TransCanada astroturfers

TransCanada has dumped its US pr firm Edelman 10 days after the Greenpeace leak of documents outlining their joint dodgy strategy to use third party front groups to aggressively attack opponents of the Energy East pipeline, and to do and say what “TransCanada can’t" :

"TransCanada immediately denied it had implemented those tactics, which were widely criticized."

The leaked docs - some adorned with the TransCanada logo - date back to May and include various tactics for targeting opponents like Council of Canadians using forty Edelman employees and nine TransCanada staffers.

TransCanada referred to the "controversy" as "a distraction" and said they would like a do over now please : "We are therefore starting a fresh conversation."

"In the current environment, we can't have the respectful conversation that we want to have with Canadians and Quebecers about Energy East," TransCanada spokesman Tim Duboyce said Wednesday in a release. h/t CBC

Quite. 

About Edelman's astroturfing, which they describe as "third party support" and "an echo chamber of aligned voices"...

Edelman's pointman for TransCanada "Grassroots Advocacy Vision" astroturf is Mike Krempasky from their DC office. As documented by Greenpeace, Mr.Krempasky - Tea Party promoter and co-founder of RedState.com - previously had a pretty good run using fake grassroots paid bloggers in their folksy Wal-Marting Across America campaign before one was outed as working for the US Treasury and another a staffer at Washington Post.

Greenpeace astroturf backgrounder :

"Krempasky’s Energy East “Pressure” team includes Brian McNeill ... director of opposition research for Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. McNeill made national news when it was revealed that he was one of three Edelman employees who were authoring all of the blogs ..." 

on yet another Wal-Mart fluffer campaign. Meanwhile ...

"Edelman was paid $51.9 million to run the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) public relations campaign, which has involved Edelman managing multiple websites and online advertising efforts asking officials to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, support tax deductions for the oil industry and expand access for drilling on public lands.
Central to this strategy is the pro-oil group “Energy Citizens”, which was unveiled as an API-sponsored astroturf group by Greenpeace USA. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers recently launched its own version of Energy Citizens in Canada."

So despite CEO Richard Edelman statement in August in response to separate allegations regarding their work with climate change deniers that :

"We do not work with astroturf groups"

let's have a quick look at Energy Citizens Canada, launched by CAPP, and presumed sister site to the US Energy Citizens, launched by the American Petroleum Institute in 2009.

So far the Canadian version seems to be mostly about harvesting emails of future possible tarsands flufferbots.
As encouragement, the Spotlight on Energy Citizens page profiles Energy Citizens Brittany Allison and Hardave Birk.

Brittany Allison was "a Policy Researcher in the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa" and a "Research Officer in the B.C. Legislature in Victoria", prior to her work as Public Affairs Advisor for Fraser Surrey Docks LP, "working to gain federal approval for a coal expansion project".


Currently Ms Allison is Manager of the astroturf tarsands site, British Columbians for Prosperity. 

btw Is CBC Power and Politics regular Alise Mills still the "Media Relations Director" for BC4P?
Will she still write columns for 24 Hours, just bought out by PostMedia, with the bi-line :
"Alise Mills is a political commentator who speaks for British Columbians for Prosperity. Visit moneytrail.ca."

The only other Citizen Spotlight candidate so far is former president of University of Calgary Students Union, Hardave Birk, whose's bio notes he is legislative assistant to Senator Doug Black.

While in no way a reflection upon Mr. Birk, this seems as good a time as any to remind ourselves that prior to becoming Senator Black, Doug Black was president of industry lobby group Energy Policy Institute of Canada, or EPIC, where he worked with vice-chairs Bruce Carson, Gerry Protti and Daniel Gagnier on a national energy program representing their 38 energy member organizations, including TransCanada and CAPP.

Two years ago EPIC put out a presser taking credit for how they have shaped current Con policy on property rights, pipelines, public participation, and First Nations :

"Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver announced legislative changes that would put EPIC's recommendations into federal law. Regulatory changes within omnibus Bill C-38 reflect recommendations of EPIC surrounding regulatory streamlining." 

"You are the secret sauce," Doug Black once wrote to Bruce Carson, whose trial on illegal lobbying and influence peddling will not begin till September next year.

More Insider Tarsands Astroturf.  We are awash in the stuff.

Update : Energy Citizens Canada has just added another "Featured Citizen" to their Spotlight : Alishia Klein, Communications Coordinator at Canadian Natural Resources Limited.

Upperdate : Astroturf  Illustrated!

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EPIC's epic NEP - Part 2

Con "fixer" Bruce Carson and Lib National Campaign Co-Chair Daniel Gagnier worked together on a national energy program for industry lobby group, the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, and have both given speeches and published numerous papers in support of it. 
Former EPIC president, now Senator, Doug Black was duly grateful :

"I would like to acknowledge our three vice chairs that presented our work to the energy ministers: Bruce Carson, Gerry Protti and Daniel Gagnier."

In light of EPIC's subsequent presser in 2012 (h/t Hugh) that :

"Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver announced legislative changes that would put EPIC's recommendations into federal law. Regulatory changes within omnibus Bill C-38 reflect recommendations of EPIC surrounding regulatory streamlining." 

... I thought we might take a look at a few of EPIC's regulatory streamlining recommendations and how they have shaped current Con policy on property rights, pipelines, public participation, and First Nations.

EPIC itself has been offline since last Thursday's press coverage of new RCMP allegations against former vice-chair Bruce Carson.
Tuesday Mar 11 Update :  EPIC's website is now a single blank page with a note saying HACKED BY and a very long name which seems to be Turkish.
Tuesday update #2 11am : EPIC website back up, listing same leadership as before. 

Let's start with Property Rights under the push for tarsands-to-tankers pipelines. 
Theirs, not yours. 
EPIC : Canadian Energy Strategy Framework, Page 31 :

"It is a well established common law principle that a right to mines and minerals includes the right to do all things necessary to work and recover the minerals. In other words, since a grant of mineral rights is essentially meaningless unless accompanied by the right to actually recover those minerals, it is assumed that the grant of mineral rights includes the right to recover the minerals as well.

Therefore, since an initial grant of mineral rights also conveys the right to recover the minerals, the regulatory scheme should focus on how these rights are exercised, not whether they can be exercised. Otherwise, the initial grant of rights would be rendered meaningless.

This does not suggest that a right to recover minerals provides the rights holder with a free pass to recover those minerals in any way they see fit, regardless of the environmental or social implications. It does suggest, however, that if recovering the minerals will necessarily result in certain and acceptable environmental effects, then the initial grant of rights should be interpreted as impliedly authorizing those effects."

I had never considered that mining or mineral rights automatically pre-approves accepting their resulting effects on the environment - as say the results from fracking - but EPIC cites the Aberta courts and Supreme Court of Canada as backing them up on this.

For what this looks like in real life, see: Alberta Mother Fights Five Neighbouring Fracked Wells (h/tMogs)

Back to EPIC :  

"If the regulatory scheme determines whether or not each resource development should be allowed to proceed based on equal consideration of environmental, social and economic factors, then the scheme is failing to take into account the previous acquisition of property rights and is disregarding long established legal principles relating to private property. "

Consideration of environmental and social factors subordinate to corporate rights to private property!
EPIC then extrapolates a further extension of those rights in getting product to market.

 "... just as there is a presumption that mineral rights-holders should be able to recover the minerals in question, there should also be a presumption that mineral rights-holders should be able to transport recovered minerals to market, such as through a pipeline. Otherwise, the mineral right would lose its inherent value. 

This does not mean that all proposed pipelines should automatically be approved without examination of environmental and socio-economic considerations. What the presumption does mean, however, is that the need for a pipeline required to move resources to market should be evident in the proposal itself, and that any proposed pipeline project that aims to connect a new supply basin to market must be evaluated with the understanding that a pipeline (though not necessarily the specific pipeline project being proposed) should be allowed to proceed to allow producers to access downstream markets.
Otherwise, the upstream mineral rights become worthless.

With respect to most renewable resource projects, pipelines, transmission lines and nuclear generation projects, similar logic should also apply.

Just as the initial grant of mineral rights creates a presumption that those rights
should be developed, a preliminary determination by elected public representatives that a renewable project, pipeline, transmission line or nuclear generation project is needed and in the interest of the province or country ought to create a presumption that the development should be allowed to proceed."

Wow. I wonder if that would obtain under legal challenge or if, as Steve would say, it's a "no-brainer".

And speaking of Steve : 

"Statements from the Prime Minister claiming that Canada should become an “energy superpower,” and his recent promotion of Canada as an energy supplier to China, are examples of the kind of leadership required, at least at a general policy level, to provide clear signals of the government’s intent to officials, regulators, industry and other governments."

Strong stable Steve gets a cookie. A fortune cookie. Public regulators get the point.

Tarsands-to-First Nations-to-Tankers Pipeline, Page 24 :

"The federal government needs to take a proactive role in negotiations with First Nations to ensure the national interest is effectively represented. [Well hello, Jim Prentice!]  Almost all potential opportunities for market diversification require new or expanded infrastructure and the collaboration of First Nations."

Tarsands-to-tankers-to-China, Page 25 :

"China, Korea and Taiwan are seeking more secure supplies of oil and natural gas. Both the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and the Kinder-Morgan expansion in Vancouver could help to meet this growing Asian demand, and there is clearly an opportunity for even further capacity development."

Public participation, Page 52

"Joint review panels are a unique aspect of environmental assessments in Canada that have created a plethora of legal concern and given rise to significant delays and accompanying costs with no apparent benefit to the decision-making process. 

In addition, joint review panel members are often independent from the regulators and are divorced from governments’ overarching energy policy goals.  

The federal government must develop regulations that restrict participation in federal EA reviews to those parties that are directly and adversely affected by the proposal in question. 

... determining whether increasing energy infrastructure from Alberta to the west coast is in the Canadian public interest, but once that policy has been determined it should not be revisited in specific project reviews. Regulatory proceedings for specific projects should focus on the merits of the project and the evidence on the record. The only third parties that should be allowed to participate in these reviews are those parties that have the potential to be directly and adversely affected by the proposed project."

... which is exactly what we got in the pipelines hearings in BC. 

So there it is - EPIC's word made flesh in the Environmental Assessment Act 2012.

I guess EPIC's bragging rights about their influence on government legislation for their 38 energy member organizations wasn't an exaggeration at all. They wrote it.

To you small and large L liberals. I'm sure it's royally pissed you off that I've tarred Liberal national campaign co-chair Daniel Gagnier for his work with Bruce Carson. 
I don't much care about Carson - he's gone as a fixer for Steve. 
What I do care is that we now have Gagnier, representing EPIC's views since 2010 and currently their registered lobbyist and President , as still shown at EPIC as of Friday, fixing up a tarsands agenda for Trudeau.

Thank you for reading.
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EPIC's epic National Energy Program, Part one

Bruce Carson : "the secret sauce"

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EPIC's epic National Energy Program

After CBC reported that the RCMP had seized Bruce Carson's bank records as part of their investigation into his alleged illegal lobbying on behalf of the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, the policy think tank comprised of most of Canada's energy resource extraction corporations promptly went offline.  It's still offline.

This is not the first time poor old EPIC's website has melted away when struck by sunlight, only to reanimate a few days or weeks later with a member or two missing.

EPIC's whole purpose is to formulate a national energy program and get it implemented. 

Last night while I was reading their January 2011 report to government, A Strategy For Canada's Global Energy Leadership, [currently missing pages 11-26 and 29 and yes, I have no life], commenter Hugh left a link to their Aug 2012 presser announcing its release. 
Energy Policy Institute of Canada: Key Directions for a Canadian Energy Strategy Released    Excerpted, bold mine :

"EPIC's concentration on regulatory improvements were clearly laid out in draft documents presented to provincial and federal ministers in the summer of 2011 and, earlier this year, Federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver announced legislative changes that would put EPIC's recommendations into federal law. Regulatory changes within Bill C-38 reflect recommendations of EPIC surrounding regulatory streamlining." 

That would be Bill C-38, aka the Environmental Destruction Act, the 400 page omnibus budget bill fast-tracked by the Cons through the House and finance committee, amending or repealing 70 federal laws in a single bill, including gutting environmental legislation and, as EPIC boasts, streamlining the regulatory review process. 

As APTN reports, then EPIC president and now Senator Doug Black put it the previous year :

"I would like to acknowledge our three vice chairs that presented our work to the energy ministers: Bruce Carson, Gerry Protti and Daniel Gagnier."

Yeah, Team Tarsands :

• Bruce Carson, Harper's "The Fixer" inside the PMO, a lawyer disbarred for fraud in the 80's currently facing charges of influence peddling on behalf of his 22-year-old ex-sex worker fiancee to sell water purifiers to First Nations with polluted water, and also lobbying for millions in government grants within 5 years of leaving government. 
• Gerry Protti, founder of the oil industry lobby group the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and now head of the 100% industry-funded Alberta Energy Regulator, which streamlines the regulatory approval process for oil companies - the very recommendation touted in EPIC's presser and Global Energy Leadership report.
• Daniel Gagnier, active registered lobbyist for EPIC, go-between between Bruce Carson and Quebec Premier Charest in 2010, and now President of EPIC and Justin Trudeau's national co-campaign manager

Note : I have to catch a few hours sleep and go to work. In 12 hours or so I'll replace this note with some unpacking of EPIC's success at writing our national energy program with regard to importing workers to the tarsands, building a pipeline through BC,  etc  
Update : Scratch that. Got tl/dr, so new post instead - EPIC's epic NEP - Part 2

EPIC is not shy about naming the hurdles confronting their goal of making Canada a global energy superpower. In the meantime till I get back, here's a bit of their past research pointing out a few of them : 

1) A comparison of country's share of the total energy R&D investment budgets (in US $ millions) using combined data from 2007 and 2008:

2) Forecast for the US to become the world’s largest oil producer by 2017, and a net oil exporter by 2025

3)Estimated loss of $4 billion in federal tax revenue from discounted oil and gas prices

4)Direct employment in the energy industry in Canada in 2008 was approx. 2% of the labour force.

5)The energy supply sector accounted for approx. 7% of Canada's GDP in 2009.

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Bruce Carson : "the secret sauce"

~~~updated below~~~

"You are the secret sauce," Doug Black, President of the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, wrote to EPIC co-founder and Harper's disgraced "fixer" Bruce Carson.

Bruce Carson, former PMO staffer, has banking records seized by RCMP 

According to CBC yesterday, an RCMP affidavit alleges Carson illegally lobbied many of his former government colleagues - including Nigel Wright and Wayne Wouters, Clerk of the Privy Council - on behalf of EPIC, an industry lobby group of 38 energy resource members including Shell, Suncor, Enbridge, EnCana, Imperial Oil, Cenovus, ConoccoPhillips and Canadian Natural Resources, for a salary of $10,000 a month. 

Black responded, "Excellent. Need Nigel on side."

Interestingly, Bruce Carson and Nigel Wright share the same lawyer, Patrick McCann. 
Doug Black was appointed to the Senate last year.

EPIC's mandate was to produce an industry-led national energy strategy, which they did in 2011, and by June 2013 the 100% industry-funded Alberta Energy Regulator was set up with yet another EPIC vice chair and energy lobbyist as chair - Gerard Protti, founder of CAPP.

The EPIC leadership line-up from 2011:

Doug Black – EPIC President 

David Emerson – Chair 

Bruce Carson – Vice Chair 

Elyse Allan – Vice Chair - CEO of GE Canada  

Gerard Protti – Vice Chair - VP of EnCana, founder of CAPP 

Daniel Gagnier – Vice Chair - VP of Alcan

There's another interesting relationship in that line-up as well.

When Carson appeared before the Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment, and Natural Resources in April 2010, in addition to plumping for building a pipeline to move oil from Alberta to BC - Enbridge and TransCanada Pipelines are both member orgs of EPIC - Carson also made a pitch for smart meters. 

Nine months later on Jan. 25 2011, BC Hydro gave the first contract for its smart meter program to Corix Utilities, which (is) was at the time half-owned by CAI Capital Management Ltd. 

As it happens, yet another EPIC founding chair, David Emerson, was previously made a senior advisor to CAI Capital Management and then the following day he was named CEO and board chair of B.C. Transmission Corp., which "plans, operates and maintains the province's publicly-owned electrical transmission system" for BC Hydro. 

(BC Transmission was privatized by the BC Libs in 2003 and then reabsorbed back into BC Hydro at massive public cost in 2010)

                        

h/t Joyce Miller at Watershed Sentinel back in 2011 for Corix research.

Photo at top from Canada Ministry of Environment webpage shows Carson attending a meeting with then Environment Minister Jim Prentice and US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu two months after leaving Harper's office. 

updates : Welcome, Gazetteers!
with thanks for your wonderful link to Tyee Will McMartin's piece on Emerson, smart meters, CAI, and Corix.

APTN : Senior Trudeau advisor linked to Bruce Carson's alleged illegal lobbying: RCMP document

That would be Liberal National Campaign Co-Chair Daniel Gagnier from our 2011 list above - president of EPIC since sometime in 2012 and still  going  strong.

Poor old EPIC. Seems every time they get a little publicity, their website goes offline. It's been down since last night so here's a screencap taken yesterday.

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