You Still Have a Chance to Help Stop Keystone XL

Not clear on exactly what the Keystone XL Pipeline is and why it's horrific? Peter Rothberg at The Nation.

This inspiring ten-minute film captures the grassroots energy and diverse composition of the movement against the Keystone XL, a 1,700-mile pipeline that would transport tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada across the United States for refinement and export on the Gulf Coast.



The Tar Sands, also known as the oil sands, are one of the largest remaining deposits of oil in the world, and efforts to extract the resource from a mix of clay and other materials underneath Canada’s Boreal forest have created the biggest, and by the accounts of numerous scientists and environmental groups, the most environmentally devastating, energy project on earth. For details and background, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has compiled an extensive document that challenges many of the claims made by TransCanada and the US State Department about tough regulatory oversight of the project.

Environmental leader and writer Bill McKibben narrates the film and explains how the 1,263 people who took arrests over the course of a few weeks in the late summer in Washington, DC, transformed what was a regional issue that hadn’t attracted the notice it deserved into a national and a global issue commanding attention. This is the inspiring part and demonstrates anew the continued relevance of nonviolent civil disobedience.

The next step will take place on November 6 in Washington, DC, where thousands of concerned citizens, your blogger among them, will gather to implore President Obama to say no to the pipeline and attempt a symbolically powerful encircling of the White House. Get more info on the November 6 action; dig into research about the Tar Sands; join the Tar Sands Action Facebook page for updates; organize a Tar Sands event in your community, and donate directly to the cause of stopping the pipeline.

Heed the call. Stop the pipeline!

From CREDO Action from Working Assets:

It's clear by now that there's simply no hope of the State Department issuing a legitimate evaluation of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Fortunately, there is some hope: The EPA, which is one of nine agencies that gets to weigh in on the process.

Sometime in the next week, the EPA will issue its review of the State Department's Final Environmental Impact Report.

Strong opposition from his own EPA will be essential if we're going to convince President Obama to reject this horrible pipeline.

Tell EPA chief Lisa Jackson: Reject the State Department's sham review of Keystone XL. The EPA has already roundly criticized the first two drafts of the State Department's environmental impact report, in April, and again in June.3

But of course, it's not really even the State Department's review. A major New York Times article last week2 exposed the massive conflict of interest that we've been telling you about for weeks: that the environmental review, and local hearing process, were actually conducted by Cardno Entrix, a contracting company with major business ties to pipeline developer TransCanada.

The corrupt, biased process has glossed over the significant threats from this pipeline to American lands and waters, and the broader threat of major escalation of global warming pollution by rapidly developing and burning tar sands oil.
We're depending on the EPA to make those threats clear.

Tell EPA chief Lisa Jackson: Reject the State Department's sham review of Keystone XL. As evidence of conflict of interest and improper relationships has grown, everyone is trying to avoid taking responsibility for this decision. President Obama has said he delegated it to the State Department. Secretary of State Clinton is sending signals she may delegate the decision to a deputy to avoid taking responsibility for it herself.

Any way you slice it, the decision is really in the President's hands. However, if the State Department does approve the project, the EPA literally has the power to force a final decision by President Obama, by formally opposing the approval.

The EPA is our best chance to be the voice of sanity in the administration, and urge the president to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Send a message to Lisa Jackson now, before she issues her environmental review of the State Department sham in the coming week.

Tell EPA Chief Lisa Jackson: We're depending on you to strongly oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline! Thank you for fighting the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets