Canadian Tar Sands: Internal Docs Expose Oil Industry 'Profit over Planet' Mentality

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/08-2



Internal Docs Expose Oil Industry 'Profit over Planet' Mentality
- Sarah Lazare, staff writer
Published on Friday, November 8, 2013 by Common Dreams

Internal documents exposed publicly Friday have pulled back the curtain on the Canadian oil industry's war against carbon-curbing regulations in a bid to protect its profit margin over the planet.

Emails between the Canadian federal government and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP)—released through provincial freedom of information laws and publicly posted by Greenpeace Canada researcher Keith Stewart—reveal that last spring the oil industry successfully delayed a proposed carbon tax increase of $40 per ton in the province of Alberta by lobbying the Canadian federal government.

“The industry in these documents is clearly saying delay, delay, delay and then do as little as possible,” Stewart said Friday in an interview with the Globe and Mail. “And the federal government seems to be taking that as marching orders.”

In the exposed emails, CAPP officials vigorously oppose "costly new burdens on the industry and the economy." Numbered among their concerns is that the profit margin of the tar sands industry could be harmed.

[Berlum]

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