It turns out the energy company that left-wing environmental activists have tried to portray as evil incarnate just won an environmental award.
TransCanada is the Canadian energy company, based in Calgary, that has been seeking approval to build the Keystone XL pipeline.
The XL is Phase 4 of the bigger Keystone pipeline project that has been operating for years. Phase 1, a pipeline that transports Alberta oil across several Canadian provinces and U.S. states and ends at refineries in Illinois, has been operating since 2010.
Phase 2, which has been operational for three years, hooks into Phase 1 at Steele City, Nebraska, and carries oil down to the major oil storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma. And Phase 3, currently under construction, will carry that same Canadian oil environmentalists are so upset about to Gulf Coast refineries.
President Obama even gave Phase 3 his blessing, speaking in Cushing in March 2012 as the pipeline construction got underway.
Even so, Obama has bowed to environmental groups by refusing to approve Phase 4, which is no different than the Canadian oil that Alberta has been pumping to the U.S. for four years.
However, the UK-based, nonprofit Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) just awarded TransCanada, along with many other companies, an award for its carbon disclosure efforts.
CDP works with 767 institutional investors and thousands of companies to “tackle climate change.” It provides “the only global system for companies and cities to measure, disclose, manage and share vital environmental information,” according to CDP. TransCanada has just made CDP’s “A List” on its “Climate Performance Leadership Index 2014.”
That’s important. The Obama administration has repeatedly tried to persuade voters that we have come to a fork in the energy road: We can choose either the environment-destroying fossil fuel road or the clean-energy road of solar and wind power.
That is an absolutely false dichotomy. The fossil-fuel industry is investing billions of dollars to reduce its carbon footprint and improve the environment while trying to meet the country’s energy needs. The clean-energy industry is taking billions of taxpayer dollars to try and find a way to provide reliable energy at an affordable price. It still has a long way to go.
And maybe that’s a clue: Had TransCanada been begging for taxpayer dollars rather than making a profit and paying taxes, Obama might have approved the Keystone XL years ago.