Learned this morning that aden tans to todays program will keep the doctor away. We have two panels to look at how we got do this. 6 years and counting on permitting building a pipeline. Three years ago almost to the day, we had a debate on if the proposed Keystone Pipeline if its in the national interest. The state department was then looking at the natural interest question. And how the Keystone Pipeline created strange bed fellows there. Paul on my far left works here in washington where he covers International Affairs and security issues. Paul will talk about how the pipeline fits into khan khan Foreign Policy and why it is important to Prime Minister harper. Each of our guests will speak for about five to seven minutes. And just for some clarification today, this is not about whether or not the pipeline should be built. Were trying to analyze its history and what it means for regulatory processes here in washington and the United States. Thanks so much. To start off, i dont know if anybody else was following keystone xl as far back as the spring of 2010 when i started covering it. There was also the bp oil spill which was a huge environmental story. A lot of people were paying a lot of attention. Under the radar was keystone and there were a lot of environmental groups that cared about it but they care about all projects to an extent. The most insidious affects of Climate Change. So, you know, when i look back and ask why did keystone become the be all end all for this new era in environmentalism, it goes back to a column james hanson did which you know as the game over column. Ive been told over the years that its hard to organize over an epa rule. Nobody is going to say section 111 d. Its not that inspirational. But a big piece of steel running through a farm is something that gets people upset. Its easy to understand. Before you know it, 2011, we kick into overdrive in the summer of 20111 thousand people get arrested. Before you know it, theres just a stylistic shift that ends up pushing the policy and the politics in a direction nobody could have predicted. Its a combination of unique timing and a political moment where congress isnt doing much. So the appeal of stopping something as opposed to getting something done becomes heightened because were relying on congress to get something done. Weve seen a growing scenario going on politically. I dont know if everyone remembers ground hog day the movie. The same day over and over again. Environmentalists feel like the longer we wait for a position, the better. Fact is some folks in the industry are im not sure thats so true either but it gives you a sense emotionally of where we are. A lot of people are exhausted by this issue. When the may i publish to the juries took over the house in 2011, congressman terry from omaha takes credit for getting the ball running on this. He described how republicans have kicked around the big ideas for this next congress and he said oh theres a pipeline and the Environmental Community is upset in nebraska. And if you can imagine other republicans saying what is this, keystone . Never heard of this. But they said its interesting. He disagrees with just about Everything Else under the sun. At the same time, you have conservative republicans expressing deep reservations about the route. Transcanada agreed to change the route. They argue that theyre not far enough out of the hills but over time the politics somewhat sorted themselves out and now its very much republicans support the pipeline. It is still a red state so theres a fair amount of support of the pipeline as well as a dedicated group of land owners and activists who are upset about the pipeline and are fighting it. Its interesting to me to see how a will the of concerns in the state are not so much on the National Level that deal much more with Climate Change. The concerns are much more on the impact of the potential skills. Land owner rights, imminent domain domain. Land owners have been pushing those concerns in the fight. They want a legal victory. So thats a little bit of an overview of things in nebraska. Okay. Paul. Good afternoon. Im just going to try to pull the lens back a little bit from not so much the khan khan standpoint but the khan khan perspective, i guess that may be the same thing. Canada is sitting on a huge resource thats going to decline in value. It might be the second or Third Largest hydrocarbon reservoir in the world and you can make a very strong argument that in a hundred years or fifty years, it will have no value. So its difficult and expensive to extract. Perhaps three times the cost of some light crudes in the middle east. Its a long way from world markets. And its a long way from world prices. So what you have is successive khan khan governments but particularly the harper government has made getting bert berts getting bert berts oil to market is a mining it becomes politically impossible because of social, environmental consideration. This isnt the first time canadas taken a stand on economic issues. Governments do that. In some of those predecessors have been things like the white coats. Others have been amazingly boring but important like soft wood lumber. This one is even bigger both in terms of its imagery and its importance economically. Theres another thing that at least for me sets keystone distinctly apart. This is the first time that i can remember that a canadian government has made a specific project that its going to champion as part of a National Policy. This National Policy at its base level is lets get these resources to market and to oil prices. But you dont hear the government says we dont care what refineries it gets to or how it gets here. In terms of the United States, its all about keystone and thats created i think political difficulties for the canadian government because it doesnt look like its championing a policy. It looks like its championing a project. This was the landscape they were talking about. They were pointing out that americans were preoccupied with land wars with iraq and afghanistan and so Energy Independence had a lot of political currency south of the 49th. So did this undercurrent which canadians really dont want to own but canadian governments have really played on it which is wouldnt you rather buy your oil from nice, friendly people close to you instead of those unsavory and unreliable people far away. They never say that directly but its very clear that, thats part of the argument. When keystone was first proposed, no within in the United States thought that today one of the big issues in the oil patch was whether they were going to okay the export of domestically produced oil. For the oil, its do you care about jobs and development. In the greater scheme of things, the 800,000 barrels of import into the United States a day is not that big a deal. Much bigger deal in canada where 800,000 barrels a day export at significantly lower costs than the alternatives is a bigger economic impact. And lastly we look ahead just a little bit because this keystone project has bet excessively on it. Youve seen the canadian Prime Minister truly make some extraordinary comments given the supposed niceties of dip lo pattic relations. Keystone seems not so much because they care about exports. Some do. As much as they care about being snubbed by americans. If you listen to the debate, its always why wont the americans do this for us as though canada and canadians are owed this favour or owed this permit. Keystone and perhaps quite rightly is only incidentally about canadas National Priorities and whether it can sell its resources before they decline in alabama. In the United States its largely a domestic political issue on u. S. Domestic conversation and i dont think most Americans Care and i dont think they should care whether canadians feel snubbed by it. Thank you. Thank you. Since yall came, id like to give you folks a chance. We do have microphones and were being filmed today so please wait for a microphone. What do you think about oil on rail . I dont have a clue is the honest answer. I do think that and as you know im based here and not in canada. I do think pipelines in canada are watching ing very carefully as to whats happening in the United States and this strategy and political effectiveness of the antekeystone movement antikeystone movement which has ranged across a whole spectrum of groups. If delay is part of winning, so far the antipipeline effort has been extremely successful. The idea that theyll be a quick approval in canada on any of the projects seems farfetched to me. Just we do have proposals to ship oil north into the northwest territories. Full disclosure, when i was a baby reporter, i was working in the yukon covering the pipeline inquiries and people were saying the same things. I would note the role that this plays in the political debate that you hear from proponents of keystone all the time which is if we dont build it, theyre going to find other ways and other pipelines. I also recently saw where some were floating the argument that farmers are having trouble moving their products by rail because so much rail traffic is being tied up in transporting oil. This morning, the European Union announced it would not label crude as polluting. So i think oil by rail plus tanker is something thats very valuable. Whether it would take the place of the keystone is really impossible to say. If i could just add, transcanada itself first of all the pipeline is way for expensive and that it used to be and secondly the president and the president of transcanada has been saying theyre happy to look at oil by rail to bridge the gap across the boundary which will create an interesting political dynamic. So if theres a no decision here or an ongoing decision to delay and a Canadian Company backed by the canadian government says hey we found a loophole in the regs and were going to off load this stuff and ship it across by rail and put it back in the pipeline, that to me would be volatile volatile for us. I was told last month that even if keystone gets approved, transcanada could be involved in rail in the next couple of years. The rail question. Peter the cargo at the top of a hill with nobody watching it overnight. That should never have happened. Unbelievable. Ill be interested to see how that affects the dynamics in a state like mine where a lot of the land owners who have problem with this have problems with it because of the imminent domain concerns. When you look and are talking about the European Union today and their decision, other markets that weve been talking about is getting to the head of the epa even saying its going to be developed. Another thing to consider is the most efficient way of it gets to our refineries or anywhere else because what youre looking at, its just another way to get it off shore. That doesnt mean its not going to the same exact place that keystone would be flowing to. So from the political aspect of this discussion, i mean, do you think its just boiling down to yes, im frustrated with the project too at this point but like the substance that were talking about, where is it coming to play . You see all kinds of issues where the debate is focused on one particular thing. Should the pentagon be giving weaponry and assault rivals to police departments. Thats what the debate is focused on but the much broader issue is about policing in american cities. I mean, i dont want to diminish the importance of keystone in and of itself and i dont think thats what the debate is about. Its about a much bigger issue and keystone is just an icon. And with respect to going beyond keystone. I would prefer that everybody in this audience and who is watching on television go back and look at executive order 13337 signed in 2004 by george w. Bush that sets up the system that were working under for president ial approval. I think youll be surprised at how broad it is. Theres a definition of what it means. Theres one piece of paper that gives a lot of latitude to people to influence this. We dont even know what were talking about. But we could be talking about everything. We consider that this executive order also applies to cross border infrastructure. The alberta clipper. Could you give me detail about how its going on. What the court looks like. You said decision in a couple of months. You have or does anyone have regardless of how difficult it is to bet on what a court is going to do what they will do but more than that, just give us a sense for the process and how this is going forward. Thank you. Sure. And of course as the washington correspo correspo correspond the supreme court, i think you get into trouble when you try to predict what theyre going to do. Just from listening to the chatter out there, both sides feel like they have some support on the court and some big question marks. Oral arguments, i believe they have Something Like 55 questions and the bulk of those were to the state who was appealing the lower courts ruling that throughout so, yeah, i think there are a lot of questions. I think the Big Questions are what happens if they do up hold the lower courts ruling and thus far, you know, i havent seen a lot of indication from transcanada as to if that just starts this all over again. I mean, i think theres a lot of uncertainty there as to where this goes and everyone literally is just waiting to see what the court does. Im sorry i dont have a better prediction than that. But it seems like both sides have some support on the court and well just have to see where it comes from. The governor by the time they rearranged this and had it going to him was supportive of the pipeline as long as in his mind they got the route right. So thats why they went to him. I think the opponents feel pretty confident that they could bring some pressure to bear on the Public Commission to do this differently if wind up having to do it. And again going back to something i was mentioning earlier, if the opponents prevail and the District Court ruling stands the administration hasnt said it will decide once the nebraska judicial process is concluded. It said it. What does this mean for Stephen Harper . I dont know. The liberals backed this pipeline too. Im not in canada. I assume that if the ultimate decision is no, canadian politicians will do what canadian politicians do when they feel snubbed by the United States which is to sort of jump up and down and stomp and say all sorts of nasty things and go on with the relationship. So i mean i think the i think the theres in some sense we write about it all the time of wake me up when they make a decision on this because it will be a little longer and longer. But it is plain. It has come up in debates. Weve written stories about where the canadians fall. Its clear that the Democratic Candidates very much are opposed to pipeline and republicans are very much in favour. That said, i mean, look, you look at the polls and the majority of the public supports this project when asked about it straight up. However, you know, i think its arguable that using keystone in ads doesnt necessarily move the needle. A saw a lot of adds in 2012 and the record was somewhat mixed. But whatever is actually moving races outside of maybe nebraska is little. I was struck by one story upon the two governors candidates, the democrats that said closing the pipeline might cost me a little bit of labour support but probably not and theyll probably vote for me anyway and republicans said it might cost me a few land owners but theyll probably vote for me anyway. One thing that occurs to me is that if republicans gain control of the senate next month, it will be interesting to see legislation from congress by approving the pipeline or the process and see what the president does with it. So far harry reid has protected the president from that and they cant get legislation on keystone specifically through congress. So a fully Republican Congress is going to have lot of things to throw at the white house and this may be one of them. I will say if it does go on until the 2016 primary season starts in earnest, environmentalists are already pressuring Hillary Clinton to take a position on this. I talked to some republicans who talked about how they feel good theyll be able to bring it up. They still have to get to 60. One point i would make is that in order to get control, they have to defeat a bunch of the democrats that they had before. So thats not necessarily picking them. And to add a layer to that, theres no indication the president would necessarily sign keystone even if they got to 60. And in america, it takes 67 votes in the senate to override a veto. I was wondering, i know its way down the line but i mean the name is keystone. You already mentioned its the lynch pin for environmentalists. So its not necessarily naming it after, like, tipping the scales and the environment and is it already such an independent issue that they cant play baseball. I think its too late but i bet transcanada calls it american and Oil Independence freedom antiterrorism pipeline. Because thats how theyve tried to sell it. Its funny you mention that. The house has also passed a bill that has a wonky name that i wont bore you with but it allows transcanada to reapply even if they get rejected and a democratic member of congress joked with me exactly that. That theyre going to come back with a puppies and ice cream pipeline. Its obviously a joke but theres definitely well respected voices in the Environmental Movement that have talked about Something Like that. At this point i think the sort of younger, more insurgent energy in the movement that have helped ma