Campaign against Canadian Keystone XL pipeline driven by US foundation millions

A slide from a 2008 Rockefeller Brothers Fund presentation calling for a massive funding campaign to scuttle pipelines bringing oil from Canada's tar sands to the United States

During the July 2008 meeting, Susan Casey-Lefkowitz described specific steps the Natural Resources Defense Council was prepared to take in support of the larger campaign to hamper development of petroleum reserves in Canada’s tar sands. Among them was a campaign to “fight infrastructure subsidies” to pipeline companies and an effort to persuade local governments to adopt procurement resolutions eliminating tar-sands oil from their municipal energy plans, reducing demand for the product.

“The Midwest and Western regions of the United States,” Casey-Lefkowitz’s presentation said, “are ripe for regional campaigns focused on tar sands oil.”

She also described an ambitious anti-corporate campaign aimed at “rais[ing] the financial risks” for banks and investors dealing with energy issues involving oil from tar sands sources.

Her plan’s goals, according to her presentation, were to “raise [the] investment risk profile of toxics, health liability, water limitations, infrastructure limitations and global warming pollution” and “[p]revent the proposed modification of [Securities Exchange Commission] reserves reporting rules that would reward and encourage further tar sands exploitation.”

In the end, the money Northrop proposed for fighting Canadian tar sands development materialized — and then some.

Tax records from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund indicate that it sent $1.25 million to Michael Marx’s organization, Corporate Ethics International, between December 2007 and November 2010. The money was earmarked “to coordinate the initial steps of a markets campaign to stem demand for tar sands derived fuels in the United States.” The Fund has not yet filed its tax return for 2011.

Among other initiatives, Corporate Ethics International launched a campaign in July 2010 to persuade American and British travelers to avoid visiting Alberta while tar sands exploration was underway. Tourism brings $5 billion to Alberta, making it one of the Canadian province’s biggest industries.

“Alberta can’t destroy an area the size of England by producing the world’s most polluting oil and still be known for Banff [National Park],” Marx said in a press release.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the second philanthropy Northrop mentioned in 2008 as a partner in the concerted effort to stop tar sands oil development, contributed far more.

Its tax returns indicate expenditures of more than $17.5 million targeted at tar sands oil development, including more than $15.4 million to the left-wing Tides Foundation and the affiliated Tides Canada Foundation. At the time, Tides was led by progressive millionaire Drummond Pike, and by ACORN co-founder and AFL-CIO organizer Wade Rathke.

A newer philanthropy, the Sea Change Foundation, also sent Tides $2 million in 2009, all of it to “promote awareness of an opposition to tar sands.” Another $3.75 million to Tides followed in 2010.

Funded by Renaissance Technologies hedge fund founder James Simons and his son, Nathaniel, Sea Change gave away $120 million between 2008 and 2010 in connection with energy-related issue activism. More than $18 million more of the Simons’ philanthropic funding in 2009 and 2010 went to organizations named in Northrop’s 2008 presentations, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Fund and Ceres, Inc., although Sea Change did not disclose the specific purpose of those grants.

Smaller tar sands-related contributions to Tides came from the Oak Foundation, endowed by Duty Free Shoppers tycoon Alan Parker; the New York Community Trust; and the Schmidt Family Foundation, whose millions come from Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy.

Tides, in turn, made at least $8.6 million in grants to 44 different organizations, each time specifically mentioning its “tar sands campaign.” Funds went to Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, Forest Ethics, the Rainforest Action Network and dozens of others. Fully $2.2 million of that total went to Michael Marx’s Corporate Ethics International.

“We’re not surprised they were funded,” American Petroleum Institute spokeswoman Sabrina Fang told TheDC. “Really, this isn’t about the pipeline. These people don’t want fossil fuels to be used at all.”

Fang, like Rep. Nunnelee and Sen. Inhofe, quickly shifted the topic back to President Obama.

“The president has been getting help from his allies on this,” she said. “These are President Obama’s friends and it’s an election-year issue.”

“Obama approved the [Alberta] Clipper pipeline” in 2009,” she recalled. “The only difference was that he wasn’t running for re-election.”

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