Keystone XL and the American Political System

I just finished watching President Obama's State of the Union speech. I didn't expect him to mention the KeystoneXL pipeline explicitly, but was struck by his comments on American energy policy. I was struck by the emphasis on natural gas as a bridge fuel toward more renewables. I was also struck by his emphasis on the improving efficiency of the United States and his continued commitment to weaning America off of fossil fuels. All of this brings me back to KeystoneXL. Like the softwood lumber dispute of several years ago, KeystoneXL has become a new litmus test of bilateral relations for many Canadians. Alberta's leadership in particular has been desperate for construction of this pipeline to commence in the hope that it will relieve some of the price discount on Alberta bitumen relative to crudes from other jurisdictions.

I have maintained for some time that the pipeline will get built, but not nearly as fast as Canadians would like. In part, the frustration of Canada's political leadership in dealing with the United States stems from differences between the two countries that Canadians DO NOT understand as well as they think. All of this inspired me to write a short piece that appeared in Policy Options almost two years ago (Fall 2012) which has stood the test of time.

It didn't get much attention then because it appeared as an "online extra." Thought I'd post it here on a night when the U.S. system was putting itself on display.

 http://www.irpp.org/en/po/canada-in-the-pacific-century/a-dubious-disbelief/