{"id":3601,"date":"2014-11-03T16:55:39","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T21:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/?p=3601"},"modified":"2014-11-03T16:58:04","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T21:58:04","slug":"al-monaco-comedian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/2014\/11\/03\/al-monaco-comedian\/","title":{"rendered":"Al Monaco, Comedian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Corporate executives say the darnedest things! This week, Enbridge CEO Al Monaco got to have a little sit-down <\/a>to talk with the\u00a0Duluth News Tribune–reminding us of the time Enbridge President Steve Wuori got to have a sit down with the Ed. Board at the Lansing State Journal<\/a>— and causing us to wonder anew why these executives get a special audience with these papers. Why doesn’t the Duluth News Tribune invite, say, \u00a0Richard Smith from the Friends of the Headwaters<\/a> in for some of that friendly shoulder-rubbing? In the interview, Monaco says some pretty hilarious things (the paper calls them “insights”), none more hilarious than his comments about environmentalists:<\/p>\n

Misperception we\u2019re \u201cfighting environmentalists\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think maybe there\u2019s a perception that we\u2019re fighting environmentalists. My approach to this has always been, \u2018Let us work with you. Let us figure out how we can improve the project.\u2019 So if there are some ideas \u2014 whether (from) a community member, whether it\u2019s a government agency, or whether it\u2019s an environmentalist \u2014 we\u2019d like to hear those ideas, and if it makes the project better we\u2019ll look at it. I\u2019m trying to make a point here that it\u2019s not necessarily them and us. It\u2019s what\u2019s best for the project (and) what\u2019s best for the communities so we protect the environment. That\u2019s what our goal is.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do sit down with environmental groups, and our approach is to try and engage them, to try and understand their point of view, and hopefully they can try and understand our point of view. \u2026 Our first focus is to do what\u2019s best for the environment and to make sure were operating safely.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Obviously, we have no way of knowing whether Monaco actually believes this, is making some sort of joke, or just thinks it’s good p.r. to say such absurd things, knowing that the newspaper Ed. Board will just dutifully type it up and print it in their paper. What we do know, however, is that Monaco’s comments are funny enough to earn him a regular gig on one of the late night talk shows, or maybe his own HBO special.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, reality is slightly less amusing. Let’s just recall a quick example\u00a0of how Enbridge really deals with each of these groups: environmentalists, “community member[s],” and “government agencies”:<\/p>\n

Here is Monaco’s predecessor Patrick Daniel explaining how environmentalists are “revolutionaries”<\/a> out to upend society as we know it.<\/p>\n

Here is Enbride spokesperson Graham White making up a demonstrably\u00a0false and disparaging story<\/a> about a concerned community member (and a follow-up<\/a>).<\/p>\n

And here is Enbridge Vice President Richard Adams looking a major government agency– the EPA– straight in the eye and telling them something other than the truth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It seems to us that the only groups Enbridge really cares to “sit down” with to share their point of view are friendly, credulous<\/a> newspaper editorial pages willing to grant them “exclusive” interviews.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Corporate executives say the darnedest things! This week, Enbridge CEO Al Monaco got to have a little sit-down to talk with the\u00a0Duluth News Tribune–reminding us of the time Enbridge President Steve Wuori got to have a sit down with the Ed. Board at the Lansing State Journal— and causing us to wonder anew why these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,10,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beyond-6b","category-conduct","category-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3601"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3605,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3601\/revisions\/3605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grangehallpress.com\/Enbridgeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}