s part of what the NEB expects us to provide in the application" and KM was  "required to analyze both positive and negative effects of a spill in its project application"

This morning a National Energy Board regulator says that's crap :

"A manual provided to all applicants asks them to assess the project’s expected overall beneficial and adverse socio-economic and environmental impacts, according to the NEB’s Sarah Kiley.

“It does not say that we expect to see an assessment of the positive benefits of a potential spill. In this case, (Kinder Morgan) has chosen to indicate that there will be economic benefits as the result of a spill or malfunction.”

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Canada's Economic Action Planda