From Transcanada's own website.
Transcanada is a North American company. Like many American companies with operations in Canada, we are incorporated and registered in both Canada and the United States. We currently have over 1,600 talented employees in 33 U.S.states.Our U.S.operations are headquartered in Houston and will be responsible fort he U.S. construction of Keystone XL.
Our permit does allow us to use eminent domain to acquire an easement and provide compensation for the landowner. We prefer to avoid the use of eminent domain and if we cannot reach an agreement, then we turn to the independent processes/hearings that are established in the local jurisdiction.
A poll from
Robbins Research asked this question:
Question #3
The United States “State Department will decide whether to approve construction of a 1,700 mile oil pipeline from Canada to the Texas Gulf Course”. A New York Times article titled “No to a New Tar Sands Pipeline” cites the “environmental risks” as “enormous” including the possibility of pipeline leaks in the United States and the use of massive amounts of scarce fresh water to produce each barrel of oil - oil described by one opponent of the pipeline as “82% dirtier” than “traditional oil”. Proponents of the 7 billion dollar pipeline insist that if approved the pipeline would bring “more high paying jobs” that the United States desperately needs and would ultimately “strengthen the United States energy and economic security” What is your opinion?
I say Yes; build the oil pipeline from Canada to Texas 42.78 %
I say No; do not build the oil pipeline from Canada to Texas 48.51 %
This should dispel the myth that the Keystone XL pipeline is being proposed by "those greedy Canadians." Yes our government under the incompetent Prime Minister Harper, son of an oil man supports the Tar Sands and its pipelines 100%. He has stripped Canada's environmental regulations in order to make it easier for Syncrude to destroy the boreal forests, lakes and rivers in Alberta. Syncrude is not Canadian either, it is a consortium of most of international Big Oil.
American members of the board of Transcanada
E. Linn Draper
Age: 70
Lampasas, Texas, U.S.A.
Director since 2005
Paula Rosput Reynolds
Age: 56
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
Director since 2011
Mary Pat Salomone
Age: 52
Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S.A.
Director since 2013
W. Thomas Stephens
Age: 70
Greenwood Village, Colorado, U.S.A.
Director since 2007
That's 4 out of 11 members.
Transcanada is in 32 states in the USA but only 1 province in Canada. You guessed it: Alberta home of the Tar Sands.
Syncrude Produces the Tar Sands Dilbit in the Keystone XL Pipeline
Who owns Syncrude? It is a consortium of international big oil companies that leases the tar sands deposits with very little oversight from the Alberta or Canadian government. Esso/Imperial Oil a branch of Exxon Mobile of the USA owns 25% to begin with.
In fact, historically the Tar Sands would never have been developed if it were not for J. Howard Pew, president of Sun Oil (now Suncor) in 1967. In 1969 a consortium of US owned major oil companies under the name Sycrude, took out a lease of 170,000 acres of the Athabasca area.
In 2001 VP Dick Cheney drew up his National Energy Policy in secret with oil executives. Cheney highlighted the tar sands as "a pillar of sustained North American energy and security." By 2009, the US knew about the dark side of this oil boom. The US Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan think tank issued a report "Canadian Oil Sands" critical of the tar sands. It stated that natural gas availability and water scarcity and "public opposition due to local social and environmental impacts" could clog the bitumen pipeline. (Reference: TAR SANDS by Andrew Nikiforuk.)
In the meantime the destruction of the boreal forest of northern Alberta continues 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
My interpretation of the tar sands mining encroaching upon the boreal forest.