TransCanada Corp., waging a battle for approval of its proposed Keystone XL pipeline, is ending a contract with public relations firm Edelman after opponents of a different project leaked the firm's plan to attack them.
The PR strategy, obtained by the environmental group Greenpeace, outlines how TransCanada should respond to critics of its multibillion-dollar Energy East project.
The planned 2,800-mile pipeline will carry 1.1 million barrels of crude oil daily from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in eastern Canada, according to Alberta, Calgary-based TransCanada.
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The strategy outlined by Edelman calls for conducting opposition research on Energy East critics and working with third parties to put pressure on them.
"In order to add layers of difficulty for opponents, we will work with third parties and arm them with the information they need to pressure opponents and distract them from their mission," the strategy document says.
Greenpeace released the documents on its blog last week. They drew attention from media outlets worldwide, including Great Britain's Guardian, Canada's Globe and Mail and the New York Times.
TransCanada said on its website this week that it would end its contract with Edelman because the furor over the PR campaign proposal is distracting from discussion of the pipeline.
"The conversation about Energy East has turned into a debate about our choice of agency partner," TransCanada wrote. "We need to get back to a conversation about the project itself and as a result we have agreed that it is in the best interests of the project that we do not extend our contract with Edelman."
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Edelman indicated that its contract with the energy company expires at the end of December. It defended its PR strategy. "It was both ethical and moral, and any suggestion to the contrary is untrue," Edelman wrote Wednesday.
Edelman is not involved with TransCanada's promotion of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry crude from Canadian oil sands to the U.S. pipeline system. Environmentalists oppose it, and the Obama administration hasn't decided whether to permit it.
