{"id":7464,"date":"2015-04-21T06:15:46","date_gmt":"2015-04-21T11:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=7464"},"modified":"2015-04-21T06:15:46","modified_gmt":"2015-04-21T11:15:46","slug":"emails-how-state-department-secretly-approved-expanding-piece-of-enbridges-keystone-xl-clone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=7464","title":{"rendered":"Emails: How State Department Secretly Approved Expanding Piece of Enbridge’s “Keystone XL Clone”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emails: How State Department Secretly Approved Expanding Piece of Enbridge’s “Keystone XL Clone”<\/a><\/h3>\n

DeSmogBlog has obtained dozens of emails that lend an inside view of how the\u00a0U.S.<\/span>\u00a0State Department secretly handed\u00a0Enbridge<\/a>\u00a0a permit to expand the capacity of its U.S.-Canada border-crossing\u00a0Alberta Clipper<\/a>\u00a0pipeline, which carries\u00a0tar sands<\/a>\u00a0diluted bitumen (\u201cdilbit<\/a>\u201d) from Alberta to midwest\u00a0markets.<\/p>\n

The State Department submitted the emails into the record in the ongoing\u00a0case filed against the Department by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0U.S.<\/span>\u00a0District Court for the District of Minnesota. Collectively, the emails show that upper-level State Department officials hastened the review process on behalf of Enbridge for its proposed\u00a0Alberta Clipper expansion plan, now rebranded Line 67<\/a>, and did not inform the public about it until it published its\u00a0final approval decision in the Federal Register<\/a>\u00a0in August\u00a02014.<\/p>\n

According to a\u00a0March 17, 2014 memo initially marked \u201cconfidential,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Enbridge’s legal counsel at\u00a0Steptoe\u00a0&<\/span>\u00a0Johnson, David Coburn<\/a>, began regular communications with the State Department on what the environmental groups have dubbed an \u201cillegal scheme\u201d beginning in at least January\u00a02014.<\/p>\n

\"Enbridge<\/a>
\nImage Credit:\u00a0U.S.<\/span>\u00a0District Court for the District of\u00a0Minnesota<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Environmental groups have coined the approval process an \u201cillegal scheme\u201d because the State Department allowed Enbridge to usurp the conventionalpresidential permit process for cross-border pipelines<\/a>, as well as the standard National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA<\/span>) process, which allows for public comments and public hearings of the sort seen for TransCanada’s\u00a0KeystoneXL<\/span><\/a>\u00a0pipeline.<\/p>\n

Further, the scheme is a complex one involving Enbridge’s choice to add pressure pump stations on both sides of the border to two pipelines,\u00a0Enbridge Line 3<\/a>\u00a0andEnbridge Line 67<\/a>, to avoid fitting under the legal umbrella of a \u201ccross-border\u201d\u00a0pipeline.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emails: How State Department Secretly Approved Expanding Piece of Enbridge’s “Keystone XL Clone” DeSmogBlog has obtained dozens of emails that lend an inside view of how the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0State Department secretly handed\u00a0Enbridge\u00a0a permit to expand the capacity of its U.S.-Canada border-crossing\u00a0Alberta Clipper\u00a0pipeline, which carries\u00a0tar sands\u00a0diluted bitumen (\u201cdilbit\u201d) from Alberta to midwest\u00a0markets. The State Department submitted the emails […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1082,4872,4871,1283,588,590,1476,3917,781,2344],"class_list":["post-7464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-alberta","tag-diluted-bitumen","tag-emails","tag-enbridge","tag-oil","tag-oil-pipeline","tag-pipelines","tag-sierra-club","tag-tar-sands","tag-us-state-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7465,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7464\/revisions\/7465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}