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Image Courtesy of Fortune.com
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Ammon Bundy and his assault-rifle-packing militia took over the Malheur National Refuge in eastern Oregon to kick off the New Year. Their gripe appears to be the Federal Government's pesky grazing regulations interfering with their "right" to earn a profit off government land.
[1] Gonna' be a showdown at the last chance corral I guess.
Now I imagine Bundy and the boys don't take a liken' to Wall Street bankers any more than they do to the Feds. But in this instance, the bankers could help Bundy a lot, and maybe save his life.
TransCanada, sponsor of the now dead Keystone XL Pipeline and like Bundy no doubt, also dependent on preferred contractual access to public lands, shows the way. President Obama lobbed a final nail in the coffin by vetoing the pipeline and more recently by formally rejecting the project. But the deed was already done by the Saudis who killed it by unleashing a torrent of oil supply on the market, collapsing oil prices, and ending the economic viability of Canada's grotesque Tar Sands and the need for the pipeline in the first place. In fact TransCanada had already withdrawn the plan from consideration.
"TransCanada has been unjustly deprived of the value of its multibillion-dollar investment by the U.S. administration's action," the company said in a statement after Obama formally rejected the planned pipeline prior to the Paris Climate meeting, timed to bolster what he hopes will be his legacy as a leader on climate.
The XL Pipeline decision was effected through a time-honored democratic process enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Some agree with the decision, some don't. But that's not the point. The question is, on what basis can a foreign company sue the U.S. government over a policy decision, putting American taxpayers at risk for $15 billion in this case? The answer: by invoking the North American Free Trade Agreement and its Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clause. This clause, as I previously explained
here and
here, about the contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement now awaiting approval by Congress, amounts to a veritable "trading away of our sovereignty." The TransCanada suit proves the point, and
it's not the first such suit challenging our sovereignty. TPP will open up this insanity to 13 countries and economic activity representing 40% of world GDP.
My advice to Bundy and his buddies holed up in Eastern Oregon facing a cold winter? (Con't.)