It ain’t over until it’s over.Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is still holding out hope for the Keystone XL oil pipeline to the US Gulf Coast could be resuscitated after meetings in Washington DC last week.In an exclusive interview, Smith told The Western Standard that she specifically raised the project in meetings with key lawmakers.“Is it dead forever? I don't know. I mean, that was another instance of us looking at all that hard work had been done on that routing. Is there any chance that we'd be able to do a restart or a conversation on that project?” she said. “With the Democrats? Very unlikely, but with the Republicans very likely — so it's not not 100% dead. So we'll just have to see how the American politics play out.”.“I think that there's so much integration between our markets my hope is that whoever gets elected that we don't see the protectionist forces working against us. So that was one of the other messages that I wanted to take down to Washington,”Premier Danielle Smith.As far as the 2024 election goes, Smith has warned that either candidate poses “protectionist challenges” regardless of who wins.While incumbent President Joe Biden infamously cancelled KXL with a single stroke of his executive pen almost immediately after taking the oath of office, Trump has vowed to slap punishing duties on everything imported into the US — including presumably, energy.Biden’s move cost the Alberta taxpayers $1.3 billion of direct investment into the project, not to mention incidental losses from not being built. The Alberta government in 2022 joined backer TC Energy in a $15 billion statement of claim against the US government for cancelling it under the terms of the old NAFTA agreement.But if past track records are anything to go by, Trump also gave approval to the bullet line before Biden revoked it. Trump also was responsible for renegotiating NAFTA and replacing it with the USMCA treaty.Smith said she would be hopeful for an exemption under those new rules specifically for oil and gas. One of the messages she took with her was the need for an integrated North American energy market that includes Mexico..“I think that there's so much integration between our markets my hope is that whoever gets elected that we don't see the protectionist forces working against us. So that was one of the other messages that I wanted to take down to Washington,” she said.“But you do see protectionist pressures from a lot of different industries. And on both sides of the aisle, sometimes their legislators do succumb to that. So I think it's our job to make sure that people know that we're a friend, we're friendly and that by having an open trade relationship, that actually is great for American consumers,” she said.“Going back to the original free trade agreement, I'm very hopeful that we can make the argument that we really need to be thinking about Mexico and Canada as having a special relationship with us that we're shouldn't be treated treated as a foreign interest.”
It ain’t over until it’s over.Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is still holding out hope for the Keystone XL oil pipeline to the US Gulf Coast could be resuscitated after meetings in Washington DC last week.In an exclusive interview, Smith told The Western Standard that she specifically raised the project in meetings with key lawmakers.“Is it dead forever? I don't know. I mean, that was another instance of us looking at all that hard work had been done on that routing. Is there any chance that we'd be able to do a restart or a conversation on that project?” she said. “With the Democrats? Very unlikely, but with the Republicans very likely — so it's not not 100% dead. So we'll just have to see how the American politics play out.”.“I think that there's so much integration between our markets my hope is that whoever gets elected that we don't see the protectionist forces working against us. So that was one of the other messages that I wanted to take down to Washington,”Premier Danielle Smith.As far as the 2024 election goes, Smith has warned that either candidate poses “protectionist challenges” regardless of who wins.While incumbent President Joe Biden infamously cancelled KXL with a single stroke of his executive pen almost immediately after taking the oath of office, Trump has vowed to slap punishing duties on everything imported into the US — including presumably, energy.Biden’s move cost the Alberta taxpayers $1.3 billion of direct investment into the project, not to mention incidental losses from not being built. The Alberta government in 2022 joined backer TC Energy in a $15 billion statement of claim against the US government for cancelling it under the terms of the old NAFTA agreement.But if past track records are anything to go by, Trump also gave approval to the bullet line before Biden revoked it. Trump also was responsible for renegotiating NAFTA and replacing it with the USMCA treaty.Smith said she would be hopeful for an exemption under those new rules specifically for oil and gas. One of the messages she took with her was the need for an integrated North American energy market that includes Mexico..“I think that there's so much integration between our markets my hope is that whoever gets elected that we don't see the protectionist forces working against us. So that was one of the other messages that I wanted to take down to Washington,” she said.“But you do see protectionist pressures from a lot of different industries. And on both sides of the aisle, sometimes their legislators do succumb to that. So I think it's our job to make sure that people know that we're a friend, we're friendly and that by having an open trade relationship, that actually is great for American consumers,” she said.“Going back to the original free trade agreement, I'm very hopeful that we can make the argument that we really need to be thinking about Mexico and Canada as having a special relationship with us that we're shouldn't be treated treated as a foreign interest.”
