TransCanada CEO remains calm in face of environmentalists' threat to Keystone pipeline
http://www.adn.com/2014/02/23/3342677/transcanada-ceo-remains-calm-in.html
Before and after shots of the tar sands.
TransCanada CEO remains calm in face of environmentalists' threat to Keystone pipeline
By REBECCA PENTY
Bloomberg News
February 23, 2014
CALGARY, Alberta -- So there is Russ Girling, TransCanada's CEO, tubing giddily through a meandering oil pipeline, crude oil streaking his face, cackling about how a "little old-fashioned lying" got a gullible American public to buy into his Keystone XL pipeline.
He shoots out the other side to exuberantly confess another deception. "We said that the Keystone pipeline was going to increase American oil independence," he says. "You want to see who it's really going to increase oil independence for?" He points to a fleet of Chinese supertankers sailing from American shores.
Of course, this isn't the real Russ Girling. It's an actor playing him in a commercial by the anti-Keystone environmental group NextGen Climate Action financed by Tom Steyer, the California billionaire who's made it his personal goal to derail the $5.4 billion project.
Girling's reaction? "I didn't have a negative reaction to it, though maybe I should have," he said in an interview. "But I texted my wife and kids and said, 'You know, you might see this so you should probably take a look.' . . . You can't let that stuff bother you personally."