Canada’s envoy backs Keystone push
Ambassador Doer joins U.S. politicians trying to block Obama’s promise to veto pipeline
WASHINGTON — Canada’s ambassador to the United States has waded waist deep into the politics of Capitol Hill by supporting lawmakers trying to circumvent U.S. President Barack Obama’s approval process for the Keystone XL pipeline.
Ambassador Gary Doer joined two senators sponsoring the Keystone XL bill at a news conference to shill for TransCanada Corp.’s $8-billion US project.
Standing with Keystone bill cosponsors Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, and Sen. John Hoeven, a Republican from North Dakota, Doer insisted his intervention was only to correct myths and erroneous statements about Keystone and about Canada’s environmental record.
“We have said before we are not going to get involved in the political process in the sense of just politics,” he said. “This is bipartisan. This is not political ... What we want to do is support people who are supporting us.”
Yet he was with two senators who expressed their determination to win enough votes — 67 — to circumvent a State Department process, override a presidential veto and force the approval of the pipeline.
Obama said before Christmas he would veto any bill that approved Keystone because he wanted the normal State Department assessment process to run its course before he made a final decision. That process should be completed by the end of February.
Debate over Keystone has dominated the Senate floor for almost two weeks. Nine Democrats have joined a solid wall of Republicans to support the bill.
Opposition comes from Democrats who claim the pipeline will allow the expansion of the oilsands, whose high carbon emissions will intensify climate change. They also claim the project offers no benefits to the U.S., ignoring the high probability that most of the oil will be processed in Gulf Coast refineries and sold into the U.S. market.
The bill has been a magnet for politicking as senators have filed dozens of amendments, including one that declares “climate change is not a hoax.” As a sign of the strange twists of this debate, Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, who published a book in 2012 calling climate change a hoax, co-sponsored the measure.
In explaining his surprise vote, he said the real “hoax” is that climate change is a result of human activity. “Climate is always changing,” he said. The amendment won 98-1 support, with Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi the lone dissenter.
Senators earlier defeated by a vote of 50-49 an amendment stating “climate change is real; human activity significantly contributes to climate change.”