We’ve got less than a week to tell President Obama and the State Department to stop the planet-killing Keystone XL pipeline.
The last day to submit comments on the pipeline proposal is April 22, Earth Day. That’s next Monday. And in the last few days, we’re joining partners across the movement in a “comment sprint,” in hopes of reaching a total of 1 million comments opposing the pipeline.
At this point, we don’t need to explain why the Keystone XL would be a disaster for this country and the world. Thanks to NASA’s recently-retired top climate scientist James Hansen, you know that tapping dirty Canadian tar sands reserves would spell “game over” for the planet. Thanks to the bravery of Tar Sands Blockade activists, you know that sections of the pipeline have already have cracks in them. Thanks to Exxon’s negligence in Arkansas, you’ve seen what a tar sands spill in an American community looks like.
We’re counting on you: Click here to tell the State Department and President Obama to block the climate- and community-destroying Keystone XL pipeline
The arguments for building the pipeline have bordered on the ridiculous. Despite an argument that the Keystone will help the economy, the State Department admits that the project will create a grand total of 35 permanent jobs. Meanwhile, the oil spills that are bound to follow it could wipe out the livelihoods of farmers, fishermen, and ranchers along the pipeline route, threatening our food supply. The pipeline is even projected to raise gas prices since it will make it easier to export oil from North America.
There’s just one reason to build this pipeline: to line the pockets of Big Oil. Oil giants like Exxon and TransCanada have already sunk billions into tar sands extraction, and Keystone pipeline is key to making the operation profitable. Without it, a lot of Canada’s toxic tar sands might stay in the ground. That will be bad news for oil companies, but a huge victory for the climate.
The State Department’s review of the Keystone pipeline has been a complete joke. The official environmental impact study didn’t even consider the project’s climate impact. That’s not too surprising when you realize that the report was written by a contractor on the payroll of TransCanada, the oil giant that’s building Keystone.
So we need to try a different approach. By showing the administration the breadth of opposition to the pipeline, we can remind them of the political costs of approving it. That’s why we want to hit 1 million signatures, and that’s why every single member of the SumOfUs.org community counts.