U.S. Senator Manchin coming to Alberta to discuss energy security
West Virginia Democrat to tour energy facilities next week, meet with premier and energy minister
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, who has called on the White House to revive the Keystone XL pipeline, is set to visit Alberta next week to discuss energy security with Premier Jason Kenney.
The premier's office said Friday that Manchin, chair of the U.S. Senate committee on energy and natural resources, will be in the province April 11-12 to learn about its energy sector and to discuss North American energy security.
Kenney has been pressing that discussion with U.S. politicians, saying their country should be getting more of its oil from Canada, rather than Venezuela or Saudi Arabia.
"I feel like what we have been saying for years is now understood to be true," Kenney told CBC News last month at a global energy conference in Texas. "The world needs more liberal democratic energy and less conflict energy."
U.S. data shows that more than half of the petroleum that America imports comes from Canada.
Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, has been an outspoken supporter of the Keystone XL pipeline, which was cancelled last year after President Joe Biden pulled a key permit for the project.
Calgary-based TC Energy is seeking $15 billion from the U.S. government for the cost of cancelling the pipeline.
With gasoline prices climbing, Manchin has also called on the Biden administration to take steps to boost U.S. oil and gas production. Oil prices surged recently after the U.S. banned all Russian oil and gas imports due to its war in Ukraine.
The senator made headlines late last year with his opposition to the president's Build Back Better bill, dealing a big blow to the legislative agenda of the White House in December.
At the time, his decision won support from Canadian automotive trade groups, who said the bill contained an electric vehicle tax provision that Canada's automotive industry claims would threaten jobs.