OTTAWA—When it comes to rubbing shoulders with movers and shakers in the halls of power in the United States, few governments are better represented than that of a place many Americans have never heard of — Saskatchewan.

Since 2009, Premier Brad Wall’s government and Saskatchewan agencies have paid more than $3 million to a U.S. law firm to fund an ambitious lobbying onslaught in Washington, D.C., on the long-stalled Keystone pipeline proposal and other energy and trade issues.

The law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough has helped the premier work the halls of Congress, hobnob with the cream of U.S. policy-makers and introduce himself to the American media-government establishment. In some cases, members of the U.S. Congress who met with Wall received political contributions from Nelson Mullins before or after their contact with the premier, according to U.S. government documents.

Public records filed under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act sketch the lobbying campaign. In April 2009, the law firm reported: “Outreach to CNN producer Michelle Jaconi suggesting she keep on file the biography of Premier Brad Wall and consider him for guest booking for CNN shows” on climate change and trade issues.

A key member of the Nelson Mullins team is David Wilkins, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada.

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In May 2009, staffers at Nelson Mullins were busy with “outreach to (U.S.) Western Governors’ Association to promote Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall for speaking opportunity at Western Governors’ Association meeting in Utah.”

A month later, the law firm reported it had contacted several major U.S. newspapers to disseminate an opinion piece co-written by Wall and Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer on a joint carbon-capture-and-storage project.

Since then, Nelson Mullins’ efforts to advance Saskatchewan’s interests have covered a wide range of activities: Obtaining media coverage for Wall on his visits to China and India as well as the U.S., arranging speaking engagements in the U.S. for the premier and helping him pressure U.S. President Barack Obama to approve Keystone. The latter strategy included a letter signed by Wall and the governors of 10 U.S. states urging Obama to give Keystone the go-ahead.

While the Keystone pipeline would carry oilsands-derived crude to the U.S. from Alberta, Saskatchewan also stands to benefit if the project goes ahead. Petroleum producers in Saskatchewan are losing $2.5 billion annually because of depressed prices resulting from a North American oil surplus, Wall’s office says. This costs the provincial government $300 million a year in lost revenues. Opening a new export pipeline would push up prices for oil producers in Saskatchewan and other provinces.

Wall has always been open about his province’s lobbying contract with Nelson Mullins and believes Wilkins and others there have performed well on Saskatchewan’s behalf, a government spokesperson said.

In the past five years, the law firm has used its connections to throw open the doors of some of Washington’s most sought-after lawmakers and White House officials for Wall and other Saskatchewan cabinet ministers.

And U.S. Department of Justice documents show lawmakers who met with Wall were in some cases the beneficiaries of political contributions by Nelson Mullins.

There is no indication any of the money donated to members of Congress lobbied by Nelson Mullins came from the Saskatchewan government. The law firm was working for other clients while it worked for Wall. Nelson Mullins regularly makes political contributions to dozens of lawmakers in the U.S. and such political contributions are legal under U.S. election financing rules.

Wilkins declined repeated requests for interviews about his relationship with the premier and the Saskatchewan government. However, he has said in the past, in relation to political contributions to a member of Congress, that he has never expected any recipient of a political contribution to take any particular action in response. U.S. lawmakers contacted by the Star also did not return the Star’s requests for comments.

Nelson Mullins was particularly active on behalf of Wall when he visited Washington in the first week of March. At that time, there was a peak in the high-stakes struggle in Washington over Keystone. With Obama’s long-awaited yes-or-no decision on the $7-billion pipeline thought to be imminent, Wall made another of his regular visits to the U.S. capital and as usual turned to Wilkins to set up his lobbying contacts.

Nelson Mullins arranged for Wall to meet 10 members of Congress to discuss Keystone, according to records collected under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Among those with whom Wall met to talk about the controversial pipeline project was John Boehner, the powerful Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. A smiling Wall posed for a photograph with Boehner and Wilkins that subsequently ran in a Nelson Mullins newsletter. The following Monday after the Wall-Boehner meeting, Wilkins’ law firm provided Boehner with a $2,000 political donation, according to the U.S. records.

Boehner, a longtime supporter of Keystone, had presided over several House votes meant to pressure Obama to approve the pipeline’s construction. And in April when Obama again postponed a final yes-or-no ruling on Keystone, Boehner labelled the move “shameful” and vowed to keep pressing the administration to “move forward” on a decision.

Wall also met with Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat who had long been a prominent Keystone supporter. About a month later, Heitkamp received a $1,000 political donation from Nelson Mullins. That came around the same time that Heitkamp recruited 10 other Democratic senators who took the unusual step of writing an open letter urging the Democratic president to quickly approve Keystone. “This is an international project that will provide our great friend and ally Canada a direct route to our refineries,” the letter declared.

When shortly thereafter Obama delayed a decision, Heitkamp called it “absolutely ridiculous” and said the Senate should consider passing legislation to bypass the president in the approval process for the pipeline.

About a week before meeting with Wall last spring, Rep. Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican who chairs an important House energy and power subcommittee, received a $1,000 political donation from Nelson Mullins, according to U.S. documents.

In April, Whitfield was instrumental in an effort by pro-Keystone legislators to make an end run around the White House by developing controversial legislation that would have opened the way for construction of the pipeline without approval by Obama. “America is a nation of builders, and the American people want to see Keystone XL built,” Whitfield declared at the time. The bill, H.R. 3, passed the House in May, but it went nowhere when a similar legislative bid died in the Senate.

Nelson Mullins also arranged for Wall to discuss Keystone with Rep. Peter Roskam, a Republican from Illinois who was chief deputy whip in the House. Roskam had received a $2,000 political contribution from Nelson Mullins several months before his appointment with the Saskatchewan premier. Roskam was among those who weighed in when Obama delayed Keystone on April 18, saying the president was “hiding behind red tape and bureaucracy” because Obama “refuses to stand up to the extreme environmental wing of his party.”

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During Wall’s U.S. trip in the first week of March, the Wilkins group also arranged for him to meet with other well-placed Keystone backers, including Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, and Sen. John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate. A Nelson Mullins newsletter carried a photograph of Wall, Wilkins, McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham admiring the view of Washington from a balcony on the Capitol building.

Graham, a prominent South Carolina Republican and old friend of Wilkins’, was another prominent backer of Keystone. In 2010, Graham, who has called Canada’s vast bitumen reserves “a national treasure for Canada and the United States,” led two other members of Congress on a tour — at Wall’s request — of Saskatchewan and Alberta to view the oilsands firsthand. Graham told a Canadian newspaper he would “do everything I can to make sure that oilsands production is not impeded because of U.S. policy.”

Graham pushed for legislative action to pave the way for oilsands imports from Canada, spoke out publicly in favour of Keystone and slammed Obama for putting off a decision on the pipeline.

Graham received no political contributions from Wilkins’ law firm in the past few years. In May 2010, government records show the senator’s political committee did receive a $5,000 donation from Nelson Mullins. At that time, Nelson Mullins said its lobbying activities for Saskatchewan included following up with Graham on Wall’s invitation for the senator to make a visit to the province. The law firm was also talking to Graham’s staff about the status of proposed U.S. government funding for the Montana-Saskatchewan carbon capture project, another focus of Wall’s lobbying in Washington.

Wall, who got to know Wilkins when the latter was U.S. president George W. Bush’s envoy in Canada, announced five years ago that the province had signed on with Wilkins’ firm at a cost of $400,000 a year in provincial taxpayer funds. Saskatchewan government agencies also hired Nelson Mullins for contacts and advice in the U.S. capital. Saskatchewan needed a better voice in the U.S., Wall said at the time.

Like Wall, former Alberta premier Alison Redford made numerous visits to Washington to talk up energy and trade issues and stoke support for Keystone. Besides Nelson Mullins’ contract with Saskatchewan, the law firm was paid approximately $600,000 by the Alberta government in recent years, according to U.S. records.

Kathy Young, executive director of communications for Wall, said the province has been pleased with efforts by Wilkins and his law firm to assist in the promotion of Saskatchewan’s energy, trade, agricultural and environmental interests in the U.S., with both Republicans and Democrats.

“Nelson Mullins is doing a fantastic job at helping Premier Wall and other (Saskatchewan) ministers tell the Saskatchewan story to the United States and abroad and we will continue to use their services because they have proven to us to be the best in their field,” she told the Star.

“While provinces like British Columbia and Alberta have offices in Washington, D.C. — Alberta’s D.C. office alone costs over $1 million each year (and they have one in Chicago, too) — the province of Saskatchewan doesn’t.

“Instead, we rely a great deal on Nelson Mullins to open doors we believe are necessary to advance the interests of Saskatchewan in the United States and elsewhere,” Young said.

She declined to comment on Nelson Mullins’ political contributions and also said Wall’s office considers its relationship with Nelson Mullins as similar to a solicitor-client relationship on confidentiality, so the U.S. firm would be unlikely to say anything about its dealings with Saskatchewan.

Wall’s promotion of Keystone in Washington was part of a lobbying frenzy involving dozens of companies and tens of millions of dollars, mostly on behalf of interests favouring the pipeline’s approval. Such campaigns have long prompted criticism of U.S. laws governing lobbying, which many say are too lax and allow lobbyists and their often well-heeled clients to exert too much power in public affairs.

“The way in which corporate lobbyists are able to buy influence is detrimental to U.S. democracy,” said Keith Stewart, climate and energy campaign co-ordinator of Greenpeace Canada.

He said foreign governments can’t fund election campaigns in the U.S., but they can give money to lobbyists who then give contributions to political candidates. “It’s indirect, but there’s definitely a quid pro quo expected,” Stewart said. “It’s entirely legal and kind of business as usual, but it’s also appalling.”

Since returning to the U.S. in 2009 after three and a half years as ambassador to Canada, Wilkins has emerged as perhaps his country’s single most devoted promoter of Canada’s oilsands and the Keystone proposal.

When in November, 2011, Obama postponed the date for a final yes-or-no on the controversial project past the following year’s election, Wilkins called it a “catastrophic cop-out.” He told a reporter the delay could hurt U.S.-Canada ties and would justify a decision by Canada to look for export markets for its oil in Asia.

“I hope that doesn’t happen and I hope we continue to get all the oil we can from Canada, but this decision doesn’t help and it certainly doesn’t help the relationship,” Wilkins said at the time according to The Associated Press.

Correction — September 15, 2014: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly referred to John Boehner as a senator.

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