Kenya see the political nonsense?
No to Keystone….Yes to Kenya
…the Obama administration seems receptive to the idea of helping finance the construction of a new Kenya pipeline. This comes on the heels of TransCanada filing a federal lawsuit over the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming the president lacks the authority to prohibit such construction. TransCanada has also brought an international arbitration case against the U.S., asserting the government violated the North American Free Trade Agreement by not treating the Canadian company the same as it would an American company.
As is often the case in the political arena, there is apparently a bit of a “he said, she said” situation here, and discussion might be more nuanced and murky than originally reported.
However, it seems clear the U.S. government is at least willing to accept the idea of building the Kenya pipeline since the U.S. Embassy’s press release states Ambassador Godec “expressed support for a proposal by a consortium of American companies to participate in the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor Project, which conceptually includes an oil pipeline component.”
If the Keystone XL pipeline posed too much of an environmental risk, what could possibly be the difference here?