U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman confirmed by President Obama in May 2013 (Photo: AP)
As President Obama publicly promises to curb carbon emissions, his top trade official is
pushing
for tar sands industry handouts and influence in the highly secretive
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, launching attacks on EU
tar sands regulations that green groups say are already too
insufficient.
"The U.S. has no business rolling back any kind of
protection from the world's dirtiest oil at a time when we're supposed
to be making progress on climate," Eddie Scher of the Sierra Club told
Common Dreams.
Questioned
before the House Ways and Means Committee in late July, U.S. Trade
Representative Michael Froman railed against a proposed change to the EU
Fuel Quality Directive that requires a 6 percent reduction in gas and
diesel emissions by 2020. The
ammendment under question would label bitumen—oil extracted from tar sands—as a high-emissions diesel, a rating that would '
discourage' but not prevent EU fuel suppliers from buying tar sands oil.
Environmental
groups say that the regulation that Froman is attempting to gut is
already grossly insufficient. "The regulation is not really doing
anything," Scott Parkin of
Rainforest Action Network told
Common Dreams.
"It's just saying tar sands should be called something different. We
are saying that tar sands need to stay in the ground. Period."
Yet,
Froman charges this so-called regulation goes too far. When Rep. Kevin
Brady (R-Texas) claimed the proposed regulations are "discriminatory,
environmentally unjustified and could constitute a barrier to U.S.-EU
trade," Froman stated, "I share your concerns."
"I have raised
these issues with senior Commission officials on several occasions,
including in the context of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (T-TIP),"
he wrote
in a letter to the House Ways and Means Committee. "We continue to
press the Commission to take the views of stakeholders, including U.S.
refiners, under considerations as they finalize these amendments."
Obama's trade official is publicly advocating for the tar sands oil industry despite the president's June speech in which he
declared
he would cut carbon emissions and only approve the Keystone XL pipeline
if it "does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon
pollution."
Green groups, who say the oil pipeline would increase carbon emissions by definition, are
organizing a mounting campaign against the Keystone XL pipeline and tar sands extraction. So far, 75,000 people have
pledged to commit civil disobedience if the president approves the pipeline.
Protest against tar sands extraction in London in 2009. (Photo: Flickr Creative Commons / Eugenio hidden side)
Opponents of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline demonstrate in front of
the White House in 2011. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Michael Froman, Top U.S. Trade Official, Lobbies For Tar Sands Oil In EU Negotiations
Building
the Keystone XL pipeline is only part of the equation. Once the
Canadian tar sands are pumped and piped to refineries on the Gulf Coast,
the industry still needs to find buyers for its end product -- much of
which will be exported.
That's where U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman comes in.
Environmental
groups in the U.S. and the European Union are worried that Froman, the
chief trade official for the United States, has been quietly working to
pressure the EU to make it easier for U.S. refiners to sell oil from the
tar sands on the European market. They say Froman is pushing his EU
counterparts to weaken environmental guidelines related to greenhouse
gas emissions in order to facilitate easier oil exports.
The European Commission has set an overall goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to
20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. One measure aimed at meeting that goal is the
Fuel Quality Directive,
which requires a 6 percent reduction in emissions from transportation
fuels like gasoline and diesel by 2020. A proposal currently under
consideration to help achieve that goal would assign values to different
types of fuel based on the emissions they generate. The proposal
assigns a higher value to bitumen, a type of oil extracted from tar
sands that has
12 to 40 percent higher lifecycle emissions than conventional types of crude oil.
Fuel
suppliers in the EU would still get to pick what fuels they include in
their portfolio, but the rating would be used to provide guidance about
what goes in the mix. Based on a recent written statement, advocacy
groups are concerned that Froman may be working to weaken the fuel
guidelines as part of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(TTIP), a trade deal that the U.S. and the European Commission are
currently discussing.
Froman
testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on July 18, and recently provided
a written response to follow-up questions from the hearing. The answers were posted online last week by the trade journal
Inside U.S. Trade (subscription required).
In
his questions for Froman, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said that he
believes the Fuel Quality Directive's guidance on tar sands oil is
"discriminatory, environmentally unjustified and could constitute a
barrier to U.S.-EU trade."
"I
share your concerns regarding the European Union’s development of
proposals for amendments to the Fuel Quality Directive," wrote Froman in
response. In particular, Froman identified what he called a "lack of
adequate transparency and public participation in the process" and said
that the U.S. is seeking "improvements in the EU’s overall regulatory
practices" through the TTIP process.
"We continue to press the
Commission to take the views of stakeholders, including U.S. refiners,
under consideration as they finalize these amendments," Froman wrote.
Read More Here
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Endangered species program director, Center for Biological Diversity
Keystone XL's Ugly Toll on America's Endangered Species
Much of the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline has rightly been focused on the staggering damage it'll do to our climate.
But often overlooked in the controversy is the ugly toll this pipeline will take on some of America's most endangered species.
These
are animals and plants that live right along the pipeline's path or are
directly affected by the production of tar sands oil in Canada --
species like whooping cranes, northern swift foxes, woodland caribou,
black-footed ferrets, pallid sturgeon, western prairie fringed orchids
and a delightful little bird called Sprague's pipit. (You can see some
of them in this
video.)
If
Keystone's built, they'll be put directly in harm's way by oil spills
(the government estimates Keystone could spill 34,000 gallons of tar
sands oil each year), collisions with 378 miles of new power lines, and
habitat destruction to make way for this 1,700-mile pipeline.
Troublingly,
the two government agencies that are supposed to be looking out for
these species as they review this project -- the U.S. State Department
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service -- have virtually ignored the
fate of these animals.
This week the Center for Biological Diversity issued a new
report exposing the flaws in the government's review of Keystone's expected impacts on endangered wildlife.
Read More Here
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CREDIT: Global News
Tar
sands oil that began leaking more than four months ago in northern
Alberta is still bubbling to the earth’s surface, an environmental
disaster that has prompted the Alberta government to intervene.
The government has
ordered
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the company in charge of the leaking
Primrose tar sands operation, to drain two-thirds of a 131-acre lake on
the property in an attempt to plug one fissure, located directly below
the lake, which has been
spilling tar sands oil into the lake over the four months. The order, according to CNRL, will
allow the company
to identify the exact location of the leak and attempt to halt it. The
company’s plan to stop the other three leaks on the site is unknown,
though CNRL
says the seepage rate from all four leak sites has been reduced to fewer than 20 barrels a day.
The first of the four ongoing leaks at the Primrose site was reported May 20, and
may well have started leaking long before that. As of September 11, the leaks have spilled
more than 403,900 gallons
— or about 9,617 barrels — of oily bitumen into the surrounding boreal
forest and muskeg, the acidic, marshy soil found in the forest. In
addition, 14,491 metric tons — 31,947,188 pounds — of “impacted soils”
have been removed from the site, along with 515 cubic meters — 18,151
cubic feet — of oily vegetation. Two beavers, 49 birds, 105 amphibians
and 46 small mammals have been killed as a result of the spill,
according to the Alberta Energy Regulator.
CREDIT: ED KAISER/EDMONTON JOURNAL
Back in July, CNR
attributed
the cause of the four leaks to “mechanical failures of wellbores in the
vicinity of the impacted areas,” but the Alberta Energy Regulator said
in August that it was “
far to early” to determine the cause of the event. CNRL
said
that the seepage was “now controlled to specific containment areas
where it is effectively recovered as it reaches the surface” —
basically, that the leaks were being monitored and the oil cleaned up,
but the leaks weren’t being stopped.
Read More Here
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Harper won't take no for an answer on Keystone XL
By Susana Mas, CBC News Posted: Sep 26, 2013 1:09 PM ET Last Updated: Sep 26, 2013 3:18 PM ET
Related Stories
With
the fate of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline still in the hands of
U.S. President Barack Obama five years on, Prime Minister Stephen Harper
told a crowd of business leaders gathered in New York that he will not
take no for an answer.
Harper, who participated in a question and
answer session with the Canadian American Business Council on the second
day of his visit to New York Thursday afternoon, said "my view is you
don't take no for an answer."
"We haven't had that but if we were
to get that, that won't be final. This won't be final until it's
approved and we will keep pushing forward," Harper said.
The event was moderated by CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo.
Asked
by Bartiromo when he last spoke to Obama about the Keystone XL
pipeline, Harper said he has been in touch with the U.S. president "very
regularly" on the matter.
"The president has always assured me
that he'll make a decision that's in, what he believes is, the best
interest of the United States based on the facts. I think the facts are
clear, " Harper said.
Read More Here
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