So it was amusing to see the company proposing the pipeline publish an op-ed on the St. Louis Today website the same day that hashed over the same old tired arguments. One of the most worn out and spurious of these is the one in which more production from Canada is purported to displace “conflict oil from the Middle East, Venezuela and Nigeria — where American values and interests are not shared or respected”.

This ignores the realities of the global oil market, the burgeoning U.S. export trade in petroleum products, the existence of Gulf Coast refineries that are directly tied to OPEC suppliers and the fact that if America really wants to be free of so called “conflict oil”, the best path to freedom is efficiency and diversification, something many of the pipeline’s supporters in Congress are actively opposing.

The last point there is crucial because if we really want to “displace” oil from countries we’re uncomfortable about trading with then we need to simply consume less oil. Importing more Canadian oil into the Gulf Coast does not actually displace oil from elsewhere in any meaningful way. This is because in a global oil market, the threat to America’s security posed by the instability or hostility of major global oil suppliers is not significantly diminished by switching suppliers.

This was clearly demonstrated in a Congressional Budget Office report released earlier this month, which is summed up in this infographic. The report argues that U.S. energy security is primarily about the price stability of oil and the cost to U.S. consumers of oil supply disruptions. It goes on to argue that increased domestic production would do little to dampen prices resulting from disruptions because the privately owned oil industry in America does not have an interest in maintaining spare capacity. This is exactly the same situation in Canada and the report uses Canada as an example of an oil exporting country that remains vulnerable to global oil market volatility.

It also discusses how OPEC’s likely response to any rise in non-OPEC production significant enough to lower international oil prices would be to constrain production to bolster prices. Its conclusion concurs with what we have been saying; reducing demand is the only genuine energy security strategy for a country that has both the highest total and highest per capita oil demand in the world.

The report released yesterday showed how Keystone XL would likely raise gasoline prices in the U.S. and it is the clearly stated aim of the project to raise the price U.S. refineries (and Canadian ones for that matter) pay for Canadian crude closer to the price paid for other imported crudes. So the only price stability the project would bring would be the more stable linking of Canadian crude prices with the volatile international price.

Then there’s the issue of displacing OPEC imports into America. This is unlikely because two of our biggest OPEC suppliers, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, directly own over 1.3 million barrels per day of refining capacity in the United States, most of which is located on the Gulf Coast.[1]. These refineries are there to provide those countries with enhanced profits from their crude oil supply and are not about to cease importing oil from home just because more Canadian oil is available.  In fact, Saudi Aramco will directly profit from Keystone XL.

America is inextricably linked to the global oil market and Keystone XL will do little more than further entrench that situation. It is literally a pipeline linking Canadian oil to America’s biggest export refineries. Claims that it will somehow reduce dependence on OPEC or enhance U.S. energy security just don’t stand up to scrutiny.

23 May 2012

Contact: David Turnbull, (+1) 202-316-3499

 Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform Gaining Momentum Internationally

111 Countries Mention Subsidy Reform in Latest Submissions to UN Climate Convention;

76 NGOs Call on World Leaders to Take Concrete Steps to Eliminate Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies

WASHINGTON, DC – Ahead of upcoming meetings in June of the G20 in Mexico and the United Nations Rio + 20 Summit, the pace of activity around worldwide efforts to phase out subsidy reform is quickening.

Last weekend, the G8 leaders reaffirmed their commitment to phase out fossil fuel subsidies in their statement coming out of the Camp David summit.  This commitment from the richest countries in the world comes on the heels of 111 countries being represented in submissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change supporting the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies.

In response to increasing worldwide attention to fossil fuel subsidies, Oil Change International, in collaboration with 75 other NGOs around the world, has released a joint statement outlining four key steps governments should take in phasing out these wasteful subsidies by 2015.  The NGOs’ key steps are:

• Define plans to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2015;
• Increase transparency and consistency in reporting of subsidies;
• Incorporate assistance and safeguards to developing countries, as well as poor and vulnerable groups; and
• Establish or identify an international body to facilitate and support fossil fuel subsidy reform.

The statement and list of signatories can be found here: http://priceofoil.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/FossilFuelSubsidiesNGOstatement.pdf

Looking ahead, the G20 summit hosted by Mexico in mid June followed immediately by the “Rio+20″ conference on sustainable development in Brazil present key opportunities for world leaders to take the next steps to concretize action to eliminate these subsidies.

“The first rule of holes is that when you’re in one, stop digging,” said Steve Kretzmann, Executive Director of Oil Change International.  “We are hopeful that G20 leaders and all governments convened at the Rio+20 negotiations next month will heed this call and take these critical and concrete steps to remove these subsidies”.

Oil Change International’s fossil fuel subsidy page also provides links to official statements by world leaders in the G20 and other groupings about eliminating fossil fuel subsidies; reports from the OECD, IEA et al on fossil fuel subsidy removal; links to other NGOs working on this issue; quotes for prominent figures about subsidies, and more.  These resources are all found here: http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/international.

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Fracking is the process by which oil companies pump a mixture of sand, water and chemicals under high pressure to release gas. It has revolutionised the industry in the last few years.

On this blog I have written about the downsides of fracking – from the high gas leakage rates, to polluted water use, to the continuation of the hydrocarbon age.

But there is another downside that is now becoming apparent. For as fracking has boomed, so has the demand for high-silica fracking sand, known as frac-sand.

The demand for frac-sand has grown by an incredible 35 per cent in five years.

“It’s huge,” said a U.S. Geological Survey mineral commodity specialist back in 2009. “I’ve never seen anything like it, the growth. It makes my head spin.”

Such is the growth that the value of silica sand production exceeded $1 billion for the first time in 2010, according to statistics from the U.S. Geological Survey.

One leading US supplier expects frac-sand consumption to increase 30% in 2012.

But there is, of course, a downside to this boom.

Last month a spill at a sand mining facility in Wisconsin dumped an unknown amount of sand and other sediment into the St. Croix River and wetlands near the Minnesota border.

The sand-laden water might have harmed aquatic life. It was only investigated when a hiker reported seeing cream-coloured water in a creek flowing into the St. Croix River.

It was later traced to a 72-acre sand mining facility operated by Maple Grove-based Tiller Corp., where they located a leak in one of the facility’s holding ponds.

Apparently the mine’s employees had failed to notice the leak.

This is a fore taste of what is to come. The demand for sand has grown so rapidly that oil and gas companies are even buying up their own sand plants.

“The need for high quality sand has never been greater than it is today,” argues Jerry McGee, Chief Executive Officer of Cadre Proppants, a private-equity owned company that operates one of the largest silica sand mines in Texas.

But this “need” has a cost. In a great, stunning and powerful article on Tom Dispatch, and reported on Salon.com, Ellen Cantarow travelled through Wisconsin examining the downside of frac-sanding, and documented the human and ecological toll left in the wake of the boom.

It is well worth a read as she describes rural America’s fight against the oil and gas giants.

“This peaceful rural landscape is swiftly becoming part of a vast assembly line in the corporate race for the last fossil fuels on the planet. The target: the sand in the land of the cranes,” she wrote.

By July 2011, between 22 and 36 frac-sand facilities in Wisconsin were either operating or approved.

Seven months later, this had mushroomed to over 60 mines and 45 processing (refinement) plants in operation.

The only way to get a grasp on this expansion is from the air, where aerial videos and photographs “reveal vast, bleak sandy wastelands punctuated with waste ponds and industrial installations where Wisconsin hills once stood .. While bucolic landscapes disappear, aquifers are fouled, and countless farms across rural Wisconsin morph into industrial wastelands.”

And in that sense, Wisconsin is beginning to look like the dreaded Mordor landscape of Alberta:  whether its tar sands or fracking our countryside is dying due to our addiction to oil.

NRDC, Oil Change International and ForestEthics Advocacy released a report today that blows apart the tar sands industry’s claims that building the Keystone XL pipeline would lower gasoline prices in America.  The report lays out how Keystone XL would reduce gasoline supplies in America by diverting Canadian tar sands crude from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast.

The findings show that the industry mantra, “more supply = lower prices” just doesn’t play out when it comes to the way the oil industry is configured today.  The mantra should actually read, more pipelines = more profits.  Building Keystone XL will likely raise gasoline prices in America for the following reasons.

• The pipeline would not add to oil supply coming into America for at least 15 years.  This is because there is currently around 2 million barrels per day of spare pipeline capacity between Canada and the United States.  Keystone XL would therefore divert oil that would have been processed in the Midwest to the Gulf Coast.
• The Gulf Coast produces less gasoline per barrel of oil than the Midwest. Midwest refineries are configured to produce much more gasoline from a barrel of crude and over 90% of the gasoline produced in Midwest refineries stays in the United States. Gulf coast refineries are configured to produce more diesel than gasoline. The majority of gasoline and diesel produced in Gulf Coast refineries is exported.
• Midwest refineries have been enjoying discounted crude oil prices for the past 18 months.  This is due to the glut of Canadian and American oil in the region. The stated purpose of Keystone XL is to relieve that glut and raise the price tar sands producers receive for their oil both in the Midwest and in Canada. Midwest refineries will pay more for their crude and will either pass on the cost to consumers or reduce their production, which eventually will have the same effect.

So put simply, Keystone XL moves existing crude oil supply from refineries that have been producing gasoline predominately  for the US market to refineries that are predominately producing diesel for the export market.  This will lower the amount of gasoline produced in America, raise the price Midwest refineries pay for crude oil and lead to higher gasoline prices.

None of this should be a surprise. The industry has no interest in lowering gas prices, why should it? It has for a long time enjoyed a monopoly on transportation fuel. Today, as demand trends shift slowly towards greater efficiency and alternatives, the prospects of raising American demand for oil are fading.  The response is to export in order to maintain revenues and maintain prices.  The industry is doing its fiduciary duty to its shareholders to maintain and grow profits in a changing global market. It has no such duty to consumers and citizens.

This report should help dispel the myth that somehow the oil industry is striving to lower prices and help consumers and that this is worth the risks and costs of pollution and climate destruction while justifying subsidies.  When it comes to gas prices and energy security, America is being sold a boondoggle in the shape of Keystone XL. It’s high time  its supporters recognized the truth and end their cover for the scam.

Download the report.

There were two issues facing the oil giant that day: in Nigeria the Ogoni playwright, Ken Saro-Wiwa, lay in a disgusting and degrading humid prison cell, incarcerated from the outside world for campaigning against the oil giant and trying to protect his people and land.

Out in the cold grey Atlantic, Greenpeace protestors lay siege to Shell’s Brent Spar oil platform, trying to prevent it being dumped on the sea bed.

In one bizarre moment we tried to have one of the Greenpeace protestors speak down a mobile phone into a loud-speaker to address the crowd outside the conference centre. Needless to say it did not work that well.

Seventeen years later, the Brent Spar is just a distant scar on Shell’s environmental record.

In contrast, Nigeria remains a running, oozing, weeping, polluting sore.  One that seems is incapable of being healed.

Seventeen years later, Shell’s AGM, which happens today, is no longer held in London but is now in the Hague. Apart from that little has changed. The pollution continues.

Yesterday, Friends of the Earth International, working with Amnesty International and SumofUs, announced that it would deliver a petition of 70,000 signatures of people who want Shell to start cleaning up its mess in the Niger Delta.

The petition will be handed in today.

Nnimmo Bassey, the director of Friends of the Earth Nigeria and chair of Friends of the Earth International, said:  “As we speak Shell is intensifying its poisoning of the environment and the peoples of the region. by our records Shell had over 200 oil spills in 2011 alone and the 2012 tally is rising already. Shell must stop the poisoning and start cleaning up its mess right now.”

Because Shell is doing so little, Friends of the Earth has started an international campaign which members of the public can support here  or you can sign the petition here.

But we should not forget that it is not just Nigeria where Shell’s presence is casting a long shadow. The company is also exploring in the Arctic.

As I have blogged before, how any company with the ecological record of Shell could be allowed anywhere near the fragile Arctic is beyond the comprehension of many people.

Shell could not operate in the Arctic without the backing of the financial institutions. So what about the financial risk of operating there?

A new report by Platform, Greenpeace and FairPensions, entitled ‘Out in the Cold – Investor Risk in Shell’s Arctic Exploration’ details Shell’s existing and planned oil exploration and production projects in the offshore Arctic.

The report highlights Shell’s failure to address key technical and management concerns in going into this risky territory:

•    Shell’s spill response plans are inadequate – it has not yet tested its well capping system (key equipment in case of a well blowout) in Arctic conditions – and has stated to the parliamentary committee that it has no plans to do so;

•    Shell is developing an extensive partnership with Russian majority state-owned company Gazprom, with an extremely poor safety and transparency track record. Shell is yet to answer to how it plans to limit its exposure to Gazprom’s malpractice;

•    In Russia Shell is also dealing with a history of cost overruns and government duress, which continues to be a concern particularly after Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidential seat.

The report argues that “the industry’s push into Arctic offshore extraction with regulatory and investor community support suggests that the correct lessons have not yet been learned from the tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon”.

Maybe the investor community should apply for the free trip that Friends of the Earth are offering for three people, so they can see for themselves what Shell’s record in the Niger Delta is like, and then imagine what that kind of pollution would do to the Arctic.

It would be millions times worse that the Brent Spar…

Poor old Joe is feeling rather sorry that at his time of need his colleagues are deserting him. In a recent blog he criticises one such colleague saying that rather than “speaking up for me and The Heartland Institute” you are “abandoning us in this moment of need.”

Written on the eve of its latest denier-fest in Chicago, Bast’s outrageous blog shows he is still not only in denial about climate change, but he is still trying to denigrate his critics. He is also still trying to twist the truth.

He argues that “for 28 years, The Heartland Institute has tried to stay “above the fray,” producing “high-quality research and commentary and staying focused on the issues, even as the political dialogue became more and more polarized and corrosive”.

But he forgets to mention that the Heartland has done more than most to polarise and corrode the debate on climate change.

All you have to do is look at the speaker line up for the Chicago conference to see that this is not a conference intended to forward the debate on climate, it is just promoting the views on known sceptics.

Bast then says: “We rely on research and reason, not rhetoric and emotion, and still do.”

Coming from someone who likens the vast majority of the world’s climate scientists to murderers this sounds a bit hollow.

Bast does finally admit that his billboard was “in poor taste and a mistake”.

This could have been a perfect opportunity for him and the Heartland to offer a mea culpa moment, apologise and say it would turn down its rhetoric and truly promote a balanced view.

Instead Bast accuses climate scientist Michael Mann and Bill McKibben from 350.org as “madmen”.

He then goes on to say that he stands for “truth and honesty”.

For Bast the truth may make difficult reading:

Finally after years of disinformation and denial about climate change, as I blogged last week, eleven organisations have deserted him since the organisation posted its stupendously naïve and stupid billboard likening those who believe in climate change to mass murderers.

Over the last few weeks, Heartland has lost at least $825,000 in expected funds for 2012.

This equates to over 35% of the funds it planned to raise from corporate donors, according to Forecast the Facts.

As the Guardian reports this morning: “Heartland’s financial future is also threatened by an exodus of corporate donors as well as key members of staff.”

The list of conference sponsors of the latest denial-meeting has shrunk by half from the 2010 meeting.

“It’s haemorrhaging,” Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, told the Guardian: “Heartland’s true colours finally came through, and now people are jumping ship in quick order.”

The influence of dirty energy money has once again reared its ugly head.

Those voting in favor of the inclusion of Keystone in the bill have taken over 11 times more money from Big Oil during this Congress – almost $6 million – than those opposed. On average, those supporting the move took 6.5x more money than those opposing it. And since 1999, supporters have taken $32.5 million from oil interests while those in opposition have taken $4.5 million.

We’ll add this to the 23 votes Oil Change has tracked in this Congress alone, in which the influence of the fossil fuel industry has strongly influenced decision maker’s support for industry-friendly regulations and subsidies.

A 47-person committee, with representatives from both the House and the Senate, is currently negotiating the transportation bill following an impasse over Keystone XL. The Senate’s version of the bill omits the pipeline. President Obama has also vowed to veto any bill overriding his decision to suspend approval of the pipeline pending additional environmental reviews.

And so the myth of Keystone continues… you know, the one that talks about how it will create jobs, lessen our dependence on foreign oil, lower gas prices… that one. Or should we be talking about the myth that our decision makers actually listen to the interests of their constituents, rather than the special interests that finance their campaigns?

The headline for the conference is “Real Science, Real Choices.”  That’s more fact-twisting propaganda from Heartland that has pushed climate denial for years.

The Institute was hoping for a bumper conference that would help it push its climate denial agenda, its credibility and funding.

But that looks like it is not going to happen. The conference will take place as Heartland is under pressure like never before.

The Institute is facing increasing financial and political isolation. Ever since the Institute ran its “Unabomber advert” earlier this month, its sponsors and donors have finally woken up to the realities of its dangerous climate denial extremism.

They are now dumping Heartland faster than rats on a fast sinking ship.  So far eleven companies have said they will no longer fund Heartland, including Eli Lilly, BB&T, Pepsi, GM, State Farm, Diageo, the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers, Renaissance Re, XL Group, Allied World Assurance, and USAA..

“More than 100,000 Americans are telling corporations to stop polluting our democracy by supporting organizations like the Heartland Institute,” said Daniel Souweine, Campaign Director of Forecast the Facts. “Heartland’s remaining funders would be wise to heed their calls. Heartland’s radical agenda stains the reputation of any business that wants to be considered a responsible corporate citizen.”

However, surprisingly, some companies are standing by Heartland, risking serious reputational damage by doing so. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer argues that it gets “significant benefits from our involvement” with the group.  Pfizer said its support for the climate deniers helps “advance our business objectives”.

Pfizer is adopting a completely nonsensical position here, arguing that, whilst it does not agree with Heartland’s position on climate change, it stands by its work on health care.

What it fails to understand is that climate change is a fundamental global health threat, and it is a key facet of health care policy. The Heartland Institute’s radical attacks on climate science include denial of the impacts on climate pollution on health care policy, including outrageous statements such as there is “overwhelming evidence for a positive effect of global warming on human health.”

In a damage limitation exercise, and to prevent further haemorrhaging in its funding, last Friday Heartland’s Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate project was spun off to become its own think tank, called the R Street Institute.

According to Ray J. Lehmann, the project’s director of public affairs, “one thing that will certainly change from ending our association with Heartland: R Street will not promote climate change skepticism.”

In another blow to Heartland, a meteorologist from the National Hurricane Center has asked to be disassociated from the organisation. Chris Landsea, the hurricane centre’s science and operations officer, reported that:

“The billboard campaign that you all have recently been displaying is not in good taste nor is it furthering the advancement of better understanding of how our climate fluctuates and changes. Please remove my name from your list of experts.”

The billboard advert was never intended to advance the better understanding of climate science.

But nor is next week’s conference. It is designed to carrying on trying to keep the controversy open about climate change, when the science is essentially closed.

In fact the advert and conference are just different parts of Heartland’s disinformation campaign. The sooner we realise that the better.

Credit: National Transportation Safety Board

Download our briefing on the tar sands exemption to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund here.

When Enbridge’s Line 6B burst open near Marshall, Michigan in July 2010 spewing over a million gallons of tar sands sludge into the Kalamazoo river watershed, funds were quickly released from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to mobilize Environmental Protection Agency staff and other federal employees to assist and monitor clean up. But the tar sands companies that produced the oil that is still polluting Talmadge Creek nearly two years later have never paid a penny into the fund. Why? Because when payments into the fund were reinstated by the 2005 Energy Policy Act following a hiatus, someone convinced the IRS that tar sands crude was not crude oil, and therefore did not need to pay.

As a new report released today shows, the transport of tar sands oil through pipelines in the United States is exempt from payments into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. This is a free ride worth over $375 million to tar sands oil producers between 2010 and 2017, including over $160 million for shippers on TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline system. This exemption is an unnecessary subsidy, and one that ignores the elevated risks of transporting tar sands crude oil relative to conventional crude. Logically, tar sands oil transport should be subject to a higher rate than conventional oil, not exempt.

The diluted bitumen that was being transported in Line 6B behaves differently than conventional crude oil when it spills. Natural gas liquids which are used to liquefy the bitumen so it will flow through a pipeline quickly evaporate posing a breathing hazard to anyone downwind. The heavy bitumen sludge left behind sinks to the bottom of the water body making it impossible to properly clean up.

This makes remedying a tar sands pipeline spill more difficult, less effective and much more expensive. So wouldn’t it seem like a good idea to charge a higher rate to tar sands producers as insurance that a spill can be properly addressed and monitored? You would have thought so, but in a political system that is bought by the highest bidder rational policymaking falls victim to special interests. The result is an irrational exemption worth over $30 million a year to an industry making billions while the taxpayer is increasingly liable when things go wrong.

And guess what? The industry plans to more than double the amount of tar sands oil passing through American pipelines over the next decades, making it less and less likely that the oil spill trust fund will have adequate funds to address a spill.

The fund is paid for by an 8-cents-per-barrel tax on oil produced in or imported into the United States. It is mandated to hold up to $2 billion with half of that available to address a single spill. In February 2012, it held a mere $130 million following large claims for the BP Gulf of Mexico spill and Enbridge’s Kalamazoo spill. Under the current exemption, as tar sands supplies increase, less and less money will flow into the fund. We have calculated that between 2010 and 2017, when the current provisions for the fund expire, tar sands producers are likely to save over $375 million due to the exemption. Yet tar sands spills are both more likely to happen and more damaging when they do.

Credit: Sue Connolly, Marshall, Michigan

But irrational and destructive subsidies for the oil and gas industry are not confined to the spill fund exemption. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) introduced bills in Congress last week that target over $10 billion in subsidies, tax breaks and exemptions enjoyed by the oil and gas industry every year. The oil spill fund tar sands exemption is just one of many. These bills are unlikely to be fully debated because Congress receives tens of millions of dollars every year from the very beneficiaries of these subsidies. By our last count the industry got a 5,800% return on its investment in Congress.

The Kalamazoo tar sands spill caused real damage to people in Marshall, Michigan. Damage they are still suffering two years on and may be dealing with for many years to come. It makes no sense whatsoever to exempt tar sands oil from paying into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, just as it makes no sense for America to continue to waiver royalties on Gulf of Mexico oil production or any of the other subsidies to an industry that pollutes with impunity while laughing all the way to the bank.

It’s another stark reminder of how American governance has been sold to the highest bidder.

—

Download our briefing on the tar sands exemption here

Tell your Congress members to support ending all fossil fuel subsidies and reject money from fossil fuel polluters here.

His warning was dire:  “Canada’s tar sands contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history”,  he warned.  “If Canada proceeds and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate … If this sounds apocalyptic, it is”.

Thanks to series of great Greenpeace investigations, we have long known about Koch’s funding of climate denial.  We also know about their involvement in the tar sands, and both I and Steve have blogged before about this before.

But a day after Hansen’s warning, with impeccable timing, InsideClimate News published the results of a long investigation into the secretive Koch brothers and their long involvement in Canada’s tar sands.

Although we already knew about their involvement, what is shocking is the extent of this involvement, which becomes apparent in this new investigation.

The new investigation reveals that “Koch Industries has touched virtually every aspect of the tar sands industry since the company established a toehold in Canada more than 50 years ago.”

At every step of the way the Koch brothers are involved.

The investigation reveals: “It has been involved in mining bitumen, the hydrocarbon resin found in the oil sands; in pipeline systems to collect and transport Canadian crude; in exporting the heavy oils to the U.S.; in refining the sulfurous, low-grade feedstock; and in the subsequent distribution and sale of a variety of finished products, from jet fuel to asphalt. The company has also created or collaborated with other companies that have become leading players in the development of Alberta’s oil resources, and it remains deeply invested in western Canada’s oil patch.”

The investigation discovered:

• The company is one of Canada’s largest crude oil purchasers, shippers and exporters, with more than 130 crude oil customers.

• The Koch brothers are among the largest U.S. refiners of oil sands crude, responsible for about 25 percent of imports.

• They are one of the largest holders of mineral leases in Alberta, where most of Canada’s tar sands deposits are located.  Almost 500 well sites and facilities tracked by regulators under the Koch name are scattered across the oil sands regions.

•  Koch owns pipelines in Minnesota and Wisconsin that import western Canadian crude to U.S. refineries and also distribute finished products to customers.

• They own and operate a 675,000 barrel oil terminal in Hardisty, Alberta, a major tar sands export hub

• And this year they kicked off a 10,000 barrel-a-day mining project in Alberta that could be the seed of a much larger project.

• Koch Industries has repeatedly denied any connection to the Keystone XL, although evidence compiled by Inside Climate News suggests otherwise.

Just as the brothers are heavily involved in US politics, they are also deeply embedded in Canadian politics too. As I have blogged before, in March last year the company added another lobbyist to its operations.   Alberta’s lobbyist registry shows that Koch Industries signed up a Calgary-based lobbyist to lobby the Provincial government on energy and resource development policy issues.

No prizes for guessing what Koch will be lobbying for: unrestricted exploitation of the tar sands, even if this does mean “game over for the climate”.