Right-wing US billionaire brothers driving Keystone XL

Kochs profit while tar sands, pipeline bid endanger climate.

by Ish Theilheimer

Last week NDP leader Tom Mulcair travelled to Washington where he spoke about his positions on tar sands, pipelines and avoiding climate change. Predictably, critics had a field day, accusing him of "trash-talking Canada" and undermining its interests in the debate over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Approving the pipeline (or not) would be one of Barack Obama's biggest political decisions, and he has to make it soon. Mulcair's visit was timely. Everyone wanted to know whether he supports XL. Mulcair mostly skirted the issue, repeating, instead, his familiar message about sustainable development and the need for better enforcement of existing regulations.

For such heresies, Conservative critics and oil lobbyists branded him a traitor to Canada's national interests. Mulcair later pointed out the ironies. After all, Stephen Harper criticized the Liberal government in US media when he was Opposition leader.  In 2005, he gave a speech in Washington that blasted the Liberal government for being soft on terrorism;  in 2003, he wrote a column for The Wall Street Journal in 2003 saying Canada should have joined the attack on Iraq.

The critics also accuse Muclair of undermining his party's interests in Western Canada by taking a principled stand on resource exploitation. With the Liberals about to anoint yet another "can't-miss" leader, Mulcair's decision to stand up as a principled environmentalist willing to take heat from the oil lobby seems crazy as a fox. Let Justin Trudeau throw in with Big Oil. Mulcair's position will win him support from progressive Canadians who are worried the oil lobby is going to fry our grandchildren — the part of the political spectrum he needs most.

In Canada, while Stephen Harper has made it quite clear he represents the oil lobby, there hasn't been as much attention paid to whom that lobby represents as in the USA. One of the reasons so many Americans oppose Keystone XL is the growing awareness that the fanatically right-wing billionaire Koch brothers — and the oil companies they own — are vigorously promoting the proposal.

The Kochs have become a driving force in US politics, funding the right-wing Tea Party movement and the election of ultra-conservative majorities in state legislatures across the country. Their efforts have been instrumentmental in stunning upsets, such as formerly progressive bastions like Wisconsin and Michigan electing union-busting, public-service-slashing legislatures.

The Koch brothers already control a quarter of tar sands oil production through subsidiaries of their private corporation, as reported by SustainableBusiness.com   "Koch subsidiary, Flint Hills Resources, operates a Minnesota refinery that's capable of processing 320,000 barrels of crude a day, about four-fifths of which is sourced from Alberta," the publication reports. "They don't want clean energy laws to impact those operations."

"The Koch brothers are architects of the dirty energy strategy, both in Washington and through their commercial interests," according to Jeremy Symons of the Reston, Va-based National Wildlife Federation . "It wouldn't make any sense at all for the President to give this pipeline project the thumbs up and undermine his own clean energy efforts."

As BBC investigative journalist Greg Past told the Real News Network, "I wanted to know why we're taking oil from Canada across the entire United States to Texas. And, again, it's because the Kochs want it." They want it, Palast said, because they can buy Canadian bitumen for  $35 less per barrel than Venezuelan oil — if they can only get it.

Greg Palast talks to Paul Jay of the Real News Network about the Koch brothers and Keystone XL

"That's the reason why we are talking about endangering the most sensitive aquifers and most important water sources in America to have a pipe with the filthiest oil in the planet, the most polluting oil on the planet, to drag it all the way from Canada all the way down to Texas so that the Koch brothers at Flint Hills can make [money]… their savings would be about $2 billion a year that the Koch brothers will make off our risking the aquifers across the United States."  [Transcription thanks to NakedCapitalism.com .

The Koch brothers not only buy a lot of Alberta bitumen, they produce a lot of it. Because their company is not public, exact holdings are elusive, but you get a sense of how extensive they are from reports they are selling  massive assets. Elizabeth Douglass, of InsideClimate News, writes that reports Koch Oil Sands is selling 220,000 acres of tar sands holdings "pulls the curtain back further on the Koch family's deep but quiet involvement in Canada's oil sands industry."  Last June the Calgary company said it was "looking for strategic investors to help accelerate production" on six properties held by Koch Exploration Canada.

"Koch Industries has had a stake going back 50 years in Canadian heavy oil through mining, pipeline development and refining," write Douglas. "Its Pine Bend Refinery in Minnesota is now responsible for about 20 percent of the oil sands crude being piped into the United States and has played a key role in the growth of the family's fortune. The family stands to profit further from growing US reliance on tar sands imports."

Is it crazy for Tom Mulcair to go to Washington and offer some cautions to the Obama administration against being swept up by a gigantic lobbying effort mounted by wealthy enemies? He would be crazy not to. It's good politics for progressive leaders to stand up to climate bullies — not to mention, damned necessary.

© Copyright 2013 Ish Theilheimer, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca