Democracy and the Space of Energy Flows: The Practice of Bordered Transnationalism in the Pacific Northwest

Abstract

This article presents an empirical analysis of border place-making in the Fraser Lowland cross-border region (CBR) of southwest British Columbia, northwest Washington, often referred to as the Pacific Northwest. For five years, beginning in 1999, a protracted legal battle over the construction of a power plant, Sumas Energy 2 (SE2), on the Washington side of the border forced regulatory agencies in the US and Canada to define a regional public vis-à-vis energy provision and its impacts. Their decisions on jurisdiction were mixed and, in some cases, unprecedented. Taken together with the implicit pursuit by the North American Free Trade Agreement of a borderless trade in energy, we explore the nature of border space that came to be applied to this CBR.