When President Bush meets today in Mexico with President Vicente Fox, he will deliver the same message he did to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien last week in Washington: Let's share energy.
Bush wants a "hemispheric energy policy" that, although only vaguely defined so far, would foster the seamless flow of oil, natural gas and electricity among the three nations and reduce barriers that limit foreign access to energy resources.
For the Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday February 21, 2001 Home Edition Business Part C Page 3 Financial Desk 2 inches; 45 words Type of Material: Correction
Hemispheric Energy Plan--An article in Friday's Business section about President Bush's plans for a hemispheric energy policy identified the wrong person as a Canadian economist who served on the board of BC Hydro, British Columbia's publicly owned utility. She is Marjorie Griffin Cohen of Simon Fraser University.
It is a goal that Chretien embraces but that presents Fox with big practical and constitutional problems.
And the White House initiative faces opposition from other quarters as a result of California's power debacle, which is now drawing blame for soaring energy prices in Canada and Mexico, as well as the United States. It has sparked a global reassessment of energy deregulation and could turn America's energy industry into the latest target for anti-globalization forces.
"The energy companies could easily become a poster industry for the message that, if globalization means a market economy, then that's bad news," said Gary Hufbauer, a trade analyst at the Institute for International Economics in Washington.
As the world's biggest single consumer of energy, the U.S. has a point of view that to some outsiders--especially in energy-producing countries such as Mexico and Canada--is purely one of self-interest. Critics liken the U.S.-led deregulation effort to economic imperialism disguised as free trade, where the U.S. forces other countries to open their energy markets to powerful American firms that then siphon off the energy for SUV-driving, electricity-gobbling Americans.
"We now have a continental energy market largely run by American corporations that is based on a model of increased consumption and the premise that we'll never run out [of energy]," said Maude Barlow, chairwoman of the Ottawa-based Council of Canadians, that country's largest public-interest group.
In his first few weeks in office, Bush has used California's electricity shortage as ammunition to promote the need for a long-term energy policy centered on greater development of oil and natural gas. One element would have oil, gas and electricity flow more freely within North America.
So far, the former Texas oilman's plans for a continental energy market have been long on rhetoric and short on details. U.S.-Canada trade in energy is already largely unfettered, with Canada sending $27.6 billion in energy products south in 1999. And U.S. energy firms are major players in Canada.
