TransCanada Sues Obama Administration for $15 Billion for Rejecting Keystone XL

By Stop Dirty Tar Sands
TransCanada announced Wednesday that they are throwing the corporate equivalent of a temper tantrum over the rejection of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline by filing a lawsuit under NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), in hopes of forcing American taxpayers to pay them billions of dollars to recoup their losses on the ill-fated project that they spent seven years trying to bully the U.S. into letting them build.
Canadian company sues the Obama administration for rejecting Keystone XL pipeline https://t.co/clXRw6AXfv https://t.co/4Bsb508dqe— Los Angeles Times (@Los Angeles Times)1452168320.0
The company said it is looking to recover USD$15 billion in costs and damages as a result of what it says is a breach of obligations under Chapter 11 of NAFTA. TransCanada asserts that the "U.S. administration's decision to deny a presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline was arbitrary and unjustified."
Jane Kleeb of Bold Nebraska disagrees. “The rejection of Keystone XL was justified in order to protect the land, water and property rights of farmers and ranchers," she said. "This desperate attempt by TransCanada is a move to show their shareholders they have a viable project when they have hit a dead end."
As President Obama affirmed in his rejection of the pipeline, KeystoneXL was not in America's national interest. It would not have contributed to our economy, lowered gas prices or contributed to our energy security, and it would have posed a serious threat to land and water along the route and to the climate by significantly increasing carbon emissions.
.@BoldNebraska @janekleeb statement on @TransCanada Suing US Over #KXL Rejection: https://t.co/NTOMly1IVP #NOKXL https://t.co/8SdouZ213N— Bold Nebraska (@Bold Nebraska)1452130289.0
“This isn't going to get the pipeline built, and it is going to remind Americans how many of our rights these agreements give away," Bill McKibben, 350.org co-founder, said. "The idea that some trade agreement should force us to overheat the planet's atmosphere is, quite simply, insane. But the oil industry is so used to always winning that I fear this kind of tantrum is predictable. Corporate power is truly out of control."
This lawsuit will do nothing to change Keystone's fate; it will merely serve to remind the American people that companies like TransCanada are working against their interests, and that trade agreements like the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) would only strengthen their ability to do so.
“Keystone XL is dead and nothing about this legal maneuvering changes that," Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said. "But, TransCanada ought to be ashamed of trying to extract billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars to boost its profits after being stopped in its tracks from building a dirty, dangerous tar sands pipeline in our backyards."
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Clear-cutting a forest is relatively easy—just pick a tree and start chopping. But there are benefits to more sophisticated forest management. One technique—which involves repeatedly harvesting smaller trees every 30 or so years but leaving an upper story of larger trees for longer periods (60, 90, or 120 years)—ensures a steady supply of both firewood and construction timber.
A Pattern in the Rings
<p>The <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/coppice-standards-0" target="_blank">coppice-with-standards</a> management practice produces a two-story forest, said <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bernhard_Muigg" target="_blank">Bernhard Muigg</a>, a dendrochronologist at the University of Freiburg in Germany. "You have an upper story of single trees that are allowed to grow for several understory generations."</p><p>That arrangement imprints a characteristic tree ring pattern in a forest's upper story trees (the "standards"): thick rings indicative of heavy growth, which show up at regular intervals as the surrounding smaller trees are cut down. "The trees are growing faster," said Muigg. "You can really see it with your naked eye."</p><p>Muigg and his collaborators characterized that <a href="https://ltrr.arizona.edu/about/treerings" target="_blank">dendrochronological pattern</a> in 161 oak trees growing in central Germany, one of the few remaining sites in Europe with actively managed coppice-with-standards forests. They found up to nine cycles of heavy growth in the trees, the oldest of which was planted in 1761. The researchers then turned to a historical data set — more than 2,000 oak <a href="https://eos.org/articles/podcast-discovering-europes-history-through-its-timbers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">timbers from buildings and archaeological sites</a> in Germany and France dating from between 300 and 2015 — to look for a similar pattern.</p>A Gap of 500 Years
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