Last updated on 2012.04.01
TransCanada CEO Russ Girling is wagging his finger at folks who oppose his company's Keystone XL pipeline for talking about things he doesn't want to talk about:
The one thing that has nagged me is how this debate has gone off on tangents.... Those aren't the questions that need to be asked here. We should be asking, "Is the United States going to need fossil fuels for decades to come? Do you want to get it from Venezuela?" [Grant Schulte, "CEO Says Pipeline Debate May Persist," AP via Salon, 2011.12.16]
Should a foreign corporation get to use eminent domain to seize Americans' property (as TransCanada did on its Keystone 1 pipeline)? Is TransCanada exaggerating its job-creation claims (as it did on Keystone 1)? Is TransCanada lowballing its spill estimates (as it did on Keystone 1)? Is TransCanada inflating its promises of increased property tax revenue (as it did on Keystone 1)?
Ignore those questions, says Girling. They're all tangents. The only valid discussion of Keystone XL comes from TransCanada's preferred talking points.