Last Friday, after applauding the Houseโs vote to rush a decision on TransCanada Corpโs Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a new campaign to boost the controversial project. The Partnership to Fuel America is run out of the U.S. Chamberโs Institute for 21st Century Energy, and seems positioned to be the U.S. Chamberโs main influence channel to drum up support for Keystone XL. Supportive comments aside, itโs also the first time the U.S. Chamber has so publicly and overtly aligned with the Canadian companyโsย project.
The launch comes at a pivotal moment for Keystone XL. The Obama administration has the final say in approving the pipeline, and theyโve said the decision will be made by the end of the year. The new House legislation declared that the Obama administration must make the call by November 1st. A final environmental review of the prospective project is expected from the State Department in August. (To learn more about how tar sands pipelines like Keystone XL are a much greater risk than normal crude pipelines, see my earlier post.)
Which is all to say: the next couple months will determine whether or not Keystone XL is approved and built. Given the U.S. Chamberโs long history of support for all things fossil fuel โ and long history of fighting against any sort of pollution controls โ itโs no real surprise that the Chamber is throwing its considerable weight behind Keystone XL. But until now, the nationโs largest lobbying group (which spends more money than the next five lobbying groups combined, and which receives the majority of its funding from 16 anonymous corporate donors) hadnโt done more than release comments in support of the Keystone XL project. (Well, publicly, that is. Theyโve probably done quite a bit behind closedย doors.)
So what more do we know about the Partnership to Fuel America? According to the U.S. Chamberโs Institute for 21st Century Energy, it will be โcomprised of American businesses and industries that understand the need for more energy in the United States and believe that Canadaโs significant resources can help achieve that goal.โ Their site makes numerous references to โNorth American energy,โ but the only North American sources of energy listed are Canadaโs tar sands, and every news item listed on the site is specifically about the Keystone XLย project.
Though you wonโt find him anywhere on the official site, the โpartnershipโ is being led by a gentleman named Matt Koch, who is vice president for Oil Sands and Arctic Issues at the U.S. Chamberโs Institute for 21st Century Energy. And, no, I couldnโt find any evidence that this is some long-lost Koch brother of the Koch Industries clan, but lately heโs been earning his living off of fossil fuels just the same.
Before working for private industry, Matt Koch served in George W. Bushโs White House, as an Associate Director of Cabinet Affairs, and also in the Department of Energy. Before settling into the capital, Koch served as Natural Resource Policy Director at the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations, securing the Lone Star Stateโs oil interests inside theย Beltway.
Immediately before joining the U.S. Chamberโs payroll, Koch was Director of Federal Relations at the American Petroleum Institute, and one of their chief lobbyists. According to the Institute for 21st Century Energy, Koch was โAPIโs chief advocate and issue manager for all downstream and refining-related issues affecting the oil and natural gas industry.โ
Whatโs more, he was โresponsible for initiating and managing APIโs ongoing, multifaceted oil sands strategy and campaign.โ Now heโs running that very same strategy for the U.S. Chamber, and the big tar sands battle of the moment is the Keystone XL.
Itโs worth noting that this Partnership to Fuel America launch โ the overt and very public alignment between the U.S. Chamber and TransCanadaโs Keystone project โ comes at the very moment that both the Chamber and the Keystone XL are being acutely targeted by various activist campaigns. 350.org just launched the clever and timely โU.S. Chamber of Secretsโ website as part of their ongoing campaign to expose the organization as a front group for fossil fuel corporations and other big polluters. (Check out their impressive infographic about the Chamber, which tells a pretty startling story.)
Meanwhile, a whole slew of activists are gearing up for the Tar Sands Action in late August, which is specifically targeting the Keystone XL pipeline, which organizers describe as โa fifteen hundred mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on theย continent.โ
But, now, thereโs no need to speculate about a possible link between the U.S. Chamber and the Keystone XL project. That connection is now public and crystal clear. So it must be asked: why is the U.S. Chamber spending so much energy and resources supporting a project that will be built, operated, and profitted from by a Canadian company, one the U.S. Chamber isnโt supposed to represent? Perhaps that answer lies in those other, more renowned Kochs, who stand to make a killing off of Keystone XL if itโs completed, and who are known to have shady ties to the U.S. Chamber.
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