Top PR Firm Advises TransCanada to Target Greens Opposed to Its Latest Pipeline Project

As supporters of the Keystone XL pipeline scrambled yesterday get that one last Democratic Senator on board to pass a bill authorizing the controversial project today, a set of leaked documents revealed that TransCanada, the company behind the proposed oil pipeline, is already hard at work trying figure out how to gain public support for an alternative pipeline that would run only through Canada and could make the Keystone XL proposal redundant.

Photo by shannonpatrick17/FlickrThe $10.64 billion Energy East Pipeline, the largest tar sands pipeline proposed yet, has been described by some as an “oil route around Obama.” (Pictured above: a 2009 image of pipes being laid out for the Keystone XL pipleline in Nebraska.)

Internal documents from the PR giant Edelman, obtained by Greenpeace and in the possession of Earth Island Journal, reveal that the world’s largest public relations firm is advising TransCanada on how to build support for this new pipeline plan — called the Energy East Pipeline — by, among other things, discrediting environmental groups opposed to it and creating an Astroturf campaign touting the new pipeline’s so-called environmental benefits.

The $10.64 billion Energy East Pipeline, the largest tar sands pipeline proposed yet, would stretch west to east across Canada, starting from the tar sands mines in Alberta and traversing 2,858 miles across the country to a refinery in New Brunswick on the Atlantic coast. The company filed an application on October 30, seeking permission to build the pipeline that would carry more than 1 million barrels of tar sands crude per day across six Canadian provinces and four time zones.

The proposal has been described by some as an “oil route around Obama.” Given the President’s Friday critique of Keystone XL — as a project that “doesn’t have an impact on US gas prices” — it’s expected he will veto the Keystone bill even if the Senate passes it today. Seen in that context, a domestic pipeline makes sense for TransCanada even though it might be more than two times the length of Keystone XL. (The Energy East Pipeline will also be able to transport one-third times more crude per day than Keystone XL)

The alternative pipeline idea isn’t all that new. Given the prolonged wrangling over Keystone XL, Canadian oil producers and transporters have for quite some time been seeking to expand existing pipelines and figure out alternate routes for their crude shipments. The most well known of these is Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, a proposed twin 730-mile pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia, which has been delayed largely because of opposition from First Nation communities.

TransCanada has been mulling a domestic west-east pipeline since at least May 2013, and maybe even earlier than that. But much like the Northern Gateway project, the Energy East Pipeline too, has been facing growing opposition from local communities and environmental groups who fear that oil spills along the pipeline could damage First Nation lands, waterways, and other ecologically sensitive areas along its route. TransCanada’s decision to hire Edelman — a PR company with a record of representing companies that deny climate change and oppose carbon emissions regulations — is an indication of how desperate the transport company is to see at least one of its pipeline proposals through.

(Edelman, incidentally, landed in some hot water back in August after The Guardian reported that it was one of the few top PR companies that did not explicitly rule out taking on climate deniers as clients. The company then backtracked and said it does not “accept client assignments that aim to deny climate change,” though it still counted denialist groups like the The American Petroleum Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council as its clients.)

The leaked documents, which date from May to August 2014, are essentially Edelman’s job pitch to TransCanada. They outline a “strategic communications plan” that would help the Energy East Pipeline get approved despite the “new realities of designing, building and operating a major pipeline project in North America.” The new realities, the documents go on to say, include “persuasive, nimble, and well-funded opposition groups,” public distrust in government, and “pipeline projects being used as proxies for the broader ‘off-oil’ public debate.” You can read the individual documents here, here, here, here, and here, or download the entire set by clicking on this link.)

The PR firm offers to help TransCanada build a “three-pronged tactic: promote, respond and pressure” which, it says, would “neutralize risk before it is leveled, respond directly to attacks as they rise, and apply pressure — intelligently — on opponents, as appropriate.”

It suggests compiling dossiers on key opposition groups opposed to Energy East, including the Council of Canadians, the David Suzuki Foundation, Avaaz, Equiterre, and a small grassroots group called Ecology Ottawa; cultivating journalists in local and national media, and making use of paid content in newspapers, magazines, and online news sites to push its cause; and growing a body of supporters among the working and political classes by using the jobs-taxes-revenue argument. (The last part, by the way, is listed under the category of “benefit/fear” in a chart outlining the strategy.)

Some of the language in the documents is disturbingly warlike. In one instance, Edelman proposes to “promote tactics that will provide air cover (emphasis added) to the Energy East project by delivering messages that emphasize benefits.” In another it says that the “pressure” part of its strategy would involve adding “layers of difficulty for our opponents, distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources.”

Edelman also suggests building a pseudo-grassroots movement in support of the pipeline by “adopting some of the strategies and tactics of our opposition.” Namely email and social media outreach, targeted ads, etc., which basically rope in industry workers, who can be portrayed as grassroots people concerned about their jobs and the economy.

The PR firm proudly cites its earlier work for energy companies in this regard. “Companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, Halliburton (and many more) have all made key investments in building permanent advocacy assets and programs to support their lobbying, outreach, and policy efforts,” it says in one document. “In launching a program like this, TransCanada will be in good company…” (emphasis added.)

“Public support for tar sands oil is so low that Edelman recommends TransCanada fake grassroots support for its pipeline, and run smear campaigns against civic groups,” says Nell Greenberg, a campaign director for Avaaz, one of the groups named in the Edelman brief. “It’s a desperate move for a company in a dying industry. And it’s honestly morally shocking to see at a time when the climate is in clear crisis, and the real grassroots, millions of people around the globe, are demanding an end to dirty energy.”

There are, however, little nuggets in the documents that should give environmentalists some cause for cheer. Edelman admits that the despite all the investments and efforts by energy industry to promote their climate-wrecking cause, “the opposition is far ahead and well suited to press its advantage not just in the US but Canada as well.”