{"id":18839,"date":"2016-01-07T12:53:41","date_gmt":"2016-01-07T20:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=18839"},"modified":"2016-01-07T12:53:41","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T20:53:41","slug":"us-under-attack-from-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/07\/us-under-attack-from-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"US Under Attack from Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US is currently under attack, not by the Canadian Army, or the Mounties, or even a band of marauding Sasquatches, nut by a bevy of loon-paid lawyers the employ of TransCanada, the company, whose domestic operations Canadians are blocking.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"0107KeystoneTPP\"<\/p>\n

TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, announced Wednesday<\/a> it is filing a claim under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), saying that the project\u2019s permit denial was \u201carbitrary and unjustified.\u201d TransCanada is seeking $15 billion in costs and damages due to the denial, and has also filed a separate lawsuit against the U.S. in federal court. <\/p>\n

Under NAFTA, companies can sue governments that put investments at risk through regulation. If it proceeds, the case will go in front of an international tribunal. (A U.S. company sued Montreal<\/a> in 2013 over a fracking ban, using the same rationale). The tribunal cannot overturn the permit denial, but it can force payment of damages. <\/p>\n

A NAFTA challenge had been previously identified<\/a> as a potential legal recourse for the company. <\/p>\n

In the notice to submit a claim<\/a> for arbitration, TransCanada notes that two previous pipelines, carrying oil from the same tar sands region across the U.S. border, were both approved. This, TransCanada claims, suggests that the denial was political in nature, which is prohibited under NAFTA. <\/p>\n

\u201cEnvironmental activists \u2026 turned opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline into a litmus test for politicians\u2014including U.S. President Barack Obama \u2014 to prove their environmental credentials. The activists\u2019 strategy succeeded,\u201d TransCanada states in its filings. \u201cStated simply, the delay and the ultimate decision to deny the permit were politically-driven, directly contrary to the findings of the Administration\u2019s own studies, and not based on the merits of Keystone\u2019s application. The Administration\u2019s actions violated U.S. obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement (\u201cNAFTA\u201d).\u201d<\/p>\n

The company even headed the notice with a quote from White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest: \u201cI would venture to say that there\u2019s probably no infrastructure project in the history of the United States that\u2019s been as politicized as this one.\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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I sincerely hope that TransCanada\u2019s suit fails.  However, this is the best thing that could have happened.  It shows us how these trade agreements compromise our national sovereignty.  It demonstrates the need to stop the TPP.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US is currently under attack, not by the Canadian Army, or the Mounties, or even a band of marauding Sasquatches, nut by a bevy of loon-paid lawyers the employ of TransCanada, the company, whose domestic operations Canadians are blocking. TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, announced Wednesday it is filing a claim […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}