PIPELINE OBSERVER WINTER 2018

PIPELINE

WINTER 2018

CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF ENERGY AND PIPELINE LANDOWNER ASSOCIATIONS

OBSERVER

A BASIC RIGHT

The case for allowing Indigenous individuals to own land OPPOSING SAFETY

Keystone XL critics advocate for danger and destruction

CLIMATE OF DECEPTION

Eyeing the motivations behind global-warming mania

MANAGING TRUST

Time to change the land management paradigm CAEPL A .ORG

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Deep roots. We didn’t start learning to drive a tractor at 10 years old. Or rise to the challenge of running the family farm.

But we do help power the machinery that will empower generations of farmers to come. When the energy you invest in farming meets the energy we fuel it with, sustaining a nation happens.

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CONTENTS

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04 07 09 13 15 17 20 23 24

26 28 30 32 34

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Cover photo: Alamy Stock Photo

“We do not have a level playing field; we don’t have adequate property rights and we don’t uphold the primacy of the real stakeholders in pipeline negotiations.”

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36 37 38 39 41

Keystone XL Rises From the Dead TransCanada gets a do-over

Are We At Peak Regulation?

NEB, activists neuter Canada’s energy industry

Rethinking Aboriginal History

Indigenous North Americans and private property

Industry and Indigenous Priorities

Not all Aboriginal communities oppose development

Indigenous Canadians Need Property Rights The future of energy transport depends on it

The Global Warming Deception

New book eyes motivations behind climate claims

Keystone XL vs. Anti-Carbon Hysteria

Environmentalists prefer dangerous alternatives

Safer and More Efficient

Detection tech pre-empts pipeline problems

How Can Pipeline Companies Protect Property Values?

That’s easy: Pay rent.

A Matter Of Trust

Changing land management as we know it

Want Peace With Pipelines?

Stop expropriation and end eminent domain

The Moral Case For Energy Development Time to act in favour of human wellbeing

Regulatory Regime Change Is Due Property rights before climate policy

A Tale Of Two Energy Companies

Rancher credits CAEPLA for helping build good relations with Enbridge

Innovative Mat Technology

Project reflects landowner priorities

Much-Needed Lifeblood

Line 3 replacement pumps investment into Prairies

Building a Damage-Prevention Process

Landowners can voice support for safety rules

Ready To Respond

Operators are emergency-management experts

Pipeline Giant Changes Course

Enbridge embraces grassroots at workshop series

Pipeline Observer is a publication of the Canadian Association of Energy and Pipeline Landowner Associations (CAEPLA), 257, 918 Albert St., Regina, SK S4R 2P7; 306-522-5000.

All contents copyright ©2018 CAEPLA. Advertising information: advertising@caepla.org | Editorial: editor@caepla.org Administration: admin@caepla.org | caepla.org | Twitter: @CAEPLA

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B Y D AV E C O R E

Keystone XL Rises From the Dead

TransCanada gets a do-over: a second chance to do right by landowners

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an a pipeline company learn?

I sure hope so.

With the election of U.S. President Donald Trump in 2016 and approval from the Nebraska Public Service Commission late last year, TransCanada’s controversial Keystone XL project has been brought back from the dead.

Of course, the proposed pipeline never needed to be so controversial.

But if you have been following the decade-long saga, you know that stretch of pipe has been beaten like a piñata by the North American green movement ever since President Barack Obama took office in 2008.

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For seven long years, Obama played Lucy to TransCanada’s Charlie Brown with the political football called Keystone XL, before finally spiking it in 2015.

On top of all the lost time, TransCanada spent more than $3 billion US on the once-seeminglydefunct project.

With a second lease on life, TransCanada now has a chance to learn from past mistakes.

But what precisely were those mistakes? After all, the company had repeatedly passed every environmental and safety test imposed on it by the U.S. State Department, the federal bureaucracy tasked with reviewing the cross-border project.

TransCanada had put all its faith in that regulatory process, trusting that

the president would do the right thing and approve it.

But Obama was more concerned with ensuring his legacy as the greenest president in American history, and saw the sacrifice of Keystone XL, the poster child for carbon “pollution” and proxy for Alberta’s evil oil sands, as the best way to guarantee his reputation with environmentalists.

War on the oil sands

So how did the green movement manage to make Keystone XL a cause celebre?

Obviously, the war on Canada’s oil sands was a big part of it. If oil is the opium in humanity’s addiction to carbon energy, the oil sands are heroin— and Keystone XL became the needle.

Alamy Stock Photo

I know the company can learn. It already has a blueprint for dealing successfully with landowners.

But in order to turn Nebraska, a notoriously conservative state, into TransCanada’s Waterloo, green extremists would need some political bedfellows.

And they found some strange ones— none other than many of the Cornhusker State’s farmers and ranchers, along with actual conservationists concerned about the vulnerable Sandhills dunes and Ogallala aquifer.

Why would conservative-minded farmers and ranchers join forces with green radicals to block an oil pipeline, you ask?

I mentioned that Nebraska is one of the most conservative states of the Union. At the core of that conservatism is a bedrock belief in property rights.

Perhaps due to its long history in Canada with the National Energy

Board, TransCanada’s natural inclination, and its whole strategy to get XL across the border, was to win over the bureaucracy.

They, or rather their high-priced political consultants, failed to appreciate the importance of the grassroots, of political activism, and that ultimately, all politics is local.

I believe this was the company’s first and biggest mistake, one we hope it won’t repeat this time round.

By focusing solely on pleasing federal regulators, TransCanada overlooked the most important part of any pipeline project. Almost from the word go, the company alienated too many of its prospective business partners: local landowners.

Landowners were effectively taken for granted. The company appeared certain it could easily get every Right of Way required, and when it couldn’t, there was Eminent Domain.

Fertile fields for green activists

Eminent domain, known in Canada as expropriation, or forced Right of Entry, is the very opposite of respect for property rights. It is legal land theft, a way to transfer wealth from landowners to shareholders of a company with which they are unwilling to do business.

Things got so ugly on the entire Keystone route that some landowners wound up arrested, in jail or intimidated by armed private security—just for standing up to the company on their own land.

This, unsurprisingly, alienated not only directly affected farmers and ranchers, but real-life social

networks—their families, friends, neighbours, business partners and the general public across the heavily rural state.

This created fertile fields for green activists to sow seeds of discontent and resistance to the project when they descended on the scene.

Once anti-oil, anti-pipeline green extremists entered into their unholy alliance with local landowners, Hollywood and left-leaning corporate media soon followed.

This series of events, all arising from TransCanada’s initial lack of respect for landowners, is what turned Nebraska into a minefield for the company.

And it provided Obama with all the political cover he needed to constantly delay and ultimately kill Keystone XL. But with the resurrection of the project, and some controversy regarding whether the NPSC approval—which involved stipulating a new route—is legal, will come renewed campaigns from the anti-pipeline green agitators.

If TransCanada has learned anything from its 10-year XL ordeal, it ought to be to do right by local farmers and ranchers. And to answer my own question from above, I know the company can learn. It already has a blueprint for dealing successfully with landowners. Four of them in fact.

I refer to the agreements we at CAEPLA negotiated for our Canadian pipeline landowners with TransCanada during the whole time XL was in peril south of the border.

TransCanada was vilified by some in Nebraska for being Canadian. And yet if the company had been more Canadian, behaved more like it did with

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Canadian landowners, it might have avoided conflict with property owners south of the border altogether.

And by avoiding conflict with those landowners, Nebraska would have been very unfriendly terrain for eco-agitators, which would have meant no stage for Hollywood virtue signallers and no story for global corporate media to report.

Win-win business agreements

Meanwhile, I would love to tell you all about those win-win business agreements CAEPLA concluded with TransCanada in Canada.

But I can’t.

The company insisted we keep the details we agreed to on Keystone, Keystone XL, Groundbirch and Towerbirch confidential.

In our Fall 2017 issue, we commented on abandonment issues and Nova Gas Transmission Ltd. (NGTL)’s application to the NEB for the abandonment of the Peace River Mainline (PRML). We are pleased to update that CAEPLA has

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resolved all issues with NGTL (a wholly owned subsidiary of TransCanada) with respect to its Peace River Mainline Abandonment project and as demonstrated in NGTL’s regulatory filings, NGTL is taking landowner concerns seriously. NGTL has reiterated that landowners will not be liable for the costs of abandonment.

And that is about all we can say. But our advice to TransCanada CEO Russ Girling is this: release us from the confidentiality clause of those agreements you arrived at with CAEPLA so that we can speak openly with Nebraska landowners about negotiating similar win-win business agreements for them.

Doing so would be some of the best grassroots PR you can avail yourself of. And we suspect the outside antipipeline agitators would soon find Nebraska a little bit less hospitable.

By bringing more Canada—and more CAEPLA—to your new route through Nebraska, a genuine partnership with local landowners is possible.

Nebraska landowners deserve an-

other option. Another approach from the one taken, for instance, by your adversaries with Bold Nebraska.

And to Nebraska landowners: there really is another way.

Ask Mr. Girling to release the agreements TransCanada signed with CAEPLA (we are also registered in the US as the Continental Association of Energy and Pipeline Landowner Associations).

And then we urge you to join CAEPLA. Then together we can work to persuade the company to negotiate a win-win business agreement—like it has done many times in Canada.

You may be pleasantly surprised.

And you won’t need to be anybody’s strange political bedfellow. 

Dave Core is founding president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Energy and Pipeline Landowner Associations. Dave has been active in the pipeline landowners movement for nearly three decades.

Facing page: Alamy Stock Photo; This page: iStockphoto.com

BY AMANDA ACHTMAN

Are We At Peak Regulation?

The NEB has helped ‘activists’ neuter Canada’s energy industry

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ust months after the BP oil spill in 2010, Terence Corcoran penned a piece in the National Post titled “The new oil risk: peak regulation.” He explained, “Peak oil theorists believe

the world is approaching a point where consumption is exceeding the world supply of oil, a theory that has many holes but which could become a reality if governments begin to impose regimes that prevent the finding of new reserves. […] The way to make that prospect of peak oil a reality, of course,

is to regulate oil in ways that prevent reserve development.”

Last October, TransCanada President and CEO Russ Girling announced the company’s cancellation of its $15.7-billion Energy East pipeline proposal “in light of the project’s inability to reach a regulatory decision.”

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We do not have adequate property rights and we do not uphold the legitimate primacy of the real stakeholders in pipeline negotiations.

Last year, Northern Gateway, a $7.9-billion project that was initially approved subject to 209 conditions, was also kiboshed.

The mood is somber in my hometown of Calgary. The burdensome regulations on the industry that fuels not only the Alberta economy but Canadian prosperity is the talk of the town in cafes bustling with frustrated citizens who have vacated the office towers.

With a cowardly socialist government in Alberta, it took the premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, to express the malaise of project after project, prospect after prospect being killed.

“Something needs to change,” Wall wrote in October. “For the west to continue on like this in our federal system is the equivalent of having Stockholm syndrome. [… Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s] actions and his government’s actions may well have some westerners wondering if this country really values western Canada, the resources we have, and the things we do to contribute to the national economy and to quality of life for all.”

The allusion to Stockholm syndrome is apt. I recall a news story last fall about the 100,000 jobless energy workers. It profiled Dennis Agbegha, a 38-year-old with a graduate degree in petroleum geoscience from the U.K. who worked for Exxon Mobil Corp.

After being laid off and applying for

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hundreds of new positions, the best he could get was a meagre position at a Crown corporation.

And when geologist Ryan Lemiski was laid off, he decided to pursue further studies hoping to eventually work in “the green industry.”

It is truly sad when, having been taken hostage by the regulatory regime, formerly productive workers join the forces of their captors and succumb to the demands of political mirages rather than meeting the authentic market demand of Canadians for efficient, affordable energy.

The term “regulate” is related to the word “rule,” and “to regulate” also means “to govern by restriction” and this seems to be the main approach of the National Energy Board and other regulatory bodies. Instead of regulation being a framework for action, providing the rules of the game (the term “petroleum plays” connotes a sense of prospect and potential), “regulation” now implies being dominated by countless hoops through which it is almost impossible to jump.

There is, let me be clear, no need to protect the oil and gas industry—that is, to artificially assure its longevity. As new sources of energy and new technologies emerge, if they are affordable and reliable there will be ample incentives for them to flourish.

But we do not have a level playing

field; we do not have a properly free market. We do not have adequate property rights and we do not uphold the legitimate primacy of the real stakeholders in pipeline negotiations.

This is to our shame and to our detriment as Canadians. It is especially disheartening that the majority of the country is woefully indifferent to the stupidity of the insurmountable regulations that have become merely a masquerade behind which every anti-development “activist” hides.

Former minister of finance and natural resources Joe Oliver is trying to give Canadians a wake-up call and shake us out of our complacency.

“Canadian indifference, largely outside Alberta and Saskatchewan, is costing the country dearly,” he said, “because if the public did care, then no government, regardless of its political stripe, would dare thwart the determined will of the people.”

He wondered: “Is anyone home, or is everyone posing for a selfie?” 

Calgary writer Amanda Achtman holds an MA in philosophy and a BA in political science. She has participated in seminars on economics and the free society hosted by numerous institutes, including: the Acton Institute, Mises Institute and the Foundation for Economic Education.

B Y R YA N M C M A K E N

Rethinking Aboriginal History

iStockphoto.com

Did Indigenous North Americans understand the concept of private property?

O

ne of Ayn Rand’s most notorious claims is that Europeans and their descendants were justified in driving Indigenous tribes off their lands because Aboriginal Americans “did not have the concept of property or property rights,” and because they “wish[ed] to continue a primitive existence.” Rand also claimed the Indian tribes had no right to the land they lived

on because “they didn't have a settled society,” and “had predominantly nomadic tribal ‘cultures.’”

Rand’s use of quotation marks around “cultures” perhaps implies a judgment that Indigenous culture was not really culture at all.

Today, many critics of laissez-faire liberalism (i.e. libertarianism) continue to quote these lines in order to indict all defenders of private property, whom critics like to associate with Rand’s peculiar ideology.

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As with so many accusations that conflate Rand’s beliefs with libertarians, this is misplaced. Many libertarian writers have approached the issue from a perspective that assumes the tribes were treated unjustly.

Leonard Liggio, for example, discussed the issue from this perspective in the early 1970s, and Rothbard repeatedly wrote with sympathy in Conceived in Liberty about the tribes who interacted with colonial Americans. To this day, First Nations sovereignty, as weak as it is, continues to be an important check on federal power.

Regardless of how one views European and North American policy toward the tribes, however, the argument that the tribes and individuals had no concept of

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property—and thus whites were justified in seizing tribal lands—is a terrible one for a variety of reasons.

First, as we shall see, the idea that Indigenous people and their tribes had no concept of property is completely alien to the actual historical facts in the matter.

Second, this argument is especially damaging and misguided because it creates the impression that the concept of private property is not apparent to all rational human beings, and is perhaps even an invention of European theorists.

This argument, of course, is beloved

by Marxists and other anti-capitalist ideologues who argue that the idea of private property is peculiar to capitalists who invented the concept to justify their own “exploitation” of workers.

Fortunately, this is not the case at all. The concept of property—in any situation where scarcity exists—is self-evident, and does not require complex theories spun by Europeans to become apparent.

Indigenous tribes weren’t all the same One reason that even educated people like Rand have believed that North American Indians were virtually all “nomadic” and did not understand the concept of property, is the influence of Hollywood. In Rand's day especially, popular culture virtually always focused primarily on Plains Indians— frequently the Lakota and Cheyenne

Facing page and this page: iStockphoto.com

tribes—and rarely portrayed tribes with very different social structures.

In real life, Indian tribes across North America—prior to the 20th century— varied considerably in social structure, lifestyle and the usage of technology.

Indeed, whenever one encounters commentary that refers to “the Indians” as a uniform group, this should be a red flag to the reader that the argument is being made by someone who knows next to nothing about the tribes.

The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico were not nomadic at all, and employed agriculture, much like the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" (i.e., Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole). The Cherokee were known for their successful use of agriculture

(which prompted whites to later steal their fertile lands under President Andrew Jackson). The Iroquois rotated their living quarters between several locations that were regarded as the best for farming and hunting.

Virtually all tribes recognized the validity of personal property. Individual tribe members were not expected to "share" their horses, weapons, dwellings and slaves among all other members of the tribe.

Complex economic rules Indeed, many tribes, especially among the Plains Indians, developed a complex economic and social structure around the so-called “horse culture,” in which

ownership of the highest-quality horses was a symbol of wealth and a means of attaining status, power and prestige within the tribe.

In regards to the Comanches of the southern plains, economist Bruce Benson has observed: “Private ownership was firmly established for such things as horses, tools for hunting and gathering, food, weapons, materials used in the construction of mobile shelters, clothing and various kinds of body ornaments that were used for religious ceremonies and other activities.

“Cooperative production (group raids to take horses from enemy tribes or group hunts) did not imply communal ownership. The product of such cooperative activities was divided among participants according to their contributed effort.

“Individuals might share such things as food at times, but they did so out of generosity. Food could be given but not taken because it was private property not communal property.”

Another reason many continue to think aboriginal Americans had no concept of private property, however, is that many tribes did regard land as being communally owned. Carl Watner explores the topic in The Journal of Libertarian Studies: “Misunderstanding arising from their differing concepts of property in land was one of the main causes of disputes between the Europeans and the Indians. The Indians did not recognize land appropriation by individual members of the tribe, and even Roger Williams recognized that landownership among the Indians was usually held by the tribe.

“Nevertheless, among the Indians articles of personal property were owned by the individual. Each Indian tribe was perfectly well acquainted with the limits and bounds of its landhold-

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Each Indian tribe was perfectly well acquainted with the limits and bounds of its landholdings.

Communal property is private property To conclude that Indigenous people and their tribes had no concept of private property is to narrow the definition of “property” to the point of being useless.

As I've noted in the past, communal property is private property, since ownership is restricted to specific groups of people, to the exclusion of others.

Communal property is not “shared” among just anyone who wants to use it.

Communal property is not unowned.

This issue is further complicated by an overly restrictive idea of homesteading employed by some libertarian theorists.

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John Locke, of course, famously asserted that ownership of land can be obtained through three methods:

1. Homestead it via fencing it in, protecting it and proclaiming that it is under your ownership.

2. Acquiring the property title via voluntary transfer.

3. Claiming abandoned land by adverse possession: move on it, fence it, mix one's labour with it, etc.

Those who claim that the Indian tribes had no right to their land often employ this reasoning to build their case. But this is too limiting in its idea of homesteading the land. Consider, for example, that a plot of land exists with a lake on it. Inside the lake are fish. A group of people then claims the lake as its own in order to catch the fish, and excludes other groups from the land.

Has this group homesteaded it?

A strict view of Lockean “improvement” (i.e. mixing labour with the land) might be that this group of Indigenous people has no claim to the land because it hasn’t improved it by planting trees or putting a fence around it.

Controlling access is land improvement But in fact, the very act of excluding others is an act of improvement, because limiting use of the lake ensures it’s not overfished, and preserves the value of the land for use by a specific group of owners. The homesteading tribe has not

left the lake in its “natural” state. Access has been controlled for the specific purpose of preserving value.

In practice, value can be added to land in any number of ways, and land is useful for many purposes other than planting crops or building a factory.

Thus, when nomadic tribes exclude others from specific hunting lands, they are preserving resources—such as fertile grazing areas for game—that give the land value. If hunting grounds are not exclusive, resulting in overhunting that drives away game, then the value of the land has been destroyed for hunting purposes. By preventing this destruction of value, the homesteaders have asserted their ownership of the land in question.

In spite of the tribes’ habitual use of personal property, and in spite of a clear understanding that ownership in land can be both asserted and traded, the idea that Indigenous people “did not have the concept of property or property rights” continues to endure in some corners of the libertarian world and among conservatives. It is an ahistorical and fact-free approach that should be abandoned as soon as possible. 

Ryan McMaken is the editor of Mises Wire and The Austrian. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

Facing page: Alamy Stock Photo

ings, even though these holdings were not enclosed in the normal European fashion.”

“As voluntary associations, the tribes could, and in fact did, sell their rights to the soil by allowing their chiefs to represent tribal interests. These chiefs were authorized to make and execute deeds on behalf of the tribe, to receive for the tribe the consideration for the deeds, and to divide such consideration among the individuals of the tribe.

“The authority of the chiefs, so acting for the whole tribe, is attested by the presence and assent of the individuals composing the tribe and by their receipt of their respective share of the price.”

Thus, some Indigenous tribes could deal with the Europeans for the sale of their lands, and in many cases the chiefs had the authority to determine what would be suitable compensation for those lands.

BY AMANDA ACHTMAN

Harmonizing Industry and Indigenous Rights

Not all aboriginal communities oppose energy and economic development

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henever I attend a performance of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, it is an intensely civic experience as well as a cultural and aesthetic one. The last concert I attended, I recall an announcement

being made at the outset acknowledging the traditional First Nation land on which the performance was taking place. Flipping through the program, concertgoers can peruse the logos of the various energy companies who have sponsored the event.

And so, a westerner might naturally contemplate during a classical concert

how First Nations property rights are intersecting with energy industry and the government’s regulatory regime today.

In a 2016 report, First Nations Engagement in the Energy Sector in Western Canada, historian Ken Coates said: “Canada struggles to reconcile these two apparently contradictory realities.

On the one hand, the natural resource

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Oddly, First Nations citizens are commonly treated as a single, homogenous stakeholder group. But of course, First Nations people do not share all the same opinions and interests when it comes to property rights and natural resource development.

sector is the largest employer of highly paid First Nations workers in the country. [It] has supported a dramatic expansion of Indigenous entrepreneurship and has empowered dozens of First Nations communities through major financial and engagement agreements.

“At the same time, pipelines and the complexities of petroleum exploration and development have created numerous flashpoints and conflicts between Aboriginal communities, companies and governments.”

A plurality of opinions Oddly, First Nations citizens are commonly treated as a single, homogenous stakeholder group. But of course, First Nations people do not share all the same opinions and interests when it comes to property rights and natural resource development.

Supposing that anyone speaks for or represents “the First Nations community” is insincere. There are proponents and opponents of each project on all sides. Pretending otherwise for the attempted purpose of simplifying the issues is dehumanizing, and disregards the plurality of opinions common among any plurality of individuals.

According to a National Energy Board Factsheet, “the NEB takes Aboriginal concerns into account before it makes any decision that may have

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an impact on the rights or interests of Aboriginal groups.

“The NEB requires that companies provide it with specific information regarding the consultation they have undertaken with Aboriginal groups as well as information about potential impacts on the rights and interests of Aboriginal groups and proposed mitigation measures to address those impacts.

“Once an application is filed, Aboriginal groups who have a concern about the proposed application are encouraged to participate directly in the NEB proceedings and bring all relevant concerns forward.”

Noted Coates: “A joint venture is not as exciting as a blockade, so we don’t hear about them because we all know conflict generates more media interest.”

Yet, there is much to be learned from some exemplars—First Nations communities who stand their ground, defend their property and their interests, do business as equal partners, and reap the economic benefits of participation in an industry on which we all depend.

Fort McKay has long been touted as a success story in this regard. The Fort McKay Group of Companies in northern Alberta is fully owned by the band.

With more than 4,000 employees, $700 million in annual revenue and First Nation leadership, Fort McKay is a serious player in the energy sector and an example of what First Nation re-

sponsibility for land, business and legal negotiating looks like in practice.

Meeting needs, respecting rights The whole purported purpose of regulation and consultation in the energy sector in Canada is to create a framework for action so that the needs of all can be met—while the rights of all are respected.

Some First Nations communities will choose blockades and protests against every pipeline project and, to some extent, that’s their prerogative. But others will choose to eliminate unemployment, promote high-income job opportunities, play by the rules, respect property rights and the rule of law and ensure a prosperous future for the rising generation— one that is dependent on participation in the community’s economy rather than on every level of government.

In the same way a classical concert fixes everyone’s attention on what is best and sublime, it is worthwhile to seek out the creative and noble examples of First Nations people who excel at reconciling their traditional culture with the modern economy. In Western Canada, there are notable pockets of harmony between Indigenous people and the natural resource sector. It would be music to our ears if the rest of the country started to focus on the conditions that make it so. 

BY C. KENNETH REEDER

Indigenous Canadians Need Property Rights

The future of the energy transport industry depends on it

Alamy Stock Photo

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hy do pipeline companies negotiate with native bands instead of individual Indigenous landowners?

It’s because for the most part there are no individual Indigenous landowners. Under the reserve system of the Indian Act, no one in a band owns land at all.

Sometimes we speak casually as though the band owns reserve lands in some collective sense, but even that isn’t true. For the most part reserves are actually owned by the Crown—meaning the federal government.

Also, Indigenous people cannot homestead any of the vast amounts of Canada’s Crown land for mineral exploration or agriculture or anything like that. Ottawa makes those decisions. They cannot use their homes as security for loans to start a business.

So we have almost 1.5 million Canadians stuck on 30,000 square kilometers of land where they lack basic property rights so fundamental that most of us don’t even realize we have them.

The result is poverty.

Indigenous land is administered by bureaucrats at the Department of Indigenous Affairs in Ottawa. Think about that for a minute.

Imagine if no one in your neighbourhood were allowed to own a house, with everything run by 5,000 bureaucrats in Ottawa. Is there any doubt that your neighbourhood would rapidly become depressingly poor, with homes marked by decrepitude and the people by social dysfunction?

Indicators of social dysfunction on reserves parallel those seen in Soviet Russia—high unemployment, suicide, capital consumption, alcohol abuse and so on.

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We have almost 1.5 million Canadians stuck on 30,000 square kilometers of land where they lack basic property rights so fundamental that most of us don’t even realize we have them.

The poverty on some reserves is startling but it shouldn’t surprise anyone. The third-world conditions of many reserves sadly illustrate the consequences of ignoring economic laws and treating Indigenous people like bulk-rate second-class citizens.

Now, other than generally encouraging a culture of short-sightedness and its resulting poverty, this has interesting implications. More specifically, when it comes to big energy infrastructure projects, it means decision-making is centralized and subject to political interference.

Many energy industry supporters begrudge Indigenous bands—along with radical environmentalists—for stonewalling economically important projects even when they seem like no-brainers that would fill the bands’ treasuries with money that could make big differences in the people’s lives.

But it’s always easier to influence something when all the power is located at the top. It’s harder to wield influence when decision-making power is spread out.

We criticize the National Energy Board because it takes on so much decision-making power that it becomes a focal point for influence-peddling and collusion. The band structure is unfortunately similar.

As a practical matter, most band councils are worse than feudal lords and are something more akin to Soviet commissars. Like your average power-loving politician, many band councils want to enrich themselves. If that just leaves scraps for everyone else, oh well.

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If a radical eco-activist group gains influence with band leadership, that may shut out the common band member from having his or her voice adequately considered, despite the carefully crafted illusion of consensus, consultation and solidarity.

Band councillors tend to be wealthier than the common man or woman on Indigenous land, so it doesn’t necessarily affect them much if they reject major investments. But this precludes everybody else from prospering.

Some Indian Act reactionaries and apologists argue that our concept of “private property” is a Western concept and it doesn’t fit with indigenous social values.

There is a lot of evidence that this isn’t historically correct, but in any case communal property is still a form of private property. We can illustrate this by considering the common areas

of a condominium. They are still “private property” even though they are collectively owned.

Reforming the legal rights of Indigenous Canadians might seem politically impossible, especially when so many benefit from the status quo.

But we should strive to make it one of this country’s top ethical priorities.

This would be infinitely better for our Indigenous people and our energy industry. 

C. Kenneth Reeder is a Calgary financial analyst providing mergers and acquisitions advisory services for mid-sized, privately held companies in Western Canada. He works with many clients in the oilfield services sector. He is also the editor of CanadianMarketReview.com.

BY TIM BALL, PHD

The Global Warming Deception

Facing page and this page: Alamy Stock Photo

New book by the Canadian climatologist who advised Trump examines the motivations behind climate-change claims

I

studied weather as aircrew and an operations officer with the Canadian Air Force. I learned how little we knew and how bad the forecasts were. They were almost useless beyond 48 hours then, and sadly it is the same today.

Despite this, similar computer models are used to make climate forecasts that tell us with 95 per cent certainty it will be warmer 50 years from now. What is going on? A massive deception is the simple answer.

After the Air Force, I determined to study weather and climate. This culminated in a Ph.D. in Historical Climatology from the University of London, England.

When I began in the late 1960s, global cooling was the consensus. I opposed that alarmist, unfounded prediction, as I later did the claim that global warming was due to humans.

I knew from long-term records that the climate changes all

the time, and all current changes are well within natural variability and do not correlate with CO2 changes.

Late in 2016 I was invited, along with former Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts and climate data specialist Tony Heller, to make a presentation on Capitol Hill and another before a group called Cooler Heads. The invitation came from Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who was appointed by the Trump organization to make proposals about the role of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overall and specifically regarding global warming.

The EPA deliberately lost a lawsuit to the State of Massachusetts that charged the agency for failing to protect state citizens from the harmful substance CO2. By losing, the EPA forced the case to be adjudicated by the U.S. Supreme Court.

They had to make the ruling under Administrative law, as Justice Scalia noted and determined that the EPA was legally required to control CO2.

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Plants need more atmospheric CO2, not less— optimally about 1,200 parts per million.

Understanding the science The problem is, it was the EPA that decided that CO2 was a harmful substance. The ruling allowed the Obama administration to bypass Congress to achieve its global warming policy. It became the major argument used to support Obama’s push for the Paris Climate Agreement and the Green Climate Fund, the replacement for the failed Kyoto Protocol. That was a bad deal, as the U.S. Senate determined when it voted 95-0 to not even vote on accepting it.

My recommendation in Washington was that President Donald Trump withdraw from the Paris Agreement, but not on the basis of the bad science.

I warned, based on experience from teaching a science credit course to arts students for 25 years, that he would be easily tripped up and most of the public would not understand anyway.

Wisely, he simply explained that it was a bad deal for the United States because it gave a competitive economic edge to other nations, especially China.

It was also valuable that his daughter Ivanka had supported the Paris Agreement but, as a good businessperson, changed when she saw the details.

Trump could explain that the science was premeditated and deliberately orchestrated to demonize CO2 for a political agenda, but most would not understand. Promoters of what is called anthropogenic global warming knew most people wouldn’t understand the science, and exploited that.

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Most Don't Know That...

• Plants need more atmospheric CO2, not less—optimally about 1,200 parts per million (ppm).

• Current levels of 400 ppm are close to the lowest levels in 600 million years.

• CO2 is only four per cent of the total green-house gases. Water vapor is 95 per cent.

• In every record, the temperature increases before CO2.

• The only place where a CO2 increase causes a temperature increase is in the computer models of the IPCC. • Every temperature forecast (they call them projections) the IPCC made since 1990 was wrong • If your forecast is wrong, your science is wrong

Selling the crisis The question is, what was the motive for demonizing CO2? It began in 1968 when the Club of Rome decided that the world was overpopulated and expanded the Malthusian idea that the population would outgrow the food supply. Club of Rome member Canadian Maurice Strong told Elaine Dewar in her book Cloak of Green that the problem for the

planet was the industrialized nations, and it was everybody’s duty to shut them down.

Dewar asked Strong how he planned to do that. He said he was going to the UN because: “He could raise his own money from whomever he liked, appoint anyone he wanted, and control the agenda.” After five days with him at the UN Dewar concluded: “Strong was using the UN as a platform to sell a global environment crisis and the Global Governance Agenda.”

The UN agency established to examine human-caused global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was limited to only studying human causes by the definition created in Article 1 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It is impossible to identify the human cause without understanding and including all natural causes.

This IPCC focus put almost all the attention on CO2 as the byproduct of industry causing global warming. Two warning signs of deception were that 97 per cent of scientists agreed. First, science is not about consensus. Second, the research was completely concocted.

Actually, most scientists never read the IPCC Reports and simply accept what is publicized. Those who do read them are stunned by what they find, as happened to German meteorologist and physicist Klaus-Eckart Puls.

“Ten years ago, I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. One day I started checking the facts and data. First I

started with a sense of doubt, but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements,” Puls said, adding: “To this day, I still feel shame that as a scientist I made presentations of their science without first checking it.”

Alamy Stock Photo

Surprising reactions My challenge to the government version of global warming became increasingly problematic. They couldn’t say I wasn’t qualified. Attacks included death threats, false information about my qualifications posted on the Internet, and three lawsuits from IPCC members all filed by the same lawyer.

Most people can’t believe that such things occur about opinions in a democratic society. I urge them to test the idea by telling people that they don’t accept the idea of human-caused global warming. The reaction from most, who know nothing about the science, will surprise them.

I documented what went on in a detailed, fully referenced, book titled

The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science. A lawyer commented that it lays out and effectively supports the case, but is “a tough slog.” I recently published a brief ‘non-slog’ handbook for the majority of people, not to insult their intelligence, but to help them understand the science and its misuse for a political agenda.

Titled Human Caused Global Warming: The Biggest Deception in History, it’s presented in the logical form of a criminal or journalistic investigation.

It answers the basic questions of Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. It provides the motive and method for the corruption of science to substantiate and bolster Trump’s decision. 

Tim Ball, PhD, is a Victoria-based climatologist, author and lecturer, and professor emeritus, University of Winnipeg. In March 2007 Dr. Ball met with leading U.S. senators, representatives and chiefs of staff in Washington, D.C. He also testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources’ Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.

Human Caused Global Warming: The Biggest Deception in History is a new book by Tim Ball, PhD, that challenges the position of the Canadian government and world environmentalists on climate-change science.

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B Y PA U L D R I E S S E N

Keystone XL vs Anti-Carbon Hysteria

Radical environmentalists prefer dangerous, inhumane, ecologically destructive alternatives

T

he Nebraska Public Service Commission recently voted to approve that U.S. state’s segment of the 1,950-kilometre Keystone XL Pipeline. While that would appear to allow construction to move forward, more obstacles loom before KXL can finally bring North Dakotan and Canadian crude oil to Texas refineries.

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Commissioners who voted against approval have raised objections, some landowners still object to the pipeline crossing their lands, other landowners were not aware that the new route would cross their properties, and environmentalists plan more lawsuits in an effort to stop TransCanada’s plans to finish Keystone.

Further complicating matters, the Nebraska-approved route is not the company’s preferred path through the

Cornhusker State. A spokesman said project engineers would have to assess how much the newly revised route will affect construction schedules and costs, on top of the $3 billion it has already spent on KXL. This imbroglio is a tiny facet of the ideological green movement’s implacable opposition to carbon-based energy.

Rooted in climate-change dogma, its “keep it in the ground” mantra has become a rallying cry for nasty cam-

More obstacles loom before KXL can finally bring North Dakotan and Canadian crude oil to Texas refineries.

Green industry, and how little fundamental facts affect its thinking. If the radicals believe there is an ecological or climate risk, they feel justified in using intimidation, criminal sanctions, and even force, violence and eco-terror to impose their will. Whatever they cannot make off limits via Antiquities Act, wilderness or other land use designations, they intend to lock up or shut down by other means.

iStockphoto.com

Less expensive and safer

paigns against pipeline construction, existing pipelines, drilling and even sand destined for fracking operations.

Police increasingly have to deal with masked thugs, mountains of toxic trash, murder threats and even the possibility of improvised bombs hidden in the encampments of “peaceful protesters.”

These attitudes and actions underscore the increasing power and recalcitrance of the $13-billion-per-year Big

The most delayed and litigated pipeline in U.S. history, KXL has stirred controversy for over a decade. Proponents say it is a necessary, safe, effective way to transport crude oil to refineries that produce fuel for vehicles and raw materials for countless petrochemical products. In fact, segments of Keystone have already been in operation for several years, delivering crude oil to refineries in Illinois and Texas.

A new, shorter, more direct route— Keystone XL, running diagonally through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska—would be less expensive and safer. The northern portions were approved years ago, but the Nebraska section encountered prolonged opposition from climate alarmists and President Obama.

TransCanada had already agreed to move the route away from environmentally sensitive wetlands known as the Nebraska Sandhills. The Nebraska

state decision shifted the pipeline farther away from Sandhills.

But diehard opponents say all pipelines are inherently unsafe, prolong the use of “climate-damaging” fossil fuels, and will become obsolete relics as North America shifts entirely to renewable energy in a utopian decade or so.

The United States already has 260,000 km of liquid petroleum pipelines, 500,000 km of natural gas transmission pipelines, and 3.5 million km of local gas distribution pipelines.

Skilled builders will use the latest steel, valve, monitoring and other technologies to build the KXL segment and prevent spills.

No one can guarantee that spills will never occur. A recent break in an older Keystone pipeline in South Dakota caused a 5,000-barrel leak. However, the Keystone and KXL lines traverse mostly rural areas, whereas truck and rail alternatives go along busy, congested highways and through towns and urban areas—with far greater potential for loss of human life and property.

A fiery 2013 derailment in Quebec killed 47 people and left many more badly burned; rail accidents in Colorado and Virginia resulted in significant oil spills but fortunately no deaths.

By carrying 830,000 barrels of light and heavy crude every day, Keystone XL would eliminate the need for 1,225 railroad tanker cars per day (450,000 per year) or 3,500 semi-trailer tanker trucks daily (1,275,000 annually).

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The most delayed and litigated pipeline in U.S. history, KXL has stirred controversy for more than a decade. Proponents say it is a necessary, safe, effective way to transport crude oil to refineries that produce fuel for vehicles and raw materials for countless petrochemical products.

Major ecological impacts More than 99.9% of oil moved by pipeline arrives safely at its destination, the Wall Street Journal notes. Rail transit is 2.5 times more likely to have an accident resulting in an oil spill, and trucks are six times more likely to do so—with both far more likely to injure, burn or kill many people. Indeed, the 5,000-barrel spill happened after the Keystone pipeline had safely delivered more than 1.5 billion barrels of oil, and TransCanada isolated the affected pipeline section within 15 minutes. No serious damage occurred.

Equally important, wind and solar substitutes for fossil fuels have their own major ecological impacts—which few environmentalists ever acknowledge. Using wind power to replace current U.S. electricity generation and charge batteries for just seven windless days of backup power would require some 14 million towering 1.8-MW birdand-bat-killing turbines, across acreage twice the size of California. The backup power would require over 650 million 100-kWh Tesla battery packs on still more acreage.

This does not consider what it would take to replace vehicles with electric versions—or to replace coal and gas fuel in foundries, refineries and factories. The steel, copper, lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, fibreglass and other raw materials to build all those

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turbines, batteries and transmission lines would require massive quantities of earth removal, mining, processing, smelting and manufacturing—much of it in developing countries under dangerous, inhuman conditions. Renewable energy is not ecological or sustainable.

Activists who cry Climate Armageddon attempt to tie every temperature rise, hurricane and other extreme weather event to human greenhouse gas emissions. They ignore the record 12year drought in Category 3-5 hurricanes striking the U.S. mainland, prior to Harvey—and the “warming hiatus” that has prevailed since 1998, except during the 2015-16 El Niño temperature spike.

Computer climate models falsely assume that plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide drives climate change, and predict average global temperatures 0.56°C higher than have actually been observed by satellites and weather balloons. That gap is widening every year.

And it now appears that Western Antarctic ice shelf instability may be due to volcanic and magmatic activity beneath it, and not climate change.

the fossil fuels that still account for 81 per cent of the energy that makes U.S. livelihoods, living standards and lifespans possible—and is lifting billions out of abject poverty, malnutrition and disease. But that day has not yet arrived.

Fossil fuels provide feed stocks for paints, plastics, pharmaceuticals and other products that enrich and safeguard our lives. They keep our lights, heat and air conditioning on, and power the manufacturing centres that create computers, smartphones, healthcare technologies, vehicles and batteries.

They take patients to hospitals, people to work and events, and products to retailers and homes.

They are the most efficient, most affordable power source for the modern civilization that North Americans enjoy and take for granted—and to which all humans aspire. Pipelines are the fastest, safest, most direct, most economical way to get oil and natural gas supplies where they are needed.

Keystone XL is a vital addition to North America’s pipeline system. It’s not perfect. But it is essential for a healthier, safer, more prosperous country. 

Not perfect—but essential Heavily subsidized, sporadic, unreliable wind and solar combined provide less than three per cent of all U.S. energy.

One day, they (or some other as-yet-unimaginable energy source) may replace

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (cfact.org) and author of books and articles on energy and environmental policy.

BY SEAN CORBETT

Safer and More Efficient

Detection tech pre-empts pipeline problems from many angles

Courtesy Enbridge

B

etween the hysteria of eco-doomsayers and the rosy optimism of pipeline execs, there sits a measured concern for pipeline safety.

Obviously there is no such thing as zero risk when you’re pumping millions of gallons of oil in pipes across vast expanses of land.

So what’s the good news?

Like most things, technical innovation inches us ever closer to that 100 per cent safe ideal. Since there is no one perfect method of leak detection, the latest and greatest is to have many working at once.

Defense In Depth

New Dynamic Sensing

Several pipeline monitoring systems work together to give extra layers of security. Enbridge’s Material Balance System (MBS) creates real-time models of ideal pipeline conditions. When it finds a difference between the ideal and what’s actually going on, it trips an alarm to alert supervisors.

Atmos Pipe is another industry-standard system. It works on volume balance, using pressure and flow analysis to detect operational changes in a pipeline.

These two foundational systems work side by side with other automations to monitor pipeline rupture patterns, pressure, flow, temperature, and more.

Now, Hifi Engineering of Calgary is even monitoring sonic changes in pipelines.

The company’s HDS (High Fidelity Dynamic Sensing) fibre optics sense changes in acoustic energy, thermal energy, and kinetic energy. These elements come together to monitor not only bad events (like leaks), but conditions that could lead to events.

An ounce of prevention, and all that.

Or to put it a different way, like a self-improvement guru, the industry can look itself in the mirror each day and say (without irony): “Day by day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” 

Sean Corbett is an Okanagan-based writer and filmmaker. He runs the marketing agency Repria Multimedia Corp (www.repria.ca)

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BY NADIA MOHARIB

How can pipeline companies protect your property values?

That’s easy: Pay rent

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When we purchased the land, it was just coming in.”

It isn’t always an easy coexistence for landowners and the big companies— and the couple suggests that rent would be a great way to protect land values and compensate Albertans bent over the barrel.

Michael says it’s time for government to step up and level the playing field, so companies can be made to pay some sort of compensation to landowners for their cooperation and the devaluing of their land.

“If you look at a map showing all the lines in Alberta, it looks a like a human body with blood veins everywhere,” Michael says.

"There's so many abandoned wells, it’s scary. They should have been putting money aside for clean-up.”

Not everyone plays fair Michael says he and Lilianne, who have 12 children and one granddaughter, have always been intent on “getting the most of (dealings with industry)

Alamy Stock Photo

L

ilianne and Michael Leussink have been living and working on their Alberta property for nearly three decades.

But the couple, who run a cattle and wood-lot operation near Sundre, say contending with the pipeline presence on their land often leaves them tiptoeing about.

“We’ve got TransCanada and Mobil and Pengrowth, a Plains Midstream and a Telus line,” Lilianne says. “On one of the quarters there is a Shell pipeline.

"We have to join together to force pipeline and oil companies to come to the table to negotiate a reasonable agreement and pay rent on lines.”

that we could,” given the sacrifices they made to accommodate the pipelines.

“Now, if someone wants to talk to me I want so much an hour for my time or I am not even talking to you,” Michael says. “Sometimes you can spend two hours discussing a line going in or a well – you shouldn’t be doing that without being paid.”

But not everyone plays fair.

When the couple talked to Shell about a sulphur line on their property and tried to get an annual payment out of the company, for instance, it was a no-go.

And now that line is being abandoned.

“They said, ‘If we give you an annual payment then we have to give it to everyone,’” Michael says. “TransCanada does it. There’s not a consistency (among companies). Some are good and others downright arrogant and uncooperative.”

Lilianne says seeing companies pay rent would maintain or even increase property value. And if landowners chose to sell, it would make the ownership transition easier.

It’s “you can’t build here, you can’t build there—if there was a rental agreement then it would compensate them,” she says.

“If there was rent on it then they could say, ‘Okay, you are making money.’ That would be easier. It gives you an option if you sell your property with a rental pipeline though it. It helps everybody.”

‘Sitting like dead ducks’ As it is, Lilianne says she and Michael have felt they were “sitting there like dead ducks” when trying to have their say with pipeline companies. Issues have included a historical well site with contamination on their property and an abandoned pipeline.

The presence of pipelines means the couple have areas of dead land where they can’t build, and pipelines also put more onus on landowners to be careful—by staying clear of the lines or not driving heavy equipment over where they are buried, which isn’t always reasonable.

“Farmers have to haul manure and they are pounding posts—you can’t really put up a decent fence unless you put posts three feet deep,” Michael says.

“It’s pretty hard when you have been in the same place since 1960s to pull up your roots and go somewhere else.”

The couple has had some contaminated land cleaned up and the province is now dealing with clean-up after the couple discovered the head of a well just 14 inches from the surface, bringing up the smell of diesel when they drilled into the land about two years after buying the property.

A long way to go But battles with big oil and gas companies are nothing new. Some of the

Leussinks’ property was owned by Michael’s father, who had his own run-ins while trying to contend with companies on his land.

“One company put in a well and pipeline and dishonoured everything they agreed and signed to,” Michael says.

“It was that bad. They ended up getting police involved because the CEO was going to arrest my father because he was going to shut them out.”

While there has been some progress in dealings with pipeline companies, Michael says there is still a long way to go. “It’s a struggle. It’s stressful and they take a lot of our time. Some have a long ways to go,” The couple says solutions lie in solidarity.

“I think all Alberta landowners need to get together,” Michael says. “We have more power in numbers and we have to join together to force pipeline and oil companies to come to the table to negotiate a reasonable agreement and pay rent on lines. There’s too many lines.

It’s getting ridiculous and they should be paying something. It doesn’t have to be outrageous, but they have to negotiate.” 

Nadia Moharib is a multimedia news reporter who loves to serve as a voice for an underdog and tell the story behind the story. Always curious, she seeks opportunities to make a difference.

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B Y D AV E B A S PA LY

A Matter of Trust

COVER STORY Ethanol: a politician’s dream but a

Changing land management as we know it

L

and agents have worked on behalf of oil, gas and mining companies for more than 150 years. While they are an essential element for landowner relations, there is a problem with the underlying premise from a landowner’s perspective.

Land agents work for the company that hired them—not the landowner.

So how can they represent the interests of the landowner independently or objectively?

This question has forced a fundamental rethink of land management.

What if, instead of maintaining a land management department within a company, a neutral third-party land agent were hired by both the landowners and the company equally? This approach would reduce perceived bias and create true sharing of ownership and control.

A leap of faith would be required— from both parties. The companies would let go of their intrinsic control and move their land resources into the centre of the table. Landowners would work together and trust in the process.

The good news is that for almost a quarter century, the Canadian Association of Energy and Pipeline Landowner Associations (CAEPLA) has been championing this concept. It has successfully helped companies and landowners understand the value of this approach.

What has been missing is an inde-

taxpayer’s nightmare.

This ethanolpowered “corn bus” plies the streets of Peoria, Illinois.

pendent land-management company that understands this methodology and can act on the ground as a professional neutral guarantor.

Trust cannot be bought or negotiated; it has to be earned and maintained over time. The success of this approach is rooted in neutrality, integrity and professionalism. In essence, it provides the guarantee to both parties that they have met the spirit of the agreement.

That’s where Infocus Land Management’s Independent Construction Monitoring comes in.

This revolutionary new approach is currently being tested in two places: TransCanada’s Towerbirch Expansion Project and Enbridge’s Line 3 Replacement Program. So far, the partnership is demonstrating how to do things right.

Towerbirch Expansion Project The Towerbirch project includes the construction of 87 kilometres of new gas pipelines and additional associated facilities, including meter stations, valve sites and pipeline tie-ins, in northwest Alberta and northeast British Columbia.

Infocus construction monitors have been onsite for more than a year. They represent the interests of landowners actively to ensure the project is done right (in accordance with the agreement) and that all ground activities are verified independently.

This project is now complete and is delivering natural gas to customers.

Line 3 Replacement Program The multibillion-dollar Line 3 Replacement Program is the largest project in Enbridge history. The new Line 3 will comprise the most advanced pipeline technology—and provide much needed incremental capacity to support Canadian crude oil production growth and U.S. and Canadian refinery demand.

The program, with a $5.3-billion (Cdn) Canadian component and a $2.9-billion (US) American component, expands on the former Line 3 Segment Replacement Program, and will include all remaining segments of Line 3 between Hardisty, Alberta, and Superior, Wisconsin. All told, the Line 3 Replacement Program will fully replace 1,660 kilometres of Line 3 with new pipeline and facilities on either side of the Canada-U.S. border.

Again, Infocus construction monitors have been onsite for more than a year ensuring independent compliance with the agreement between landowners and the pipeline company.

To get involved in the future of land management, or to learn more about this unique service, please contact CAEPLA or Infocus Land Management (infocusconsulting.ca). 

Infocus is an Aboriginal-controlled Canadian land management company that has been in business for more than 10 years. It is committed to being an honest broker that embraces the model described above.

Th e M a g a z

T NORTH

THE MAGA

BUY T

M.J. Murdock Chari

The greaT pla

a Tale of T

Pe

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PERC

PERC REPORTS niv ers ary

REPORTS

Volume 17 Number 2 March 1999

502 South 19th Avenue, Suite 211, Bozeman, Montana 59718

Volume 16 Number 4 December 1998

Issu e

502 South 19th Avenue, 502 Bozeman, Montana Montana 59718 502South South19th 19th Avenue, Avenue, Suite Suite 211, 211, Bozeman, Montana 59718

Volume 18 Number 4 December 2000

PERC REPORTS

502 South 19th Avenue, 502 Bozeman, Montana Montana 59718 502South South19th 19th Avenue, Avenue, Suite Suite 211, 211, Bozeman, Montana 59718

Volume 19 Number 1 March 2001

PERC REPORTS

Special Issue

FREE MARKET

LEGISLATING

THE CARIBOU

ENVIRONMENTALISM

IDEALS

CLEAR-CUT

REVISITED

by David Schoenbrod

3

QUESTION

by Wallace Kaufman

by Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal

3

3

by Deborah Jacobs

3

COVER STORY

© James Lindquist

WHY I AM AN ENVIRONMENTAL MORE MARKET ORGANIC FARMER EDUCATION PERSPECTIVES Why a teacher wants more economics.

The rewards outweigh the difficulties.

by Robert Quinn

5

by Kathryn Ratté

See essays on water, fossils, and climate.

8

by Clay J. Landry J. Bishop Grewell Matthew Brown Daniel K. Benjamin

12

ENVIRO-CAPITALISTS �

Nature’s Entrepreneurs

CHANGES IN ATTITUDE

WAR AGAINST THE STATES

ZONING AND SMART GROWTH

GOVERNMENT RECALCITRANCE

FOREIGN POLICY GOES GREEN

MODERN AGRICULTURE

THE LEGACY OF THE DDT BAN

ANTIQUE APPLES: TAKING ON THE A MARKET TASTE? COMMONS

Noting twenty years of market approaches.

The EPA muddies efforts to restore brownfields.

Why should we zone land use, anyway?

Federal agencies reject liability for toxic harm.

Mouthing goals, slowing progress.

Boon or bane for the environment?

Malaria makes a comeback.

Does commercial activity destroy diversity?

�

Comments from PERC friends and acquaintances

Based on the book by Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal

Volume 21 Number 4 December 2003

VOLUME 21 NUMBER 3 SEPTEMBER 2003

VOLUME 21 NUMBER 2 JUNE 2003

VOLUME 20 N

502 South 19th Avenue, 502 Bozeman, Montana Montana 59718 502South South19th 19th Avenue, Avenue, Suite Suite 211, 211, Bozeman, Montana 59718

Volume 19 Number 2 June 2001

502 South 19th Avenue, Suite 211, Bozeman, Montana 59718

Property and Environment Research Center

P

6

by Dana Joel Gattuso

14

P

Letters from James R. Edwards, Martin S. Harris, and David H. Vice

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SPECIAL ISSUE: AFRICA VOLUME 22 NUMBER 2 JUNE 2004

by Bruce L. Benson

5

7

by J. Bishop Grewell

P

12

by Indur M. Goklany

VOLUME 22 NUMBER 3 SEPTEMBER 2004

6

8

by Jane S. Shaw

P

by Alan Ehrenhalt

12

3

COMMUNITY FORESTRY IN INDIA AND NEPAL

6

WHY DID THE GREENS WIN? Free market environmentalists wonder why their falls on deaf ears. Five people share their views.

11

HOW THE MILESNICKS FOUND MARKETS As fishers flocked to their trout streams, a Montan discovered how to spur cooperation. By Kris Kuml

14

THE FIRES THIS TIME

16

GREENER PASTURES Golf courses go wild. Sea water irrigates a farm in executive farms organically. By Linda Platts

18

TANGENTS

After years of national control, governments allow share the resource. By Trupti Parekh Mehta

It’s fire season again. The blazes signify deeper pr Forest Service. By Roger Sedjo

If congressional efforts to curtail interstate trash costs will go up. By Daniel K. Benjamin

Volum

Volume 22 Number 4 December 2004

Th e M a g a z i n e o f F r e e M a r k e t E n v i r o n m

PROPERTY AND ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH CENTER

Property and Environment Research Center

PROPERTY AND ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH CENTER

by Roger E. Meiners and Andrew P. Morriss

Local control preserves Maine lobster fishing.

The story is the same around the world: Local decisions are usually based on better information than decisions imposed from on high. Above, in Bhimeshwar, Nepal, members of a local forest users’ group meet with government officials to discuss forest management.

IN

SUC A

COVER STORY For as long as

3

ENVIRONMENTAL PHANTASM The benefits of ethanol are largely a myth, but its political life is nothing short of miraculous. By Gary D. Libecap

6

PROTECTING THE PAST

9

C

humans have been discarding humans have sifted through it

THE WRONG WAY TO RESTORE SALMON The federal government pours cash into the Columbia basin, but what fish really need is water. By Clay J. Landry

The process is

12

MAINTAINING TRUST Private land trusts generally are prudent stewards, but tax advantages can sway their decisions. By Dominic P. Parker

15

GREENER PASTURES

Turning garbage into oil; spreading sunshine indoors; and hunting feral pigs on Santa Cruz Island. By Linda Platts

3

RECYCLING RUBBISH “Eight great myths” about waste disposal still abound. This article refutes them. By Daniel K. Benjamin

7

KEEPING FORESTS GREEN

rubbish, other

Bruce Selyem doesn’t just photograph old grain elevators, he also saves them. By Ashley Fingarson

for items of value. literally as old as humanity; scavenging may well be the oldest

10

MANGROVE ALCHEMY Regenerating coastal mangrove forests depends on recognizing the property rights of local people. By Samuel S. Nugent

13

UNDAMMING WINS PRAISE Wisconsin leads the way in deconstructing dams that obstruct its many rivers. By Ashley Fingarson

15

GREENER PASTURES

profession. For

17

TANGENTS A study of Wyoming oil drilling reveals that regulatory costs are higher on federal land. By Daniel K. Benjamin

more about

19

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

page 3.

Conservation groups save sharks and rangeland; innovative teenagers combat invasive weeds. By Linda Platts

17

TANGENTS High demand for wood products can foster the resurgence of forests. By Daniel K. Benjamin

19

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

recycling, see

George Reiger warns us to choose words like “management” and “protection” more carefully.

Certification informs consumers about forest management.

By J. Bishop Grewell

Valles Caldera National Preserve: A new paradigm for federal land?

Turkey oil, snake oil, and ethanol. Letters from John D’Aloia and Ernst Habicht

Volume 23 Number 3 September 2005

z i n e o f F r e e M a r k e t E n v i r o n m e n ta l i s m

WEALTH OF NATURE SPECIAL ISSUE INSIDE PROPERTY RIGHTS IN THE AMERICAN WEST PAGE 3

CAN ECOSYSTEM VALUATION CREATE MARKETS? PAGE 7

THE SIMON-EHRLICH WAGER REVISITED PAGE 16

The Magazine of Free Market Environmentalism Learn more at PERCReports.org

H E S T. J O E CO M PAN Y IN H W E S T F L O R I D A PAG E 1 2

Volume 23 | Number 4 | December 2005

THE MAGAZINE OF FREE MARKET ENVIRONMEN T H E M AG A Z I N E O F F R E E M A R K E T E N V I R O N M E N TA L I S M

Thes

The road to a Mushrooms Meet Brownfields

From fa

Deadbeat Dams

Tapping for a cleaner en

A eure

Enviropreneurs in Action

Bees & Barbed Wire For Water

VOLUME 24 | NUMBER 1 | MARCH 2006

VOLUME 25 | NUMBER 2 | SUMMER 2007 : $2.50

Celebrating 15 years of Free Market Environmentalism

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VOLUME 24 | NUMBER 3 | SEPTEMBER 2006 Volume 25 | Number 3 | FAll 2007: $2.50

Th e M a g a z i n e o f F r e e M a r k e t E n v i r o n m e n ta l i s m

Water leasing in Montana through Trout Unlimited’s eyes

Th e M a g a z i n e o f F r e e M a r k e t E n v i r o n m e n ta l i s m

IRRESPONSIBLE POLICY

Th e M a g a z i n e o f F r e e M a r k e t E n v i r o n m e n ta l i s m

Debating the Tax Breaks

The Many Sides of Chuck Leavell THE QUEST FOR MORE WATER Why Markets are Inevitable

SURVIVAL OF THE SEA TURTLE

RESTORING LIFE TO DAMAGED LAND

Cayman Turtle Farm Starts Over

And Why Are the Tiptons Ignored?

HOG FARM JUSTICE

Volume 26 • Issue 3 • Fall 2008 • $2.50

Enviropreneur Issue

Volume 26 • Issue 4 • Winter 2008 • $2.50

Water & Wildlife Access Issue

HUNTING FOR CONSERVATION

SAVING THE TIGER SPECIAL ISSUE: AMERICAN INDIANS AND PROPERTY RIGHTS

Communities Split over “CAFOs”

Yellowstone fires of ‘88 Twenty years of reflection

National park goes local

FOREVER Blue, FOREVER Green

Moving Toward a “Superpower”

THAT FISH A DRINK

The Maga zine of free MarkeT environMenTalisM

Save a SpecieS Save on taxeS

A KERNEL OF SUPPORT FOR ETHANOL

ADVERTISING FOR CLEAN WATER THE SHIFTING ROLES OF NGOs

Only a market can clean up the Bay

Volume 26 • Issue 2 • Summ

How Canadian Provinces Foster Community Forestry

Doing Good While Doing Well

Blue ribbon management for blue ribbon fisheries

Th e M a g a z i n e o f F r e e M a r k e t E n v i r o n m e n ta l i s m

SPE CIAL FOR E ST RY I SSU E

TENURE FOR TIMBER

Congress, Not EPA, Should Make the Laws

Trading out of trouble in the Land Down Under

VOLUME 25 | NUMBER 1 | S

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Enviropreneur Issue

On the Bolivian Frontier

A ZINE OF FREE MARKET ENVIRONMENTALISM

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO SMART GROWTH?

ARE WE RUNNING OUT OF OIL? COVER STORY: INVASION OF ALIEN SPECIES

China and India Move in Radically Different Directions

Volume 27 • Issue 2 • Summer 2009 • $2.50

Volume 27 • Issue 1 • Spring 2009 • $2.50

“Barons of Preservation” in the Red Hills

Friedman’s legacy for freedom and the environment

A family forest 100 years of experimental forests

Warning: army corps of engineers project ahead

Living on the edge Protecting forests of the Swiss Alps

BISONOMICS

Volume 27 • Issue 3 • Fall/Winter 2009 • $2.50

Volume 28 • Issue 2

FOR FREE MARKET ENVIRONM

Halibut dilemma Shooting the wild Markets for water quality Revitalizing African agriculture

Money grows on trees in New Zealand Tax credits for conservation A Utah desert’s unlikely gem Markets for biodiversity

ENviroprENEUr sNApshoTs

itable Trust—Western Lands Issue

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Lone Mountain FeLLows issue

Former senator sees river as a magnet In the eye of the wildlife storm Public access muddies waters

EnvironmEntal justice for ALL

Finding Our Way Out

FUElinG the future

Exploring Nature in Cyberspace

morro BaY Fishery

National Parks

StEGnEr’S Quotable Words

Nature's Lost Children

stream access across the west

Volume 29 • Issue 3 • Fall 2011

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yea r s

The noT so Wild, Wild WesT . saving The Wilderness . ProP

ENvirONmENtaL EduCatiON

EnviroprEnEur issuE M. J. Murdock charItable truSt—Wealth oF NatIoNS ISSue

Volume 30 • Issue 2 • Summer/Fall 2012

EnviroprEnEur issuE

evolve in Marine Fisheries . BooTleggers, BaPTisTs, & gloB

Volume 30 • Issue 1 • Winter/Spring 2012

Volume 31 • Issue 1 • Winter/Spring 2013

M. J. Murdock charitable trust—econoMic developMent and tribal culture

F O R F R E E M A R K E T E N V I R O N M E N TA L I S M

F O R F R E E M A R K E T E N V I R O N M E N TA L I S M

F O R F R E E M A R K E T E N V I R O N M E N TA L I S M

F O R F R E E M A R K E T E N V I R O N M E N TA L I S M

FOR FREE MARKET ENVIRONM

Can Economics and Ecology be Reconciled?

Crops Minus sun and soil The ConservaTion road less Traveled enviropreneur snapshoTs

Will Economic

Growth

Mud people and super FarMers

Erode or Enhance Tribal Culture?

GREEN ENERGY REVOLUTION TO GREEN GRIDLOCK . HOW WILL WE ADAPT TO CLIMATE CHANGE? . DESIGNING RIGHTS-BASED FISHERIES PROGRAMS .

ROAD AND TRANSPORTATION POLICY . LITTLE GREEN LIES

10

ains . moving The wind . ecosysTems aT your service

Two ranches . The accidenTal environmenTalisT

Vol.33, Issue 2 Fall / Winter 2014

erCrePorTS

NATIONAL PARKS CENTENNIAL ISSUE

W h y A R E I N d I A N R E S E RVAT I O N S S O P OO R ? p.6

YEARS OF ENVIROPRENEURS

C R E AT I N g E C O N O M I C d E V E L O P M E N T O N I N d I A N R E S E RVAT I O N S p.1 4 ST E M M I N g N E W Z E A L A N d ' S O C E A N C O N F L I C T p.2 2

FOR FREE MARKET ENVIRONMENTALISM

s Q u E E Z i n G p r o F i T s F r o M E n D A n G E r E D s p E C i E s p.6 T H E s E C r E T L i F E o F T r E E s p.12

B E R I N g ST R A IT F u RS g O g L O BA L p.3 0

T H E u n D E r WAT E r E n v i r o p r E n E u r p.20 W H E r E F r E E M A r K E T s M E E T FA i T H p.26

Vol. 35, Issue 1 Summer 2016

Vol. 35, Issue 2 Winter 2016-17

FOR FREE MARKET ENVIRONMENTALISM

FOR FREE MARKET ENVIRONMENTALISM

Vol. 34, Issue 2 Winter 2015

Vol. 34, Issue 1 Summer 2015

FOR FREE MARKET ENVIRONMENTALISM

FOR FREE MARKET E N V I RO N M E N TAL I S M

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

The War on ildlife Trade

Vol. 36, Issue 1 Summer 2017

FOR FREE MARKET ENVIRONMENTALISM

THE FUTURE OF

PUBLIC LANDS

Page 22

Frackonomics Page 8 The Economics of Land-use Regulations Page 16 Paying to Play in the Great Outdoors Page 28

BACK TO THE FUTURE OF OUR

NATIONAL PARKS

Stephen Mather’s Ghost Page 8 Franchising Parks Page 16

Volume 32 • Iss

Volume 29 • Issue 1 • Winter 2011

F O R F R E E M A R K E T E N V I R O N M E N TA L I S M

F O R F R E E M A R K E T E N V I R O N M E N TA L I S M

Celebrates

PRIVATE CONSERVATION in the PUBLIC INTEREST Banking on Endangered Species Page 14

MARKET ADAPTATION to CLIMATE CHANGE Environmentalism Without Romance Page 6 Ecosystem Services and Public Policy Page 16 How Humans Spare Nature Page 22

Climatopolis Revisited Page 6 Amber Waves of Change Page 14 Climate Change and Coffee Page 22

Zinke Rides In Page 14 The Future of the Forest Service Page 18 The Valles Caldera Experiment Page 26 Reining in the Wild Horse Program Page 34 Human-Wildlife Conflicts Come East Page 40

LEAVE NO TRACE?

Page 24

Money to Burn Page 6 Property Owners vs. Prairie Dogs Page 12

B Y J O N AT H A N W O O D

Want Peace with Pipelines?

Begin by stopping expropriations and ending eminent domain

A

s fracking has lowered the price of natural gas, the pipelines required to bring the gas to market have, predictably, been a recurring source of conflict, particularly over the potential environmental impacts.

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Those conflicts have been exacerbated by the use of eminent domain to build the pipelines despite the objection of property owners.

To some extent, this latest round of conflict over eminent domain was inevitable. In 2005, the United States Supreme Court’s controversial Kelo

decision held that the U.S. constitution’s Takings Clause permits governments to take private property to give it to another private party if the government believes it could increase tax revenues or contribute to economic growth, notwithstanding that the clause limits takings “for public use.”

Those who find themselves hosting an unwanted transmission line or other infrastructure on their property are locked into a permanent relationship with a hostile partner sharing the rights to their land.

Kelo, by favouring theoretical tax revenues over the wishes of property owners, introduces an anti-conservation bias into the Takings Clause. And it’s important to emphasize theoretical. In Kelo, the Supreme Court approved the taking and demolishing of a residential neighbourhood to give the land to a giant pharmaceutical corporation.

But 10 years later, long after the community was kicked out, the land sat vacant and the company had moved on.

Alamy Stock Photo

Delegation of authority Kelo makes pipeline takings worse by elevating the pipeline company’s private profit to public use, relieving the government of any obligation to ensure that the particular project is a good idea or to oversee the exercise of eminent domain for it.

In fact, in many pipeline takings cases, the government isn’t even directly involved. Instead, it delegates the eminent domain power to the private company to exercise as it sees fit.

Consequently, the easements that are imposed on property owners for pipeline construction are not the fair consequence of arms-length negotiation or even a political compromise by a (hopefully) neutral government actor.

Instead, one party to the easement gets to set its terms and impose them on the landowner, regardless of what she thinks about them.

Andrew Morriss’s description, in a recent PERC Reports (see Pipeline Observer, Summer 2016), of his family’s experience with a transmission easement explains how this causes the easements to be one-sided.

Unlike landowners who are forced to

sell their property outright, those who find themselves hosting an unwanted transmission line or other infrastructure on their property are locked into a permanent relationship with a hostile partner sharing the rights to their land.

Eminent domain law provides no safeguards to address these problems.

First-hand experience Unfortunately, my family is developing first-hand experience with the issue, as the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) used its eminent domain power to take an easement across my in-laws’ ranch for a high-voltage transmission line that carries wind-generated electricity from the Texas Panhandle to central Texas.

None of the landowners along the LCRA line had any say in the terms of the easement or any recourse to contest any term other than the price paid for the land. Just 50 kilometres away, Florida Power and Light (FP&L) built a parallel transmission line to do the same thing. But because FP&L lacks the power of eminent domain in Texas, it had to negotiate with the landowners along its route.

The terms of the FP&L and LCRA easements are strikingly different, illustrating the problem with substituting involuntary takings for arm’slength bargaining.

The usual justification for eminent domain—the so-called “holdout problem”—doesn’t appear to explain the opposition to these forced easements.

According to the holdout problem, eminent domain is necessary to construct large projects because, without it, a single property owner can use her veto

to demand a disproportionate payment.

If you’re building a highway, for instance, and you have all of the rights you need to build it except the right to a single property, the owner could demand a huge windfall because her land is necessary for the valuable project.

Conflict over compromise Instead, the opposition seems most concerned with potential environmental impacts. Those fears are likely overblown; blocking a pipeline isn’t going to change demand for fossil fuels and may push transportation of fuels to less-safe alternatives. But one of the benefits of private property rights is it encourages people to become better informed about the decisions that affect them directly.

Eminent domain undermines these incentives and encourages conflict rather than compromise.

A pipeline easement that was negotiated at arm’s length might allow the pipeline to go forward, but with more protections for the landowner in case of spills or other accidents. But the delegation of eminent domain to a private corporation makes these compromises much less likely. That leaves the landowner with only the option of stopping the pipeline, which explains the increasing conflict. 

Jonathan Wood is an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), an adjunct fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) and a member of the executive committee for the Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and Property Rights Practice Group.

BY JORDAN MCGILLIS

The Moral Case for Energy Development

Time to reject ‘nature for nature’s sake’ in favour of human wellbeing

L

ast fall, the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources debated Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s proposal to establish a competitive energy resource leasing and development program within a sliver

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PIPEL INE OBSERV ER CAEPL A .ORG

of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge known as the 1002 area.

In simple terms, the committee deliberated the question “should we drill?”

Rather than asking that question, I submit that we ought to instead ask, “Why is a federal government ban on productive economic activity the status quo?”

My answer is that this prohibitive norm exists because our public discourse has been permeated by the idea that nonhuman life on earth has intrinsic value and that we as human beings have no moral right to affect it for our benefit.

Through this ecocentric lens, any human activity that impacts the nonhu-

Human flourishing requires that we transform the natural world to meet our needs. The outcome of this transformation is longer, healthier, happier lives.

man world is a transgression. And because, to date, it has remained beyond the reach of sustained and transformative human development, Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, region is an environmental holy grail.

Alamy Stock Photo

‘Too sacred to drill’ The problem with this view is not that it glorifies nature, as we all appreciate the beauty of the natural world, but that it regards nature as superior to human activity, development and flourishing.

I call this perspective “nature for nature’s sake.”

The advocates of nature for nature’s sake are not to be swayed by appeals to the benefits energy exploration will bring to North Americans and energy-starved people around the globe. For them what matters is that the nonhuman world remains beyond our reach.

Kristen Miller of the Alaska Wilderness League exemplifies this perspective.

“Some places in our nation are simply too special, too sacred to drill,” Miller wrote. “And the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of them. This exhausted debate needs to end, once and for all.”

Miller’s premise—that humanity is a blot on the perfection that is nature— is widely shared, if unacknowledged, and colours our entire debate on the development of energy resources and

the development of human civilization more broadly.

With ANWR under consideration, the U.S. Congress has an opportunity to address the nature for nature’s sake perspective and shift the paradigm from one in which human activity is suspect to one in which claimants of environmental degradation bear the burden of proof.

The fact of the matter is that human flourishing requires that we transform the natural world to meet our needs.

The outcome of this transformation is longer, healthier, happier lives for all who are left free to benefit from it.

The development of our natural endowment of resources is a forerunner of modern civilization. ANWR’s 1002 area, which was designated as a prospective site for exploration when ANWR was established in 1980, is a prime starting point for a campaign to challenge the nature-for-nature’s-sake view.

Shifting mindset ANWR is in the uppermost remote corner of northeast Alaska, making it inaccessible to virtually all. It hosts only around one thousand visitors each year, despite being about the size of the state of South Carolina, and it’s home to a permanent population of only a few hundred in the coastal village of Kaktovik.

Notably, Kaktovik residents have offered longstanding support for development. In testimony submitted to the Senate at a hearing earlier this month, tribal administrator Matthew Rexford offered pointed criticism of the effort to prevent resource development: “We do not approve of efforts to turn our homeland into one giant national park, which literally guarantees us a fate with no economy, no jobs, reduced subsistence and no hope for the future of our people.”

Given this context, what other than a nature-for-nature’s-sake argument explains the prima facie objections by groups like the Alaska Wilderness League to energy development?

ANWR’s 1002 area contains an estimated 7.6 billion barrels of oil according to the U.S. Geological Survey—a sum equal to 20 per cent of global annual demand. Perhaps more pivotal than the fruits of drilling in ANWR, however, is the mindset shift we are now positioned to affect.

After decades of a default to ecocentrism, the time is right to reject the view of nature for nature’s sake in favour of a default position of anthropocentrism—that is, a central focus on human wellbeing. 

Jordan McGillis is a policy analyst at the Institute for Energy Research.

CAEPL A .ORG

PIPEL INE OBSERV ER

31

BY C. KENNETH REEDER

Time for Regulatory Regime Change

Property rights, not foolish climate policy, will get pipelines built

K

eystone XL is back.

Or is it?

The border-spanning pipeline project still faces opposition on multiple fronts.

While the tortured public debate rages on, many are asking what it takes to really get these major pipeline projects done in our current political climate.

On her pro-pipeline tour back in November, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said: “Denying climate change won’t get pipelines built.”

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PIPEL INE OBSERV ER CAEPL A .ORG

To be clear, it’s not climate change per se that people deny (because no one denies that the climate changes). It’s the question of human industrial impact on climate change that is unresolved.

Also, Notley isn’t talking about pipelines in general. She’s talking about the big, high-profile megaprojects.

Alberta’s regulators, for instance, approved more than 2,000 kilometres of pipeline projects in 2017, and climate change is not an issue for any of them.

These are routine, unexciting projects that stir up little controversy because they deal mainly with companies and individual landowners, and things

mostly work themselves out.

But even when we clarify what she means, she is clearly wrong.

Look at the current situation with major pipeline projects.

Notley claimed that she could generate “social license” to get major pipelines built if she properly addressed the climate change bogeyman. Yet Alberta hasn’t really gained on any of these major projects.

Despite her harmful “climate leadership plan” (i.e. taxes on consumers and subsidies to politically connected industries), Northern Gateway was killed by the feds.

Companies need to respect landowner property rights and regulators need to respect property rights of pipeline company shareholders.

the Paris climate change agreement— while approving Keystone XL, which his predecessor Barack Obama had rejected.

Something doesn’t seem right with Notley’s credo.

Acquiescing to the prevailing climate-change propaganda and piling more taxes on people is obviously not sufficient to build pipelines, but neither is it necessary.

Radical environmentalists can never be appeased, so they must be dealt with as an operating challenge and security issue, not a public relations issue.

I repeat: radical environmentalists can never be appeased. If you give them what they say they want, they will move the goalposts then ask for more and more supplication.

Alamy Stock Photo

Energy East was cancelled, as the arbitrary regulatory hurdles applied to no other industry made it impossible.

Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement was approved, but it’s under regulatory assault in Minnesota where they don’t really care about Notley’s attempt at green appeasement.

TransMountain is entangled in legal warfare in B.C. where, again, people seem unmoved by Notley’s taxes.

Something’s not right

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump rejects carbon taxes and rejected

Two things needed

So long as the economic incentive exists, you only need two things to actually have major pipeline projects move forward more expediently.

Companies need to respect landowner property rights and regulators need to respect property rights of pipeline company shareholders.

When Obama was in the White House, the radical environmentalist wing of his base was an important factor.

But at the more local level, environmental radicals tend to have less influence. They get their hearings and stir up controversy but rarely affect outcomes.

Local regulators, courts and landowners are much more decisive.

Many regular landowners along Keystone XL’s path are defensive over what they see as a foreign corporation using the American legal system to bully them around.

TransCanada has relied on the U.S. government’s eminent domain powers throughout the process.

Cooperation and respect

We have growing evidence that working cooperatively with landowners and respecting property rights is effective in getting major projects done.

At the same time, regulators—especially those more and more detached from local affairs—are violating the property rights of the pipeline companies at almost every turn.

If a company wants to build, and the landowner is on board and all the regular laws of tort and trespass are in place, then the regulator is merely interfering without justification.

And as you move up the hierarchy of regulators, the whole affair becomes more bureaucratic, political and collectivized such that nothing can get done.

The current focus on regulation and climate-change policies to get public support is entirely misguided. Instead, the focus should be real stakeholders and their property rights.

Take away the political agendas and the regulatory expropriation and focus on what genuinely matters. 

CAEPL A .ORG

PIPEL INE OBSERV ER

33

BY NADIA MOHARIB

A Tale of Two Energy Companies Rancher credits CAEPLA for helping build good relations with Enbridge

G

reg Lovatt was looking out over his farmland when he noticed something new: stakes had been driven into the ground. Lovatt, a cattle farmer, later learned that the mysterious appearances on his property this fall were the work of Manitoba Hydro.

But he had been given no heads-up—no explanation and no warning about the activity on his land.

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PIPEL INE OBSERV ER CAEPL A .ORG

“I thought about taking the stakes out,” Lovatt says. “I just wondered what was going on. To this day, I still don’t know what the stakes are there for.”

Not long after, and just as curiously, a pile of gravel was dumped in his fields.

“I was busy weaning calves and this pile of gravel caught my eye,” Lovatt says from his farm near Souris, Manitoba.

“They didn’t tarp it the way (pipeline company) Enbridge does, so it doesn’t mix with the topsoil.”

Facing page: Alamy Stock Photo, iStockphoto.com; This page: courtesy Greg Lovatt

Given the inquisitiveness of his livestock, the 59-year-old knew they would spread it around and play in it or get into supplies left piled on the ground.

To be safe, he confined the cattle for several days—going through six round bales of hay each day—while trying to figure out what Manitoba Hydro had planned for his land.

Lovatt has learned, however, that trying to contact the company is often a “gong show.”

“I didn’t hear anything the day I called and, more than 24 hours later, I heard from the wrong person,” he recalls.

Fortunately, the right contact—when they finally connected—took full responsibility for Lovatt not being notified about work being done on his land.

Lovatt, a life-long farmer who runs a cow-calf operation and also works as a veterinarian, hopes to negotiate compensation for the incident and is cautiously optimistic of better days ahead dealing with the Crown corporation.

To date, however, Lovatt can see why some say “Manitoba Hydro likes to throw its weight around.”

One might say Lovatt’s dealings with the government power monopoly— which has a corridor for a transmission line on his property—compared to those with Enbridge, which has pipeline right of way on his land, really is the tale of two companies.

Alberta-based Enbridge, he says, is light years ahead of Manitoba Hydro when it comes to communicating and cooperating with landowners.

“Manitoba Hydro may have a difficult time existing if it were not a monopoly when it comes to its customer-service policy,” Lovatt says.

Both companies were on the land before Lovatt purchased it in 2003.

Several years later, Enbridge was back looking for more easement.

Lovatt says he is grateful to Manitoba Pipeline Landowners Association (MPLA) members for encouraging property owners to get together to deal with Enbridge.

“Being a new landowner, I thought I had nothing to lose,” Lovatt says.

“The abandonment issue was big for me. That’s what enlightened me to how serious pipeline issues were if they went the wrong way,” he explains. “I just bought this land and I paid a lot of money and I don’t want them to abandon it and devalue the property.”

Indeed, he had much to gain.

Lovatt credits CAEPLA and its provincial affiliate MPLA for educating him on his rights as a property owner.

“My learning curve was relatively easy because of MPLA and CAEPLA,” he says.

The organizations also helped him to establish “a good relationship with Enbridge,” which includes helping

negotiate a compensation package with the company.

“We’ve always been approached when integrity digs or major projects are going through, and we have always been compensated appropriately,” he says of Enbridge.

“Enbridge has abided by the policies which were negotiated and tells me what it is doing, and I work with their needs and keep the cattle away. It’s a huge contrast with Manitoba Hydro.”

Besides shoddy communication, Lovatt says Manitoba Hydro has been guilty of sloppy work on his land, too.

“They pulled out an old pole on the road allowance and put in a new one, and I fell in the hole checking the fence,” Lovatt says. “You see that in a lot of public utilities or entities or municipal work—it’s all about getting the paycheque and not really about completing the job. They wouldn’t work that way on their own property or jobsite.”

Manitoba Hydro “needs some serious reorganization at the top and then on down,” he says. 

CAEPL A .ORG

PIPEL INE OBSERV ER

35

BY CHACE ELLIOTT

Innovative Mat Technology Protects Landowners and Investors Because the Enbridge replacement project reflects landowner priorities

A

nyone who has worked on or planned a complex construction project will tell you it can be very difficult to meet the demands of all affected and invested parties.

This rings all the more true with projects spanning multiple seasons with vastly varying weather conditions. Access roads, staging areas, landing zones and entire worksites found suitable one week can quickly turn into inaccessible bogs with inclement weather.

With increasing focus on reducing the impact of energy infrastructure projects, it is vital to plan proactively and employ best management practices. This need is especially crucial for projects during the breakup period.

Galloway Construction Group Ltd. has a wealth of experience working through the obstacles breakup presents. And in 2013 we saw a solution we knew could revolutionize the way worksites function between winter and spring.

While working on a massive 500-km electrical power-line expansion, we utilized the DURA-BASE Advanced Composite Mat System. While we initially saw value in the system to address issues with logistical costs, bio-contamination, noxious weeds and debris from traditional wood mats, we quickly

36

PIPEL INE OBSERV ER CAEPL A .ORG

experienced that there were additional features of the system that would offer great advantage for utilization during breakup.

DURA-BASE interlocks on all ends to prevent differential movement, which stops the mats from being buried as loads cross the surface. This interlocking design is highly effective for load dispersal, enabling support of extremely heavy loads over marginal sub-bases while preventing rutting.

A single-piece sealed non-absorbent construction is paramount to the strength of the system, but more importantly assures the system will not take on weight with wet weather conditions.

A molded pattern on the surface provides additional traction for increased site safety.

Galloway created a separate matting division because we could see how this solution would be of great benefit to limit surface disturbance and offer year-round site access. Our highly skilled crews can effectively install the system utilizing a variety of equipment options depending on the demands of the project and have experience to cover large areas with high efficiency.

Galloway also developed an automated washing system to effectively wash DURA-BASE and ensure it arrives to a project Level 3 clean.

With preemptive deployment of the DURA-BASE System during frozen winter months, a project will undoubtedly benefit come spring when soils expand and take on additional moisture.

The system effectively limits surface disturbance and compaction to protect landowner interests. The system also prevents costly delays and improves economics for operators to improve investor interests. The system even offers benefit to the general public by reducing the numbers of truckloads required for construction – reducing carbon emissions and impact on roads. 

Chace Elliott has more than nine years’ experience in the oil and gas and heavy construction industries, spending all of that with Galloway Construction Group Ltd. and founding his own company, Recharged Industries Inc. He holds a master’s degree from Dalhousie University in Resource and Environmental Management. His international experience includes partnerships and expansion opportunities between Canada and the U.S., and his current research involves studying the correlation between the spread of noxious weeds and the construction of linear projects.

BY SEAN CORBETT

Much-Needed Lifeblood

Enbridge’s Line 3 Replacement Pumps Jobs and Community Investment into the Prairies

Alamy Stock Photo

T

he Enbridge Line 3 replacement is injecting some much-needed lifeblood into western Canada.

L3RP, the largest project in Enbridge history, began in summer 2017 in Hardisty, Alberta. The Canadian phase of this $5.3-billion work continues through Saskatchewan and Manitoba in 2018. The target completion is for 2019 in Superior, Wisconsin.

An estimated 24,000-plus full-time jobs will be created during the construction phase.

An estimated 24,000-plus full-time jobs will be created during the construction phase.

That’s welcome news to heavy equipment operators and other trades.

In a time when work has been scarce, they’re looking forward to consistently being able to put food on the table.

An influx of workers from all around Canada is expected to flood to the replacement path.

Communities will benefit Every town for hundreds of kilometres in each direction is expected to swell with pipeliners.

For local vendors, it will be a time to make hay selling food, lodging, fuel and more.

Enbridge itself is also throwing in for local upgrade projects.

Whether for sports arenas, community halls, or fairgrounds, several towns across the way have already received between $2K-$50K from the company for their various needs.

During this phase of the pipeline replacement, Enbridge has pledged to invest more than $3-million in community-based initiatives. 

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BY MIKE SULLIVAN

Building a DamagePrevention Process Building a DamagePrevention Process

Landowners can voice support for new underground infrastructure safety rules

L

ast May, the Senate adopted the Underground Infrastructure Safety Enhancement Act (S229). The Act then moved quickly to the House of Commons and was supported by Guelph Liberal MP Lloyd Longfield.

But no sooner had it arrived than it was challenged as a “money bill,” meaning it involves an appropriation of public revenue or a new charge on the public revenue.

Longfield’s response to the challenge was thorough, with supporting arguments dating back to the 1800s, and at the end of the spring 2017 session of Parliament the Speaker of the House, Geoff Regan, was left to determine S229’s fate.

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Once Parliament resumed following the summer break, damage-prevention supporters across Canada waited to learn the Speaker’s decision. Finally, on Oct. 31—Halloween—the Speaker determined S229 was not a money bill and could continue along the usual legislative process. It was a good day—but it also meant that it was “game on.”

Even though S229 will simplify existing processes to identify and protect underground infrastructure from uncontrolled excavation—i.e. digging without first knowing what’s below— the proposed legislation is challenging, because it would affect multiple ministries and departments governing federally regulated underground infrastructure.

At a time when the public expects simplicity, speed and effectiveness,

S229 makes it easier for whomever is digging to protect themselves from the perils of damaging buried utilities by ensuring all underground infrastructure is registered with a Notification Centre.

S229 makes it easier for whomever is digging to protect themselves, their family, friends and their community from the perils of damaging buried utilities by ensuring all underground infrastructure is registered with a Notification Centre.

That way, when a locate request is made, those doing the excavating can proceed with the knowledge that they have done everything reasonable to protect what lies beneath the surface.

Help is needed You have a voice, and the Canadian Common Ground Alliance (CCGA) wants to help connect you with your Member of Parliament to express your support.

In the coming days, the microsite icandigsafe.ca, dedicated to Bill S229, will be available to the public. From that site, you can select a pre-written letter of support to send to your Member of Parliament underlining the imperative need for S229.

I also encourage you to follow @ CanadianCGA on Twitter and retweet S229 posts using the #SupportS229 hashtag. Get your family and your friends to do the same. We will only have one shot at this.

Your voice and your support matters, and it will help move S229 forward. 

Mike Sullivan is the president of Alberta One-Call Corp. and executive director of the CCGA since 2010.

B Y C A N A D I A N E N E R G Y P I P E L I N E A S S O C I AT I O N

Ready To Respond Canada’s pipeline operators are experts in emergency management

Facing page: Alamy Stock Photo; This page: Courtesy CEPA

C

anada’s transmission pipeline operators are working together to reach a lofty goal: Zero incidents. They are close, with 99.999 per cent of all oil and gas products transported through their pipelines reaching markets safely, but there is still work to be done.

Through the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA), companies are working together to continuously improve in key areas including safety, environmental protection and emergency response.

CEPA members work tirelessly to prevent incidents from happening and, because of that preparation, emergencies are very rare. They are also experts in emergency management and are ready to respond if something does go wrong. Long before a pipeline is laid in the ground, pipeline operators have emergency response plans in place.

These plans are complex, detailed and cover a wide range of possible situations and scenarios.

Incident management

If an incident happens, CEPA’s member companies jump into action immediately, taking full responsibility for the situation. With their emergency response plans activated, the focus is on: • Stopping any possible leaks by shutting down systems quickly and safely

• Ensuring the safety of the public, employees and contractors

• Notifying adjacent landowners and stakeholders, including regulators

• Protecting wildlife, water bodies and vegetation

• Dispatching first responders and cleanup crews

• Repairing the pipeline

• Getting spill response equipment to the site • Containing the released product to minimize spreading

The primary focus of responding to an emergency is protecting employees, communities and the environment.

After an incident, CEPA members are committed to returning the land, water and environment to its previous state. They do this using advanced clean-up

• Cleaning up, remediating and restoring the site • Long-term monitoring of the site to determine if any further action is required

and remediation processes and technology. Clean-up specialists, biologists and other environmental experts arrive on the scene within hours to assess and repair the cause of the leak and start clean-up.

Crews use specialized equipment, such as barriers, pumps, booms and skimmers

(depending on the environment they are dealing with), to stop the spread of oil and clear it from the land and water. They work for as long as it takes to clean up the spill, and the affected areas are monitored for a period of time after reclamation is complete to ensure long-term damage is minimized.

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Powerful collaboration To ensure the safety of communities, CEPA members work closely with local first responders and other pipeline operators during an incident. There are two important agreements in place: • Memorandum of Understanding with the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs.

This was signed in 2016, creating an incident command system. A key component of the agreement is firefighter awareness and training, to help ensure both the safety and timeliness of first responders.

• Mutual Emergency Assistance Agreement.

Signed in 2013, this agreement allows CEPA members to request assistance from each other during an emergency in

the form of personnel, equipment, tools or specialized response advice. It’s an arrangement that considerably increases the resources available in an emergency.

Practice, practice, practice During an emergency, time is of the essence. Pipeline companies practice their emergency response protocols regularly, so that if a real incident happens, they know exactly what to do—having already been through the process several times.

Employees who participate in practice scenarios and respond to real-life incidents also have constant access to specialized emergency response equipment placed strategically at various sites, so they can act quickly to minimize the impact to communities and the environment.

Pipelines remain the safest method of transporting the energy Canadians need. Should an incident ever occur, CEPA members are ready, able and equipped to respond in a safe and timely manner.

For more information on pipelines and the industry’s emergency response procedures, visit aboutpipelines.com.

The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association represents Canada’s transmission pipeline companies who operate about 135,000 kilometres of pipelines in Canada and the United States. In 2016, these energy highways moved approximately 1.4 billion barrels of liquid petroleum products and 5.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Our members transport 97 per cent of Canada’s daily natural gas and onshore crude oil from producing regions to markets throughout North America. 

CAEPLA WORKSHOP SERIES

Pipeline Construction 101: Success!

Stay tuned for our next series. Check our website often for new dates and locations.

For more information contact: admin@caepla.org or 306-522-5000

DON’T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN MORE

Brought to you by Enbridge and CAEPLA, Canada’s leading advocate for landowner safety and environmental stewardship.

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Photos courtesy of Enbridge

The CAEPLA Workshop Series was designed as a service to landowners.

BY ANNETTE SCHINBORN

Pipeline Giant Changes Course Enbridge embraces the grassroots at CAEPLA’s Workshop Series

Alamy Stock Photo

‘

E

verything changes and nothing stands still.” —Heraclitus of Ephesus (535 BC – 475 BC) Greek philosopher Heraclitus could have been talking about the energy transport industry when you consider the challenges it has faced recently. Some companies change while others try to stand still.

Once upon a time, pipelines were “out of sight and out of mind.” That is no longer true.

On any given day, pipelines can be among the most talked-about topics in the news and trending on social media.

In an effort to stop pipeline projects, radical anti-pipeline activists have co-opted too many landowners who have been disrespected by pipeline companies.

In their attempts to protect “Mother Earth,” these green activists have trespassed on private property and sabotaged valve sites, putting the land-

owners who live along the pipeline, as well as the environment, at serious risk.

There are reports of these activists even drilling holes in pipe, endangering themselves and the pipeline workers who adhere to strict safety protocols.

Even five years ago you would never have heard any of this. It has become commonplace, and looks to only change for the worse.

When CAEPLA was formed nearly a quarter century ago, it seemed radical, as it attempted to raise the standards on how pipelines were built to protect landowners’ safety and the environment. After all, landowners live with the pipes “24/7/365.”

As technology and the economy change, agriculture does too. Those who recognize and embrace change will be positioned for the future. Those who refuse will fall behind.

And what’s true of farming is also true for pipelining. At CAEPLA we see some companies adapting to change in

the way they operate, while others still seem to be doing business in a bygone era where the regulator had their backs and pipelines were out of sight and out of mind.

Not good for business The latter approach is no longer good for business.

These days, disrespecting landowners, threatening those who want to have their legitimate issues addressed with Eminent Domain or expropriation (forced Right of Entry) runs the very real risk of driving a majority of them into the waiting arms of anti-pipeline activists only too happy to use them in their war on Canada’s oil sands.

CAEPLA offers a better option. An option that doesn’t put farmers and ranchers in the awkward position of participating in radical political protests or opposing something most depend on: abundant affordable energy.

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The Workshop Series was designed as a service to landowners, not a PR exercise for Enbridge.

In CAEPLA’s experience, one pipeline company has been open to change and embraced landowners as partners.

Proof of this new approach is the winwin business agreement CAEPLA negotiated for our members with Enbridge for its Line 3 Replacement project a couple of years ago.

Enbridge has made good on its commitments in this precedent-setting business agreement. So far, construction has proceeded on three “spreads,” problems have been few and far between and when they arose were resolved very quickly to the satisfaction of every landowner involved. This is not something we ever thought we would say about any energy transport actor, even a few years ago.

CAEPLA’s latest workshop series held on the Prairies in December shows how much things have changed for the better. The Enbridge team updated landowners on the progress of construction, provided insight and answered questions in detail on everything from how its industry-leading biosecurity protocol and business agreement commitments are benefiting landowners on the ground.

Tough questions While the workshops were a relaxed, open environment, CAEPLA members and staff still pressured company reps with some tough questions. As one participant commented, “this certainly wasn’t a lovefest, but was a very interesting and beneficial meeting.”

Which is the whole idea.

The Workshop Series was designed as a service to landowners, not a PR exercise for Enbridge. Landowners were glad to have both Enbridge and CAEPLA

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Photo courtesy of Enbridge Enbridge staff Peter Hansen demos interactive pipeline model with landowners at CAEPLA Workshop Series in Brandon, MB.

in the room to have their questions addressed in a wide-open forum.

We sometimes half-jokingly compare pipeline companies to ocean liners in terms of their ability to change direction. Yet Enbridge has quite quickly adopted openness and authenticity as a priority in landowner relations. Again, something we never thought we’d see.

And being held to account is no surprise for Enbridge. In his address at the 2015 annual general meeting, Enbridge CEO Al Monaco acknowledged Dave Core, CAEPLA’s CEO, and remarked on how “he does a good job of holding us to account, but also in finding solutions to make projects better.”

Further demonstrating this openness to respect landowners and “find solutions to make projects better,” Enbridge’s directors invited Dave to share landowner perspective with them at their Corporate Board of Directors meeting last September, in Calgary.

Dave conveyed candidly the tough reality of how landowners felt disrespected in the past, acknowledged the changes that Enbridge has made in how

it treats landowners and pointed out the opportunities for the future as landowners and the company further develop a mutually beneficial partnership.

This openness at the executive level is being transmitted through frontline Enbridge reps as they engage landowners at the grassroots.

It's an open relationship that goes a long way in building trust, not only between landowners and Enbridge, but for the public as well.

It’s positive change, and one we feel all of energy transport can embrace. 

Annette Schinborn is COO and Director of Landowner Relations at CAEPLA. Before joining the team at CAEPLA, Annette worked with grassroots nonprofits including the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the Prairie Centre and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association. She has worked closely with farmers, ranchers and other landowners on issues such as tax and agricultural policy and now energy transport and property rights.

This is how we protect the land, water and wildlife.

Thousands of dedicated professionals across the country – from engineers to environmental experts – work together to deliver the energy you need while protecting the environment.

Find out more at aboutpipelines.com