As a kid way back when, I was fascinated by images of prehistoric mammals writhing in tar pits. There was something poignant about these powerful creatures as they struggled helplessly in the bubbling goo. Sadly, these images also serve as the perfect metaphor for America in the 21st century.
Picture credit
We face three major challenges - reducing the carbon footprint of our energy to mitigate climate change, finding alternatives to conventional oil that are not toxic to our economy, and creating jobs. So how is it we are poised to adopt tar sands oil as our favored transportation fuel? Tar sands oil has a ridiculous carbon footprint, magnifying the effects of climate change. It takes almost as much energy to produce as it generates, making it the most expensive alternative to conventional oil ever conceived. And at a time when we are bleeding jobs, the only jobs created by tar sands oil will be north of our borders.
British Columbian news magazine The Tyee covers the tar sands oil political fight in a series by Geoff Dembicki called "War Over Oil Sands". It reveals why America is on the verge of embracing a fuel source that benefits Canada and oil companies, but scuttles our climate, affordable clean energy, and low carbon energy job creation needs.
The battle over Section 526 of the Energy Security and Independence Act.
Remember Section 526. It is our Alamo.
In 2007, climate-concerned policymakers led by Democrat congressman Henry Waxman managed to insert provision 526 into the Energy Security and Independence Act. Put simply, the provision made it illegal for U.S. government agencies to buy unconventional fuels with large carbon footprints.
Breakfast With the Oil Sands' Top Salesman by Geoff Dembicki
The provision would prevent the federal government from buying tar sands oil for use by the military and government vehicles. It adopts a low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) for use by the federal government.
As an aside, did you ever wonder why the Koch boys and the oil companies went berserk over California's climate and clean energy law? Here is the reason. The law includes a LCFS "which applies to all refiners, blenders, producers or importers (“Providers”) of transportation fuels in California," and "shall be measured on a full fuels cycle basis." In other words, tar sands oil need not apply.
The fascinating thing is that Waxman managed to slip in the Section 526 provision without the oil lobbyists noticing as the bill came up for a vote and went to the president's desk. When they noticed, all hell broke lose. There was a flurry of activity in 2008 that brought together prominent members of the Canadian government, Albertan provincial government, oil companies with a large tar sands stake, and industry lobbyist groups like the American Petroleum Institute. Their nightmare scenario was the election of Barack Obama, who had tried to introduce bills in the Senate that would create a LCFS for the nation, along with Democratic majorities large enough not only to protect Section 526, but increase the scope.
Canada and the oil companies put their chief lobbyist to work to defeat any climate or energy legislation that included a low carbon fuel provision. The man leading the charge is Tom Corcoran, former congressman from Illinois.
Corcoran is a former Republican congressman who now advocates on behalf of Alberta's oil sands. Since 2008, he's played a lead role in a lobbying campaign orchestrated by the world's wealthiest oil companies and the Canadian and Alberta governments. This fossil fuel-friendly coalition has pressured -- often successfully -- against any U.S. clean energy law targeting the oil sands industry.
Breakfast With the Oil Sands' Top Salesman by Geoff Dembicki
His first order of business was to create a massive army of astroturf organizations to sell the message. General Corcoran created the glorious Center for North American Energy Security.
Corcoran had just finished explaining how he helped form a group called the Center for North American Energy Security in the summer of 2008. The group, whose purpose is to maximize the amount of unconventional fuels powering the United States, includes the American Petroleum Institute, ExxonMobil and other oil industry majors as members.
Canada Teams with Oil Lobby to Fight US Clean Energy Clause by Geoff Dembicki
The Center for North American Energy Security has grown an army of smaller astroturf 527s, including Secure Our Fuels, Consumer Energy Alliance, and special population group targets like Hispanics and senior citizens. They even have plans for an amusement park known as Earthquest. And how is this for irony? The Tea Party Republicans in Texas are even creating special taxes for this fossil and fuels funhouse.
EarthQuest got a boost from House Bill 4015, which allows creation of a special taxing zone and facilitates bond financing. The measure allows the East Montgomery County Improvement District to sell bonds to pay for infrastructure work, by giving it the means to pay back the bonds.
The legislation will allow the special district to collect a hotel/motel tax (other than within the city limits of Splendora); create a tax or fee for parking and admission; and increase sales tax by 0.5 cents within the park site’s enterprise zone.
Not only is the Houston area soon to be home to the Earthquest Institute amusement park and energy disinformation center, it is already home to many of the refineries slated to handle tar sands oil moving through the Keystone pipeline projects.
General Corcoran and his astroturf army targeted the Department of Defense to rise up against this discriminatory energy policy against tar sands oil.
The next step was to provide the Department of Defense with the Center for North American Energy Security's own legal opinion on Section 526. Essentially, Corcoran's associates felt the law's wording was too ambiguous for a blanket ban on purchases of oil-sands fuel. Even with clearer language, they argued, it'd be difficult to track Albertan fuel through the maze of pipelines and refineries supplying U.S. markets.
The Department of Defense eventually issued its own review of Section 526, coming to similar conclusions.
Canada Teams with Oil Lobby to Fight US Clean Energy Clause by Geoff Dembicki
Canadian government officials also got into the game, lobbying the Department of Defense to fight Section 526.
Corcoran also needed the undivided loyalty of the wooliest of mammoths, namely the Republicans along with as many blue dire wolves as could be enticed into the tar pit. The Republicans were easy. They were more than delighted to become the party of no, especially for low carbon fuels. Despite unified opposition, Waxman succeeded in getting a climate and energy bill through the House in 2009. The Senate proved to be its own tar pit. Kerry and Boxer could not get a Senate version of the bill (HR 2454) out of committee. Kerry went off in search of Republicans and blue canines.
Dembicki notes that among the many Republicans enlisted by General Corcoran is none other than Lindsey Graham. You remember Lindsey. He claimed to be working with John Kerry and Joe Lieberman on a compromise climate and energy bill in the Senate. After working feverishly to weaken the bill, rendering it a laughingstock, Graham suddenly announced he was not going to vote for the bill he supposedly helped to write. His flippity-flop created quite a stir and there were many theories about what was going through his head. He claimed it was because of an immigration bill.
Lindsey Graham is a liar. He inserted himself into the climate bill in October of 2009, claiming he could deliver a few Republican votes. For six long months, he helped weaken the legislation until it was no real threat to the oil industry. Then he jumps ship and joins a filibuster that prevents the nearly worthless bill (apart from a few clean energy incentives) from ever coming to the floor for a vote. A few months later, he leads a delegation to Alberta and the tar sands where he pronounces sludge from the tar pit to be clean and pure.
Corcoran and the tar sands brigade needed more and worse Republicans. True climate zombies. And not only in Congress. State governments have gotten into the clean energy game. Enter the Gangster Kings of Dirty Energy.
The Gangster Kings of Dirty Energy
Dembicki mentions one of the biggest pieces to tar sands puzzle. Did you know that the Koch brothers control 25% of the distribution and refining assets for bringing tar sands oil to the American market?
The issue was apparently on the radar of Koch Industries as well. The company, which refines an estimated 25 per cent of all oil sands crude entering America, spent tens of millions of dollars over the past decade supporting right-wing think tanks that question the science behind climate change. Koch Industries is also widely thought to have funded and organized the Tea Party movement.
The company is vociferously opposed to low-carbon fuel standards (as is the entire U.S. refining industry). "[These policies] would be particularly devastating for refiners that use heavy Canadian crude oil because the policy seeks to discourage or even prevent the U.S. from benefiting from this essential, reliable resource," reads the website for Flint Hills Resources, a wholly-owned Koch subsidiary.
The Battle to Block Low Carbon Fuel Standards by Geoff Dembicki
You might want to read this Solve Climate analysis of the Koch brothers' finger in the tar sands pie. They control the distribution center that feeds into the Keystone and Keystone XL pipelines. They also control a dedicated tar sands refinery in Minnesota and pipeline system that supplies transportation fuels to upper midwestern states.
General Corcoran sees a high carbon fuel standard in our future.
As for the current Republican-dominated Congress, Corcoran envisions legislation someday which would ensure America stays reliant on Albertan oil.
"I'm talking," he says, "about congressional action that would perhaps give preferences to Canadian [oil sands] imports and encourage the further development of those resources." He adds later: "Oil from Canada is a good thing."
The Battle to Block Low Carbon Fuel Standards by Geoff Dembicki
Dembicki connects the dots between the Koch brothers, the astroturf Tea Party, climate zombies, and even Scott Walker's anti-union crusade.
What do Tea Party rallies, Republican victories, climate change deniers, Wisconsin's anti-union push and attacks on a cap and trade market for carbon emissions have in common?
They're all fueled in part by profits derived from Alberta's oil sands.
Those profits, flowing to a single company, are helping bankroll a libertarian offensive that many observers think is shifting America's political culture profoundly to the right.
One of the central tenets of that campaign is a disbelief not only in the pressing risks of climate change, but that humans are even causing it.
The Kochs: Oil Sands Billionaires Bankrolling US Right by Geoff Dembicki
By the way, according to industry estimates, half of all transportation fuel sold in Wisconsin now comes from tar sands oil. Care to guess the corporation that controls about 80% of the tar sands sludge market in the state? Koch industries, of course, from their Flint Hills Resources refinery in Rosemount, Minnesota. The Koch Pipeline Company brings the high carbon fuel to state markets, including Madison and Milwaukee.
Ever wonder what attracted the Koch boys' attention to Wisconsin? Is was definitely not Scott Walker's charisma or incredible record of accomplishments. It was former governor Jim Doyle's flirtation with clean energy. As part of a clean energy initiative by the Midwestern Governors Association, Wisconsin was taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation and power generation sectors, including the proposed adoption of a LCFS similar to the one adopted by California. Doyle's plan called for phasing out of tar sands oil in favor of switchgrass biofuels, compressed natural gas (biomethane from animal wastes), electric vehicles, and public transportation. That would cost the gangster kings of dirty energy billions in profit every year.
Here is an illustration of Corcoran's tar sands astroturf army in action in response to a potential LCFS in Wisconsin, with reaction from Secure Our Fuels, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, an affiliate of the Consumer Energy Alliance, and Energy Matters Midwest.
The battle goes on
General Corcoran is mounting another offensive on Section 526, this time using Republican Kevin Nunes.
Earlier this month, a little more than a week after my chat with Corcoran, in fact, Republican congressman Kevin Nunes proposed a repeal of Section 526 in his wide-ranging Energy Roadmap for America. The bill so far has 56 co-sponsors and is winning praise from conservative activist groups.
Canada Teams with Oil Lobby to Fight US Clean Energy Clause by Geoff Dembicki
It remains to be seen whether they can get this past the Senate and onto the president's desk. Whatever the fate of the Republican Energy Roadmap, it will generate talking points for the 2012, which is the real objective.
Let's play a game
I want you to imagine something. Imagine the script being flipped. Suppose the American government were working behind the scenes to encourage the Canadian government to turn much of Alberta and soon Saskatchewan into a toxic waste dump to facilitate importing fossil fuels into the United States. The biggest benefit would go to oil companies while all of the external costs would be left to Canada. Something tells me our friends to the north would be outraged. Yet we who supposedly take such pride in our independence and freedom allow the Canadian government and oil companies to dictate our energy policy.
And let's also give the Canadians credit. They are getting concerned about external costs. They are looking to force the oil companies to pay more in royalties, clean up tailing ponds (pictured above), reclaim land, and install more air and water pollution controls. Those moves shift the external costs to the consumer, namely stupid Americans. Credit the Canadians for guile in shifting other external costs south as well. In the old days, the upgrading of bitumen was done on site. Now they are piping diluted bitumen into America where the greenhouse gas emissions and particulate pollution will be the Yanks problem, but will allow the Canucks to claim with a straight face that the industry is lowering its carbon footprint (to the south).
Learn more about the war
I strongly recommend you read the entire War over Oil Sands series. Pity the poor creature stuck and sinking into the tar pits abyss.
War Over Oil Sands series by Geoff Dembicki for The Tyee
Part I (March 14): In America's Capital, a Fierce Fight over Oil Sands
Part II (March 15): Breakfast With the Oil Sands' Top Salesman
Part III (March 16): Canada Teams with Oil Lobby to Fight US Clean Energy Clause
Part IV (March 17): The Battle to Block Low Carbon Fuel Standards
Part V (March 21): How Enviros Helped Block a Pipeline Worth Billions
Part VI (March 22): The Kochs: Oil Sands Billionaires Bankrolling US Right
Part VII (March 23): Canadian Officials 'Aggressive' in Selling Congress on Oil Sands
Part VIII (March 24): Scandal Rocks Key Player in Canada's Oil Sands PR Push