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In Keystone XL Pipeline Negotiations, Charges of Bad Faith Tactics
News Articles | Solve Climate News | March 01, 2011
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WASHINGTON—While TransCanada has maintained all along that its negotiations are fair and accomplished in good faith, landowner holdouts along the proposed six-state route for Keystone XL beg to differ.
For instance, residents of Oklahoma and Texas — where oil is the economy’s bread and butter — are accustomed to navigating easement negotiations with domestic petroleum providers.
But TransCanada’s approach evidently fired up these veterans. For instance, two advocacy organizations in Texas — Public Citizen Texas and Stop Tar Sands Oil Pipelines (STOP) — fielded dozens of complaints about how TransCanada land agents trespassed, didn’t offer specifics about Keystone XL carrying unconventional oil and were fuzzy about explaining pipeline safety precautions.
“The reality is that people are being pushed around,” said Ryan Rittenhouse, a community organizer with Public Citizen Texas. “They are feeling intimidated and threatened by TransCanada, which is using the threat of eminent domain to coerce landowners into signing a contract they don’t want to sign.”
In response to those concerns, TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha told SolveClimate News that he intends on following up with company land agents to research the details of the complaints. He added that the agents keep records of all of their meetings with property owners.
Harlan Hentges, the attorney representing two generations of an Oklahoma family in a condemnation legal challenge, concluded TransCanada behaved inappropriately by approaching landowners one at a time. Rural residents, he emphasized, tend to be older, less savvy about their legal rights and not financially stable enough to afford legal counsel.
“TransCanada’s argument is, ‘We acted in good faith.’ My argument is that you didn’t explain who you were and what you were doing,” Hentges claimed. “They acted as if this was nothing different from what went on before with Oklahoma-based pipelines. I don’t think anything about that could be considered good faith.”
Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, oklahoma, landownders
