According to a story running in WC Native News and in Huffington Post Canada, billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer has written a letter accusing Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper of meddling in the U. S. government shutdown for the purpose of promoting the approval of the XL pipeline.
More below.
From the Huffington Post article
"My view is you don't take 'no' for an answer," Harper said. "This won't be final until it's approved and we will keep pushing forward."
Steyer took issue with those comments in his letter to the prime minister.
"Have your government, your government’s lobbyist and/or agents representing TransCanada communicated with House Republicans about including Keystone in the original litany of demands put to President Obama?" Steyer asks in the letter to Harper sent Friday.
This may be the juiciest piece:
"News of this advertising campaign comes in the context of House Republicans having closed down the U.S. government as well as threatening to oppose the extension of the country's debt limit unless certain demands were met," Steyer writes.
"Included in the original list of House Republican demands was that the Obama administration grant approval for the building of the Keystone XL pipeline."
The combination of the advertising campaign and Harper's comments last week "raises the question of whether your office is working hand-in-hand with TransCanada to try to exploit the current situation in Washington, D.C., at the expense of the American people," Steyer wrote.
I had missed the inclusion of XL in the Republican demands leading up to the shutdown, but it was reported
here.
The USA Today article said this
Their list of demands is topped by ObamaCare, which they want defunded or delayed. They also want the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico built, more oil drilling on federal lands, softer coal and carbon regulations, and a rework of the 2010 Wall Street reform law, among other things.
The possibility of a foreign government being in collusion with Republicans in Congress would be a huge revelation, though difficult to prove. Republicans have their own reasons for supporting XL and it has always had some Democratic support. It seemed to disappear from the published list of demands pretty quickly.
Hard to say if this goes any where, as Steyer's case is all circumstantial, but I would like to see somebody ask Boehner a question about it.