Deirdre Fulton<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Exemplifying tactics outlined in a\u00a0new report<\/a>\u00a0that dissects the oil industry’s efforts to influence the tar sands debate, members of a Big Oil front group\u00a0packed a city council meeting<\/a>\u00a0in South Portland, Maine, on Monday night, forcing the meeting to be rescheduled.<\/p>\n The council was slated to take its first vote on the\u00a0Clear Skies Ordinance<\/a>, which would prohibit loading crude oil in bulk onto marine tank vessels in Portland Harbor and building or expanding terminals and other facilities for that purpose. While its\u00a0ultimate aim remains the same<\/a>\u2013to keep tar sands oil out of the city\u2013the proposal has a much narrower scope than the Waterfront Protection Ordinance that city voters\u00a0rejected by a small margin<\/a>\u00a0last November, and is therefore expected to be less vulnerable to public opposition and court challenges.<\/p>\n But half an hour before Monday’s meeting was scheduled to start, the council chamber in the small coastal city was already overflowing; supporters (who wore sky-blue shirts) weresurprised to encounter<\/a>\u00a0so many opponents wearing red shirts that read, “American Energy” on the front and “SoPo Jobs” on the back. At 7:30 pm, Mayor Gerry Jalbert announced that due to safety concerns the meeting would have to be postponed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re disappointed that the oil industry came in at the 11th hour with people who don\u2019t live in our city to shut down the City Council\u2019s meeting,\u201d\u00a0said Mary Jane Ferrier<\/a>, spokesperson for Protect South Portland, a citizen’s advocacy organization. \u201cBut we\u2019re not at all deterred and will be back in two nights to encourage the City Council to pass this straightforward ordinance to keep toxic tar sands out of our city.\u201d<\/p>\n Opponents of the ordinance also took out\u00a0an ad<\/a>\u00a0in local newspapers this week, claiming that the ordinance “puts thousands of South Portland jobs at risk.” The ad directs readers tosopojobs.com<\/a>, a site maintained by Energy Citizens, itself an\u00a0“astroturf” organization<\/a>supported by the American Petroleum Institute, according to the Center for Media and Democracy’s SourceWatch.<\/p>\n All of this seems ripped from the pages of\u00a0Inside the Big Oil Playbook: Strategies and Tactics Used in the Industry’s Battle to Ship Tar Sands Oil Out of Casco Bay<\/em>, a\u00a0report released last week<\/a>\u00a0by EnvironmentMaine, which describes it as “a case study of the tools and tactics Big Oil has already used, and can be expected to use in the future, to keep alive the possibility of shipping tar sands oil through Maine, other U.S. states, and large swaths of Canada.”<\/p>\n The\u00a0Playbook<\/em>\u00a0describes the strategies employed to defeat the Waterfront Protection Ordinance, and counsels that similar tactics will be used both in Maine and elsewhere as fossil fuel companies attempt to expand the market for tar sands oil. Activists can expect Big Oil to:<\/p>\n “Given its success in South Portland, Big Oil can be expected to employ some of the same tactics it used during its anti-ordinance campaign last fall to influence decision-makers and the public in South Portland and beyond,” the report reads. “It is critical that elected officials and the public understand Big Oil\u2019s playbook as the industry attempts to meet its massive expansion plans to more than double tar sands production by 2030.”<\/p>\n\n