TransCanada Corp abandoned its C$15.7 billion ($12.52 billion) cross-country Energy East pipeline on Thursday amid mounting regulatory hurdles, dealing a blow to the country’s oil export ambitions.——Reuters October 5, 2017
If you believe the recent headlines announcing the TransCanada Corporation’s decision to cancel its planned Energy East pipeline, the company made a simple calculation based on supply and demand. As the graph below shows, most pipelines are not at capacity and the need for further expansion is not at all apparent from the data.
Yet this chart, created by Andrew Leach of the University of Alberta, only tells part of the story. Some media outlets have made the case that the protests of indigenous communities played an important role in this decision. CBC, for example, reports that “the entire province of Quebec was opposed to Energy East,” citing the comments of Allied First Nations Chief for Quebec and Labrador, Ghislain Picard. For Picard and others in indigenous communities, “the project’s cancellation was, in part, due to relentless lobbying on the ground.” (Read More).
Whichever of these analyses is correct, the fact remains that extractive industries engaged in oil and gas drilling and transportation have become a lighting rod for collective action in which Native communities are joined by environmental groups, as well as farmers and ranchers, to protest both government and corporate overreach.
the project’s cancellation was, in part, due to relentless lobbying on the ground
Additionally, many tribal governments have committed to the development of alternative energy sources. On Picard’s reservation, for example, there is a wind farm. A 2012 report from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) found that about 5% of all available alternative energy sources in the country are found on tribal lands (Developing Clean Energy Projects on Tribal Lands). Thus it seems that Native peoples’ opposition to oil and gas exploration near their homelands often derives from a more forward-looking approach to sustainability that sometimes outstrips that of the settler communities around them.
In 2005, during the Bush administration DOE set up an Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs to facilitate this effort. As part of a more comprehensive Energy Policy Act regarding energy policy nationwide, the Office of Indian Energy Policy is tasked with providing funding for tribes who wish to pursue clean energy options on their lands. Between 2005-2014, DOE provided $40 million in assistance to 183 such tribal projects.
When Native communities protest fossil fuel development projects like the Energy East pipeline, it is not because they oppose progress. It is simply that this kind of “progress” will not prove sustainable in their homelands. Wind, water, sun—the resources that have nourished their crops and herds and families for centuries—are attractive sources for the energy needs of the tribes inasmuch as they are already part of the local ecosystem and, perhaps more importantly, they are not controlled by outsiders. Oil and natural gas production often bring with them social ills, and afterward, a staggering scale of cleanup and rehabilitation before the land is once more ready for farming or grazing.
Tar Sand extraction at Ft. McKay First Nation.
Still, some communities, like Ft. McKay First Nation in Canada, feel that such exploration and development are worth it. Having struggled for generations at the poverty level, now the tribe maintains a $56 million dollar community trust fund. Not everyone in Ft. McKay is optimistic. As elder Clara Mercer told APTN National News in 2015, “People went to work, people now have vehicles, and we have good homes here and well-kept yards. But along with the big bucks coming into the community we do also have social problems.”
The bottom line: Native nations have the sovereign right to choose.
Sources: Facing tougher regulations, TransCanada scraps $12 billion oil pipeline
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/energy-east-neb-indigenous-opinion-1.4151322
