It may take a future governor and a future Legislature to wake up to reality.
Meanwhile, the oil and gas companies with leases to extract oil and gas from Alaska have decided to build their own pipeline at the same time. It is the Denali Pipeline. So naturally this would seem to put Governor Palin and the Oil companies at odds, but not really. A closer examination reveals that the two pipelines are working in tandem and that the projects will be merged when the time is right and regulations to protect the environment and indigenous communities have been bypassed through a loophole exploited by Palin's Pipeline and paid for by Alaskan taxpayers.
It is a curious thing that both the TransCanada Pipeline and the Denali Pipeline both follow basically the same route. Neither proposed pipeline is designed to primarily deliver gas to the Lower 48. Both will terminate approximately in Boundary Lake, Alberta. From there, the gas might be pumped though some yet to be built pipelines connecting the Alaskan gas to the Lower 48. And if it did, then the pipelines would deliver a tiny amount of "clean" energy to the Lower 48. That "if" is a mighty big "if". Far more likely is moving gas to the tar sands through other pipelines that TransCanada is currently building. Â These two proposed pipelines overlap because they each serve a temporary purpose.
The Denali Pipeline is the one that is actually being planned and funded for construction. It is getting ready to go, but it has a regulatory problem. The route the pipeline will have to travel""as noted by Rep. Gatto""crosses land controlled by the indigenous peoples of Canada. The Denali Pipeline would have to get approval from the First Peoples of Canada and meet strict environmental regulations in the US and Canada.
This was not the case thirty years ago when both the USA and Canada first approved building a pipeline to move Alaskan gas to market. And this is where the TransCanada deal finally makes sense.
The TransCanada Pipeline provides a "work-around" to the indigenous rights and environmental regulatory "problems" facing any proposed gas pipeline from Alaska to the Alberta tar sands.
Unlike most news organizations in the United States, the Canadian press has been reporting on the big lies being told by the McCain/Palin Campaign about the TransCanada Pipeline deal. A recent story in the Globe and Mail explained why a TransCanada deal was pushed through (emphasis added):
Anyone listening to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin at the recent U.S. Republican convention would believe that TransCanada workers are poised, shovels at the ready, to start construction of a 2,760-kilometre pipeline bringing natural gas from Alaska through Canada to the lower 48 states. They would be wrong. [snip]
It's true that the project would fail if the major oil companies went ahead with a rival pipeline, or if the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission did not issue the necessary certificate. However, it is equally true that unless Canadian conditions are also met, Alaskan natural gas will remain stranded in Alaska. [snip]
The company is counting on using the Northern Pipeline Act, federal legislation that was passed 30 years ago when a similar pipeline was envisaged, as a way to fast track regulatory approvals for the project in Canada. That act set up the Northern Pipeline Agency, a one-stop shop for all the federal approvals the pipeline required. That agency is currently mothballed, with a skeleton staff of two.
In correspondence with the government of Alaska earlier this year (which can be accessed at the governor's website ), TransCanada said that parliament "made irrevocable judgments and decisions" with respect to the Alaska pipeline when it passed that legislation in 1978, including that it was in the public interest and would have acceptable social and environmental impacts.
While TransCanada concedes it would have to update the social and environmental assessments of the project, it wants to do so under the Northern Pipeline Act and not through the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act of 1992 or similar Yukon legislation passed in 2003. [snip]
Another potential hurdle is ensuring that all the affected aboriginal communities are onboard - the pipeline would cut across the southern Yukon, northern British Columbia, and northern Alberta. In recent years, aboriginal consent has become a crucial element in major natural resource projects.
So, here is the big secret about Governor Palin's Pipeline deal with TransCanada: it is a creative dodge to get around any Canadian environmental laws or safeguards for indigenous peoples that have been passed since 1980.
It is a novel legal strategy and will require a lot of lobbying, lawyers and bullshit to get it passed Canadian Courts and regulators. TransCanada will argue that an obscure agency created 30 years ago should have the final say over providing waivers to current Canadian laws protecting the rights of indigenous peoples and the environment. Such a campaign will require a lot of time and money. Fortunately for the oil companies, Governor Palin has arranged for Alaskan taxpayers to pick up the tab and give TransCanada $500 million to push their novel legal theory through the Canadian regulatory system.
And while TransCanada works to skirt current laws and regulations, the oil companies and the Denali Pipeline will focus on actual construction efforts. Already the FERC is planning to merge the two gas pipeline projects into one effort:
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