Energy Policy: A billionaire hedge fund manager and Barack
Obama donor is pushing the president to stop the pipeline that would
compete with one he's invested in. That pipeline could send Canadian oil
to China.
Environmental activist Tom Steyer donated as much as he could to get
Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey elected to the Senate in the recent special
election to fill the seat vacated by now-Secretary of State John Kerry.
He wanted another senator who's opposed to completing the Keystone XL
pipeline that he says would be an environmental plague on the planet.
A few days before President Obama said that Keystone XL would be
built only if it could be shown to have no net effect on greenhouse gas
emissions, Steyer, a major contributor to Obama's campaigns, urged the
president to kill the project.
"We really cannot afford 40 to 50 years of development of a humongous
oil reserve that's twice as bad — soup to nuts — as normal crude,"
Steyer told a gathering at the National Press Club, referring to
Canada's extraction of crude from its oil sands in Alberta.
Steyer has mounted an extensive campaign to kill Keystone, yet he
owes his personal fortune to a lifetime of investments in oil, gas and
pipeline companies. He stands to reap another financial reward through
the extensive investments his hedge fund, Farallon Capital Management,
has made over the last 27 years in fossil fuel companies. These include
holdings that could benefit from the blocking of the Keystone pipeline.
Farallon has made millions for its investors, and left Steyer with a
net worth estimated by Forbes at $1.4 billion. One of Farallon's biggest
holdings is in U.S. pipeline company Kinder Morgan, which has plans to
expand a major competitor to Keystone — the TransMountain pipeline.
Steyer has also lobbied against Northern Gateway, which would carry
oil from Edmonton to Kitimat, British Columbia, on Canada's west coast.
Curiously, he is not opposed to TransMountain, which Kinder Morgan has
sought approval to expand.
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