TransCanada Corp. is seeking to recoup $15 billion for the Obama administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, in a legal claim that highlights how foreign companies can use trade deals to challenge U.S. policy.
The Calgary-based pipeline operator filed papers late Friday seeking arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement, arguing that TransCanada had every reason to believe it would win approval to build Keystone XL. Instead, President Barack Obama last November determined that the pipeline, which would have carried Canadian oil sands crude to the U.S. Gulf coast, wasn’t in the national interest. In response, TransCanada in January vowed to use arbitration provisions in Chapter 11 of Nafta to recover costs and damages.
The company said the U.S. spent seven years delaying a final decision on the project with multiple rounds of “arbitrary and contrived” analyses and justifications.
The request for arbitration is here. It is mostly factual background, and the legal argument is not elaborated.
It will take years for the legal claims to be resolved, but in the meantime, will there be an impact on the TPP debate?
Also note the strange Donald Trump position on Keystone:
Donald Trump's vow to resuscitate the Keystone XL oil pipeline in exchange for a share of its profits has a glaring problem: It risks running afoul of laws against government takings of private property. And even supporters of the project warn that it risks hurting relations with Canada, the nation's No. 1 oil supplier.
The presumptive Republican nominee has repeatedly pledged to revive the Canada-to-Texas pipeline, a long-standing cause for Republicans in Congress, but Trump has brought a twist. He wants U.S. taxpayers to get a slice of the project's revenue.
"I want it built, but I want a piece of the profits," Trump said May 26 before delivering an energy speech to an oil-industry audience in North Dakota. "That's how we're going to make our country rich again."
No doubt TransCanada stands poised to amend its filings, although perhaps this will not be necessary.
