Pipeline Saga Resurrected at Unveiling of Border Agreement

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 WASHINGTON — Stephen Harper heads to the White House on Wednesday to unveil a long-awaited border security agreement with U.S. President Barack Obama, but the visit comes at a particularly tense moment in Canada-U.S. relations as TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline saga rages on.  The $7 billion project, shelved at least temporarily by the Obama administration just a month ago, is being resurrected as a front-burner issue on Capitol Hill this week thanks to congressional Republicans who are determined to see the project win federal approval before, not after, next November's presidential election.

The prime minister and Obama discussed Keystone at length during the recent APEC summit in Hawaii, meaning Keystone XL may not be a top item of discussion this time around.  But the fate of the pipeline will likely be discussed at some point, given recent developments that have served as a stark reminder that unfettered access to the U.S. market by Canadian businesses is far from guaranteed, regardless of the new Beyond The Border initiative aimed at intelligence-sharing, streamlining cross-border trade and co-ordinating regulations.

The controversial project was at the centre of high-profile anti-pipeline protests outside the White House for weeks this past summer and fall, resulting in the arrests of movie stars and leading environmentalists.

Republicans in the House of Representatives, indeed, are attempting to box Obama into a corner on Keystone XL. They're attaching to their payroll tax cut legislation -- clamoured for by both the White House and Democrats -- a provision that would take the Keystone decision out of the president's control by handing it to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  The aim is to force a speedy approval for Keystone XL. The House bill is expected to pass in the next two weeks; it will then head to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it will face a tough fight.

It's yet more pipeline drama in the U.S. capital as Harper arrives to announce details of the border deal that will focus on co-operation, not conflict, between the world's two biggest trading partners. But even though Keystone XL has become a political hot potato, the border deal proves the strength of the bond between Americans and Canadians.  One source with knowledge of the negotiations on the deal said Canadian businesses, in particular, are cynical about Beyond The Border, believing nothing much will change thanks to firmly entrenched U.S. red tape or lawmakers still nervous about national security in the post-9-11 world.

Harper is being advised to follow through aggressively on the deal or risk it becoming a non-entity. The source said the Tories will have to be particularly proactive given the coming end of Obama's first term -- after which there could either be new cabinet secretaries, or a Republican president with an entirely different new cast of political characters.

Keystone proponents have Republicans in their corner as they try to strong-arm Obama into green-lighting the pipeline as soon as possible. Lee Terry, a congressman from Nebraska helping to spearhead Republican pro-pipeline efforts, defended the attempt to move the decision-making process from the White House to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. "FERC is all about energy and reliability and are the experts in pipelines," he told Environment and Energy Television on Tuesday.
"So, I want to take it out of the politics that have developed around the State Department and the White House and move the authority for the permit to an agency that really knows energy.... FERC, with their level of experience, will see that this is the most safely built pipeline with the most environmental route and will permit it."

On the eve of Harper's visit, five U.S. senators -- an independent and four Democrats -- urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to stop the Republicans. Reid will broker any final deal between Republicans and Democrats on extending payroll tax cuts.
"We strongly oppose the inclusion of provisions that require approval of this pipeline in an arbitrary time frame in any legislative package moving forward in the Senate," Sens. Bernie Sanders, Ron Wyden, Patrick Leahy, Sheldon Whitehouse and Frank Lautenberg wrote in a letter to Reid on Tuesday. The Republican plan amounts to a mere "rubber stamp" for TransCanada, the letter read, and would "short-circuit the legally required environmental review process."  But Terry is defiant.
"I want Canadian oil (and) our friends just across the border from us to be able to sell their oil to us," he said.