FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 27, 2016
Contact: Lindsay Meiman, (347) 460-9082
Washington, DC — On June 24, Canadian oil company TransCanada filed a lawsuit against the United States under NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, in response to the Obama Administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline last fall. The lawsuit could make it harder for the U.S. government to reject other fossil fuel infrastructure projects on climate grounds in the future, especially if the Trans-Pacific Partnership is adopted.
In response to the news that TransCanada officially filed the lawsuit, 350.org co-founder and environmentalist Bill McKibben issued the following statement:
“The fight against Keystone was democracy at its best — a defense of science and sanity that involved millions upon millions of Americans. That it can be overturned by three guys no one ever heard of or voted for, sitting in a room all by themselves, tells you everything you need to know about the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of these agreements. Anyone who supports the TPP after this has no excuses — TransCanada is making entirely clear what ‘free trade’ is all about.”
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