Perceptions by Gerry Warner

Is it possible the contentious Keystone Pipeline issue has been decided already? This issue is so controversial Prime Minister Stephen Harper hardly ever says anything about it in public – perhaps he’s too busy with his “enemies list” – and U.S. President Barrack Obama only talks about it rarely.

However, many business groups, advocacy organizations and ordinary people are talking about it all the time, and if President Obama keeps his word, there should be a resolution to this issue before the end of the year. And then will the tongues start wagging!

Keystone is the biggest geo-political issue in North America in years. If it’s built, it will carry billions of dollars of Alberta bitumen to dozens of thirsty oil refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast which will make Harper and Alberta Premier Alison Redford very happy, not to mention the moguls of the Alberta oil patch, as well as millions of ordinary Alberta citizens, who have watched with horror the past few years as their once-wealthy province has slipped back into debt.

In many ways, the issue should be a no-brainer. Who would turn their backs on billions of petro dollars? The $3 billion deficit Redford’s government is projecting at the moment could be wiped out in a few short years and the Alberta Heritage Fund would be pumped up again like the good ol’ days. Maybe an Alberta team would even make a run at the Stanley Cup? But alas, it just isn’t that easy because there will be no line to carry that oil unless Obama gives it an okay. And right now that’s one of the biggest unanswered questions on the beltway in Washington D.C.

Until recently, the “smart money” was on Obama approving the line, which has been fiercely fought by numerous American environmental groups and many farmers and residents close to the pipeline. This, after all, would be safe oil, produced close to home from a stable country unlikely to arbitrarily turn off the tap like OPEC producers were prone to do and a country that Uncle Sam was unlikely to be at war with. But in the past couple years there has been a sea change in the worldwide debate over oil supplies. No one is talking about “peak oil” anymore because of fracking, which is uncovering new supplies of black gold around the world with some of the biggest discoveries being made right in the heartland of the American West, Alaska and other parts of the continental U.S. This has entirely changed the equation in the oil supply debate with lots of talk that the world’s most powerful country will no longer have to rely on Arab oligarchs or the oil oligarchs of Fort McMurray for that matter.

And this makes hedge fund managers and other suits in the financial towers of Calgary very worried – as well they should be.

The world is suddenly swimming in oil. Fracking is uncovering so much oil in the U.S. there’s talk of the U.S. being a net oil exporter within a decade. Anyone who claimed this two or three years ago would have been certified insane. And the political implications are nothing short of mind blowing.

Less than six months ago, it seemed a cinch Obama was going to okay Keystone even though Vice President Joe Biden was solidly against it. The President, in fact, was doing some very pretty dance steps to avoid saying Keystone was a go. But thanks to a very effective campaign waged by environmentalists branding Alberta bitumen as “dirty oil” and all the good news on the fracking front, Obama now has wiggle room to say “no” and I think he’s going to do just that.

Call me crazy if you want, but I think the President has already signaled his “no.” And how have I reached this preemptive conclusion? Simple. At his last news conference, Obama used a word that those bitterly opposed to Keystone also use. Referring to Fort McMurray’s famous, perhaps “infamous” would be the better term, “tar sands,” and not oil sands as the pro-Keystone people do.

Laugh at me if you want, but I think the American President has tipped his hand.

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and Cranbrook City Councillor. His opinions are his own.

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