We’ve already heard from officials at NorVal Electric Coop that the Keystone Pipeline would help lower electric rates for customers in Northeast Montana. On top of that, it sounds like we may have even more positive economic news for the area. With a slowdown in the Bakken, this may be just the news Valley County needs right now.
Bonnie Davidson of The Glasgow Courier tells me this:
TransCanada has spent most of the week here in Glasgow….They pretty much said they’re willing to wait for a new president. Their work camps were approved this morning (Wednesday) in Valley County. We have two of the four that will be in Montana.
From an earlier report by Davidson:
Only a week after the presidential veto, TransCanada officials made their rounds talking with local officials and groups in town. Bud Anderson, an employee of Western Energy Planning who is an independent contractor for TransCanada, met with the city council on Monday, March 2.
Click here for the full story.
By the way, I mentioned this Politico piece on our statewide radio show last week: NAFTA’s specter may haunt Keystone verdict; A free-trade complaint against the U.S. could be among TransCanada’s options.
President Barack Obama may decide to kill Keystone XL for good, but that could be no easy task — thanks in part to the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The 21-year-old free-trade pact allows foreign companies or governments to haul the U.S. in front of an international tribunal to face accusations of putting their investments at risk through regulations or other decisions. The CEO of Keystone developer TransCanada has raised the prospect as a potential last resort if Obama rejects the $8 billion project, although for now the company is focused on getting him to say yes.
“If the pipeline is actually vetoed on so-called environmental grounds, I think there is a very strong case for a NAFTA challenge,” former Canadian ambassador to the U.S. Derek Burney, a senior negotiator on the landmark North American trade deal and its U.S.-Canada predecessor, said in an interview Wednesday.
The Great Falls Tribune also has this:
The Senate fell four votes short of overriding the White House’s veto of the Keystone XL pipeline on Wednesday, but supporters of the project are not giving up the fight.
Some lawmakers have talked about adding Keystone to a long-term transportation funding bill because it would likely garner bipartisan support, increasing the chance that the Senate could be successful in overriding another White House veto. A second option would be including it as part of a measure to fund the Environmental Protection Agency — a move that would force the White House to determine if it would be willing to give up funding because of the pipeline.
vinnie in livingston
Monday, March 09, 2015 12:55 PM
Here’s is Zinke’s “SNAKE” vote where he joins the Dems and the flaccid Boehner and refuses to table the Amnesty funding DHS bill from McConnell.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/114-2015/h108
VEEWY SNEAKY!