Stop Keystone Now (#DNCtarsands)

On Sunday, November 6th, Heather joined more than 12,000 people – including activists, students, celebrities, ranchers, and Native Americans – for a “tar sands” Rally outside the White House.  They linked shoulder-to-shoulder around the White House grounds and called on President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.

Heather spoke alongside the country’s leading climatologist, Dr. James Hansen; actor and fracking activist Mark Ruffalo; 350.org founder Bill McKibben; Jody Williams, one of nine Nobel Laureates urging the President to reject the pipeline; and other leading activists to press President Obama to do the right thing and reject the “tar sands” pipeline.

Together, only yards away from the Oval Office, we proclaimed, “NO KXL!”

Now, we know President Obama was listening.
The Obama Administration announced on November 10, 2011 that the State Department is delaying its recommendation on the pipeline until an exhaustive new review is completed in 2013.  This review includes an examination of the pipeline’s impact on the environment (including climate change), energy security, the economy, and foreign policy.  The President alone has the authority to reject this pipeline that would put the nation’s environment, health, and energy security at risk – this action is one very strong step towards rejecting Keystone XL for good.

Earlier this summer, Heather authored a Democratic National Committee Resolution urging the President to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline, and DNC colleagues from California to Vermont signed on in support.  DNC members are President Obama’s strongest supporters, but his help is what’s needed to reject this hazardous and environmentally dangerous pipeline. 

National environmental groups, elected officials, labor unions, and Nobel prize winners strongly oppose this pipeline.
The Keystone XL pipeline would carry 900,000 barrels of tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production, and much of the tar sands oil will go to international markets, not into American gas tanks, meaning the pipeline will not reduce prices at the pump.

Spanning more than 2,000 miles through America’s heartland, the pipeline would pass over and under the Ogallala Aquifer.  This Aquifer provides nearly 30% of the water used to irrigate our nation’s farms, and provides drinking water to millions of Americans.  In the past year, pipelines from Canada’s tar sands have spilled over 1 million gallons of oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River; 275,000 gallons in a suburb of Chicago; and 126,000 gallons near Neche, North Dakota.

A group of nine Nobel Peace Laureates – including the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu – called on Obama to reject the pipeline, and more than 1,200 protesters were recently arrested at the White House in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience opposing the project.

Change we can believe in is alive and well.  Twelve thousand cheering, chanting, climate change activists cannot be ignored.  Thousands of activists paid a visit to the President’s front lawn in an effort to reconnect his heart to this important issue; to remind him that his Democratic base elected him; and to give him the courage to do the right thing and reject the Keystone XL pipeline.  Today's action by the State Department is proof positive that President Obama is the team captain for our environmental movement.