The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would be a disaster for this country and the world. Thanks to NASA’s recently-retired top climate scientist James Hansen, we know that fully exploiting the dirty Canadian tar sands reserves would spell “game over” for the planet. Thanks to the bravery of Tar Sands Blockade activists, we know that some sections of the Southern portion of this pipeline already have cracks in them. Thanks to Exxon’s negligence in Arkansas, we've now seen the reality of what a tar sands spill in an American community looks like.
Despite what Big Oil says, Keystone won't be the huge job creator proponents say it will be; in fact the State Department analysis shows 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 the Keystone XL 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.
We have our work cut out for us, as the draft official environmental impact study didn’t fully consider the project’s climate impact. It was so bad that on the day that the number of comments against Keystone reached 1 million, the EPA declared the official report "insufficent." That’s not too surprising when you realize that the report was written in part 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 and reminding them of the political costs of approving it.
Join us to keep the pressure on President Obama and the State Department to stop the climate-killing Keystone XL pipeline.
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