TransCanada Files $15B Nafta Claim on Keystone XL Rejection

[proverbialwisdom]

Source: By Jennifer A Dlouhy, Bloomberg News

TransCanada Corp. is seeking to recoup $15 billion for the Obama administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, in a legal claim that highlights how foreign companies can use trade deals to challenge U.S. policy.

The Calgary-based pipeline operator filed papers late Friday seeking arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement, arguing that TransCanada had every reason to believe it would win approval to build Keystone XL. Instead, President Barack Obama last November determined that the pipeline, which would have carried Canadian oil sands crude to the U.S. Gulf, was not in the national interest. In response, TransCanada in January vowed to use arbitration provisions in Chapter 11 of Nafta to recover costs and damages.

The company said the U.S. spent seven years delaying a final decision on the project with multiple rounds of “arbitrary and contrived” analyses and justifications.

“None of that technical analysis or legal wrangling was material to the administration’s final decision,” TransCanada said in Friday’s filing. “Instead, the rejection was symbolic and based merely on the desire to make the U.S. appear strong on climate change, even though the State Department had itself concluded that denial would have no significant impact on the environment.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-25/transcanada-files-15b-nafta-claim-on-keystone-xl-rejection

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LINK: http://www.keystone-xl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TransCanada-Request-for-Arbitratio-2n.pdf

[CentralMass]

1. There goes that neo-liberalism flag again.

[Larkspur]

2. Anti-TPP activists should use this as a good reason why we don't need TPP

or any pro-corporate "free" trade deals.

[appal_jack]

40. Indeed, ISDS is a 'feature' of TPP, TTIP, TISA, etc. k&r, nt

[turbinetree]

3. I understand that the TPP issue is not in the platform is this correct--------------------

Honk-------------------for a political revolution

[TexasBushwhacker]

38. That is correct.

Neither is a call for universal healthcare.

[DonCoquixote]

4. I do wonder what Bonnie Prince Justin

will say, aka cute,ecological, liberal Justin that pushed the KXL all the way.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

5. In regard to the State Dept.

When does something have a significant impact on the environment?
How large does it have to be?
How do they measure it?

[bucolic_frolic]

7. Cost benefit analyses

which is an accounting mumbo-jumbo for quantifying every cost and
every benefit, and tabulating the pluses and minuses to arrive at a
conclusion.

In actuality, they are a tool used by business. Changing the assumptions
behind the analysis changes the numbers. They can be tweaked any way
one wants them to. Companies always seek approval based on their
criteria, every project is a 'go'. The environmental costs are always near
zero when a company does its analysis. Not so when the government
tries to factor in the public good.

Here they probably tabulated carbon output, estimated spills, pollutants,
cancers, traffic. A large complex project is difficult to measure. Economics
can change. They started this 6 years ago? Solar is cheaper now. Dirty crude
is not as valuable from that standpoint as it was in 2010. Nor as valuable as
when oil was $110 a barrel.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

9. Mumbo-jumbo indeed.

[Recursion]

19. So, there were two questions State was supposed to ask

1. Would the Keystone XL extension contribute to climate change? They found the answer to this was "no", because it wouldn't particularly increase the total amount of oil drilled.

2. Was it detrimental to our national interests? They found the answer to this was "yes", because while the overall pipeline would be shorter, more of it would pass over the US and less over Canada, and its effect on the US oil market would be minimal.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. "every reason to believe it would win approval"

is not actual approval, is it? It's still a process. If it were actual approval
it wouldn't have needed to go through the process. They took a risk, they
lost. This is a shakedown.

[wallyworld2]

16. This isn't a shakedown

It's a feature

[CentralMass]

8. Related links to the ISDS provision of the TPP

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/03/26/people-are-freaking-out-about-the-trans-pacific-partnerships-investor-dispute-settlement-system-why-should-you-care/

www.washingtonpost.com/

[Akicita]

10. God I love NAFTA.

[IronLionZion]

11. "would have no significant impact on the environment."

except for routing it right over a large and nationally vital source of fresh water.

[Recursion]

18. Which the current pipeline also does (nt)

[IronLionZion]

20. Current pipelines do cross the outer portions of the ogallala aquifer

but the xl portion would cross right through the middle of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline#Environmental_issues

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer

[Rex]

23. Those darn facts again!

[IronLionZion]

25. Facts are for losers

You don't see Donald Trump held back by facts!

[Rex]

26. LOL! I am so stealing that line!

True enough Trump went and told the Scots what a great job they did in leaving the EU!

[Igel]

32. Actually, the proposed route of the XL pipeline would

have taken it over the extreme NE corner of the Ogallala aquifer in Nebraska. "Extreme corner" versus "through the center", not a big deal, it would seem.

But that's about it. http://www.respectmyplanet.org/publications/international/the-keystone-xl-pipeline

Some facts suit our needs and others don't. Some we remember, some we don't. Heck, some claims rise to the level of iron-clad fact just because somebody read it on a political blog. Or read something like it. Maybe.

The aquifer is being depleted, but the northern section is still gaining water, it seems. This isn't a big point, but that the Ogallala is suffering *is* a big point. With or without the XL.

http://www.choicesmagazine.org/2003-1/2003-1-04.htm

[IronLionZion]

33. Still too close

spills happen. I don't trust that company at all.

Keystone Pipeline Is Shut Down After Oil Spill In South Dakota
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/04/3766363/keystone-pipeline-spills/



South Dakota Oil Spill Reveals Major Pipeline Problems
http://time.com/4292856/south-dakota-oil-spill/

Most of this land, though, was considered by TransCanada, the Canadian pipeline company that wanted to build the Keystone XL, to be “low consequence,” a designation that TransCanada sought to apply so that they could use a thinner pipe.

[Aerows]

37. It isn't a big deal

provided that you don't need to eat.

Poison the Ogallala aquifer, and I do hope you have your own fields, far away, growing your own crops, raising your own livestock and defending it from desperate people that are now starving due to said poisoning.

I love how you dovetail that "the Ogallala is already suffering". "I already punched him once, twice isn't going to be any worse" is not a philosophy I choose to live by.

[CanonRay]

12. Basically saying; You have no rights

Let me do whatever I want, or you have to pay me anyway. Hell of a legal theory.

[TheFarseer]

13. So

When Nebraska refuses to outsource the unemployment office to the Philippines because a Filipino company bid the lowest, are we going to get sued? Serious question.

[Hoyt]

15. They won't win, but anyone can try a suit.

[Hoyt]

14. They will be lucky to have it certified, and even more lucky to win after years

in arbitration. But it's all TransCanada has at this point. There is no chance they will win approval for the pipeline. That's not the way the United Nations arbitration rules work.

[proverbialwisdom]

41. What you say is reassuring, but is it true?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-beachy/why-mining-corporations-l_b_10589832.html
via http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016161889

[Hoyt]

42. To start with, Huffington is wrong in that in the arbitration process the USA will name an arbiter,

Canada will name one, and the third will be by mutual agreement. And contrary to HP, they don't have to be corporate lawyers. They are often professors familiar with the issues. We will get a fair hearing, and the foreign country's corporation will too. That's what NAFTA requires. In any event, the outcome will not change the pipeline situation. Although it will take many years. So if a GOPer wins the Presidency, they could approve the pipeline.

[daleo]

17. Will there eventually be NAFTAEXIT?

This is the kind of thing that gives trade deals a bad name - nations can't make decisions in favour of the environment, labour standards, industrial development, or similar matters, as these are all forbidden under "trade deals".

Note that the Canadian province of Ontario was clobbered by the WTO a few years ago, when it tried to develop a home-grown solar industry (Chinese corporations objected). So, this is not a Canada vs U.S. matter - transnational corporations are taking advantage of these deals to hamstring governments all the time.

[pampango]

31. My guess is it depends on who becomes the next president. n/t

[ConservativeDemocrat]

21. This lawsuit is going nowhere - and probably just politicized

The only thing NATFA does is give foreign companies (mostly) the same standing that US companies have in US courts. So a specific action to prevent one company from doing business while others are allowed to, is actionable.

What it doesn't do is guarantee that land use actions will be automatically granted.


This smells like politicized grandstanding to me. These Canadians are essentially trying to sell the idea that the US needs to vote for Trump, and is using this going-nowhere lawsuit as the vehicle for doing that.

They're going to be laughed out of court.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Equinox Moon]

22. legal paperwork filing ad nauseam...

...this will never go anywhere.

[Rex]

24. Desperation on their part.

Good luck with that.

[pampango]

27. As long as Obama's decision was based on facts, not xenophobia - and it was - no problem.

Obviously, if some government made a decision against a foreign company for political or xenophobic reasons - imagine what a President Trump is capable of - that would be a different matter. Anyone who thinks Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline because it was a Canadian company, is not in touch with reality.

Anybody can sue anyone for any reason in the US. That does not mean that this is not a huge waste of TransCanada's money. One would hope their stockholders see this for the expensive PR move that it is.

[fasttense]

28. Not under NAFTA or any trade agreement

The only people, if you consider corporations people, who can sue a country are corporations. If a corporation wipes out your small bussiness, you can't sue them. If a corporation destroys your and all your neighbor's drinking water neither you or a group of citzens has the privileges that corporations have under "free" trade agreements to bring a suit.

You may be able to convince a politician or the US trade representative that you have a case and he could bring it up under one or another trade agreement as a violation, which is how Unions do it. But no persons, groups or organizations can sue a corporation under free trade agreements. The only 2 entities to have standing in trade agreement tribunals are corporations and nations.

[pampango]

29. Sorry. I meant that anybody can FILE a lawsuit against anyone for any reason. The odds of me suing a

corporation successfully for harming the environment or small businesses is indeed negligible. I can sue British Petroleum for polluting the Gulf though I would be well advised not to hold my breath waiting for a favorable outcome.

[proverbialwisdom]

34. More.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/10/obscure-legal-system-lets-corportations-sue-states-ttip-icsid

The obscure legal system that lets corporations sue countries

Fifty years ago, an international legal system was created to protect the rights of foreign investors. Today, as companies win billions in damages, insiders say it has got dangerously out of control

By Claire Provost and Matt Kennard
Wednesday 10 June 2015 01.00 EDT

[Aerows]

36. Bingo

I have no attachment to this screaming of "Evil Xenophobes!" when citizens of a country realize their economy is going to be leveled out with those in a worse economy. Who gives a shit how "fair" your labor practices are if we are all making 75 cents an hour?

Sure, I'd like to not be able to afford medication just like everybody else in the world.

Our health care system is fucked enough. We don't need to invite pharmaceutical companies that are already recklessly raising prices of life-saving medications the ability to screw us en masse.

[Sunlei]

30. meanwhile Utah is now the tar-sands mining King and no 'border' permission from President needed.

[Aerows]

35. Welcome to what will happen if the TPP passes

and there will be no recourse.

[TexasBushwhacker]

39. And the biggest foreign investor in Canadian oil sands is

the Koch Brothers!