Manchin’s junket comes as the U.S. scrambles to find ways to ease an oil market supply crisis
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Photo by REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo The mood among Alberta government officials this week bordered on cheerful as they played host to Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia and long-standing ally of the energy industry.
Advertisement 2 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney took Manchin on a tour of oilsands facilities near Fort McMurray on April 11, and then the senator attended an energy roundtable on April 12 with diplomats and business leaders from Canadian energy and pipeline companies.
The collegial visit from Manchin is a stark contrast with other headline-grabbing oilsands tours of recent years from celebrity activists, including Jane Fonda, who visited in 2017, or dignitaries such as South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who called for a boycott of fossil fuel producers ahead of his trip in 2014.
Manchin’s junket comes at a unique moment, as the U.S. government is scrambling to find ways to ease an oil market supply crisis that has been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Advertisement 3 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
In January, Canada exported almost 4.6 million barrels per day of oil and other petroleum products into the United States, about 56 per cent of all imports. Officials on both sides of the border have said they’re looking for ways to boost those numbers to help the U.S. and its allies fulfil their energy needs.
At a press conference Tuesday, Manchin said the United States needs Canadian energy. Manchin, who chairs the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, called for a North American energy alliance to promote the movement of energy and critical minerals across the continent — particularly in the face of Russian aggression and a growing threat from China.
“North America could be the energy leaders of the world,” Manchin said. “It really could be (leaders) of the cleanest energy production in the world.
Advertisement 4 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
“I’m doing everything I can. I intend to have Premier (Kenney) and a delegation come down to the United States to the Capitol (and) basically testify on what you do, how you do it and how well you do it and how much we need each other and how much we depend on each other.”
Manchin was a vocal proponent of the now-defunct Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried Canadian crude from Edmonton to Nebraska — a TC Energy Corp. project in which Alberta’s United Conservative government invested more than $1 billion only to see it cancelled by President Joe Biden last year.
More recently, Manchin has called on the U.S. president to restore Keystone XL as a means to boosting domestic oil supply as gasoline prices in that country continue to rise. A call he renewed on Tuesday:
Advertisement 5 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
“The (Keystone) XL pipeline is something we should’ve never abandoned,” Manchin said, acknowledging that while the Keystone XL brand is “probably gone,” the project could potentially be reconfigured or rerouted in some form.
“I can’t guarantee that there’s a company up here that wants to reinvest again, or if the administration is going to entertain that, but it would be foolish not to.”
Manchin was invited to visit by Alberta’s premier and Energy Minister Sonya Savage after all three attended a major energy conference in Houston last month — though efforts had been made previously to bring the senator up north for a visit.
Manchin is known for staking out relatively conservative positions on issues from climate change to voting rights, placing him at odds with most Democratic lawmakers, not to mention the Biden administration. Yet he currently wields a sort of veto power in Congress, since runoff races last January resulted in a 50-50 power split between the Democratic and the Republican lawmakers in the Senate.
Advertisement 6 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
“He’s probably the most influential member of the legislative branch of the United States, so the discussions we are having here are very important to us,” Kenney said Tuesday.
The UCP government is hoping a delegation from Alberta could appear before the U.S. Senate energy committee to talk about greater cooperation between Canada and the U.S. on energy security before the fall midterm elections.
“I think just the opportunity to raise the profile is hugely important,” Kenney said. “I think (Sen. Manchin) and I are agreed that most of his colleagues do not know that Alberta is a far larger source of their energy imports than OPEC, for example. So we have some basic education to do to make our friends in Washington more aware of the critical role that Canada and Alberta play in U.S. energy security and hopefully from that understanding we can get the ball rolling on more infrastructure like future pipelines.”
Advertisement 7 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Alberta’s energy minister, who previously worked for Enbridge and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA), said Manchin’s visit is the most successful such visit she has seen in her 15 years of working in the sector.
“When you hear those words: ‘the United States needs Canada’ – I think that’s the most successful trip, the most successful dialogue that I’ve heard to date,” Savage said.
The U.S. senator also met with federal Associate Minister of Finance Randy Boissonnault in Calgary ahead of his oilsands tour this week and the pair spoke for an hour about geopolitical events and the a continental energy strategy for North America.
• Email: mpotkins@postmedia.com | Twitter: mpotkins
Financial Post Top Stories Sign up to receive the daily top stories from the Financial Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.
By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300