Brendan DeMelle's blog

American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard today announced the oil and gas industry’s latest election-year scare campaign to threaten the demise of the U.S. economy unless Big Oil gets its every wish in Washington. This year the wish list includes approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, expanded offshore drilling on both coasts, opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and more federal lands in the West to drilling, and smaller buffer zones between drilling operations and drinking water supplies.

What if Washington doesn’t comply by delivering Keystone XL and the rest of the wish list? Gerard, the oil industry’s chief bully, threatens “huge political consequences” for Barack Obama. 

You can almost set your watch to this industry’s tired plays on this front. If it’s January of a presidential election year, it must be time for the oil industry to threaten Washington politicians to ensure they continue to do the industry’s bidding. The threats are delivered in the form of outlandishly expensive advertising campaigns and punditry tours, aided by a captive media that serves its role as stenographer for the industry’s inflated jobs figures and misleading claims.

The API campaign is nothing more than a fresh skin on a very old and stale argument – that President ______ (insert current name) needs to continue opening up more of the nation’s lands, particularly public lands, for oil and gas drilling, OR ELSE ______(insert latest political talking point), in this case “jobs jobs jobs” will be lost (a bogus argument). 

CNN notes the close correlation between API’s target states and some of the hottest states in the 2012 U.S. elections – hint: they’re the same.

Andy Revkin has a great interview with Canadian artist Franke James on his Dot Earth blog at The New York Times.

DeSmogBlog previously covered the harrasment and censorship that Franke James says she experienced at the hands of the Harper government, which worked in strangely aggressive ways to block the 20-city European tour of a climate change art exhibit that included her work. Apparently the Harper government does not appreciate the fact that Franke's artwork over the years has been highly critical of the Canadian government's failure to address climate change.

Revkin's piece, Canada's Approach to Inconvenient Art, includes an interview with Franke that is definitely worth reading. Franke provides some updates about the results from her Freedom of Information requests to the Harper government, including the news that:

This week, the Green Party of Canada submitted a formal order question to Parliament. See number 380. The Canadian Government has 45 days to respond in writing.

Franke James explains to Revkin that: 

Jeremy Wallace, Deputy Director of Climate Change at DFAIT, deemed my artwork “not be consistent with our interests and approach . . . and [that it] would in fact run counter to Canada’s interests more broadly.”

In new ATIP [Access to Information and Privacy Act] documents received this week, one email from an Ambassador’s office is particularly interesting as it singles out my Fat Cat Canada essay as the reason my art show should not get Canadian government support. (This is an infringement of my charter right to freedom of expression.)