FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20463 

BEFORE THE FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION

In the Matter of ) 

 ) 

Pembina Pipeline Corporation ) MUR 7512 

Fort Chicago Holdings, II US, LLC ) 

Jordan Cove Energy Project L.P. ) 

Jordan Cove LNG, LLC ) 

Jordan Cove LNG, L.P. ) 

Jordan Cove LNG LLC PAC and Allison ) 

 Murray in her official capacity as treasurer ) 

Save Coos Jobs Committee ) 

STATEMENT OF REASONS OF 

COMMISSIONER ELLEN L. WEINTRAUB

In this matter, several U.S. subsidiaries of Pembina Pipeline Corporation (a Canadian 

corporation) and an associated PAC (collectively, “the Jordan Cove Entities”) spent more than 

$850,000 over several election cycles to help defeat a ballot issue that would have blocked 

construction of a natural-gas terminal and pipeline in Coos Bay, Oregon. The terminal and 

pipeline were the business focus of several of the subsidiaries.1

The Jordan Cove Entities contributed $101,000 to state and local candidate committees,

$158,555 to other state and local committees, and $596,155 to Save Coos Jobs, the ballot-issue 

committee organized to oppose the ballot initiative.2

With respect to the Jordan Cove Entities’ contributions to the political committees, the 

law is well-established. As explained in the First General Counsel’s Report: “[T]he Commission 

has consistently found a violation of the foreign national prohibition where foreign national 

officers or directors of a U.S. company participated in the company’s decisions to make 

contributions or in the management of its separate segregated fund, or where foreign funds were 

used by a U.S. subsidiary of a foreign corporation to make contributions or donations in 

connection with U.S. elections.”3

 

1

 First General Counsel’s Report, MUR 7512 (Pembina Pipeline Corporation, et al.) at 5-6 (May 6, 2021).

2

 Id. at 6.

3

 Id. at 11 (emphasis added). 

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MUR 7512 (Pembina Pipeline Corporation, et al.) 

Statement of Reasons of Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub

Page 2 of 2 

At a minimum (and I believe the bar is higher4), the Commission has previously insisted 

that foreign officers and directors stay out of overt participation in decisionmaking about U.S. 

political donations of a domestic subsidiary and that the money used be “home-grown,” that is, 

derived from business activities in the U.S.A. In this matter, the domestic subsidiary did not 

appear to have any domestic revenues, which alone should have merited a reason-to-believe 

finding and an investigation, as it has in the past.5

And we had strong indications before us of foreign participation in the decisionmaking 

process, as our Office of General Counsel detailed: “These circumstances — Jordan Cove’s 

apparent lack of a domestic revenue stream, annual reports indicating Canadian primary places 

of business and mailing addresses, donations disclosed from a Jordan Cove entity at a Canadian 

address, and Jordan Cove’s lack of a substantive response providing a basis to assess the 

decision-making process for and funding of the donations — support a reasonable inference that 

foreign nationals were involved in the decision-making process regarding the donations and the 

funds Jordan Cove used to make the donations originated from a foreign national source.”6

 This, 

too, merited investigation.

The spending directed to the Save Coos Jobs ballot-issue committee raises many of the 

same very troubling issues as MUR 7523 (Stop I-186, et al.). My analysis of that matter – and 

my alarm at my colleagues’ voting to allow such foreign interference in American political life – 

applies here as well.7 Ballot measures are an exercise of direct democracy, whereby citizens 

choose the laws that govern us. Whether U.S. citizens are voting to select government officials or 

voting to adopt the laws and constitutions those officials will administer, we deserve to do so 

based on American priorities, free of foreign influence. 

Given the importance of the foreign-national political-spending ban, the Commission 

should have pursued this Complaint to ensure that Pembina Pipeline was not using its domestic 

subsidiaries to funnel foreign money into U.S. elections. Investigating this Complaint would not 

have shifted the burden of proof to respondents, as some of my colleagues claim. Our failure to 

investigate ignores information sitting plainly in front of us and deviates from clear and wellestablished Commission precedents. 

 

November 3, 2021 Ellen L. Weintraub 

Commissioner 

4

 See Ellen L. Weintraub, “Taking On Citizens United,” NY TIMES (March 30, 2016), found at

http://nyti.ms/1qhmpKB. 

5

 See Factual & Legal Analysis at 1, 4, MUR 6093 (Transurban Group); Advisory Op. 1989-20 (Kuilima) at 

1; Factual & Legal Analysis at 6 & n.5, MUR 4250 (Republican Nat’l Comm.); Conciliation Agreement ¶ IV.6, 

MUR 2892 (Royal Hawaiian Country Club and Y.Y. Valley Corp.). 

6

 First General Counsel’s Report, MUR 7512 (Pembina Pipeline Corporation, et al.) at 20. 

7

 Statement of Reasons of Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub, MUR 7523 (Stop I-186, et al.) (Oct. 29, 2021). 

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