24 Hour Challenge: Stopping the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline: www.StopTar.org
Posted February 13, 2012 in Curbing Pollution, Moving Beyond Oil, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places, Solving Global Warming
Photo credit: Peter Essick, National Geographic
The fight against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has reached another crucial turning point. Big Oil has teamed up with Republicans in Congress to push a provision that would allow the Senate to resurrect the project. This despite the fact that President Obama rejected this dirty energy project in January.
The environmental movement is joining in an all out, 24 hour push to keep Congress from approving the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. From noon eastern on Monday to noon on Tuesday, we are aiming for 500,000 messages to show the clear public support for President Obama’s decision to deny the permit for this dirty energy project.
The reason for this urgency is that we think there will be an attempt to put a provision to approve Keystone XL in the Senate transportation bill. And this can happen at any moment. So we are showing that there is widespread public support for the President’s rejection of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The American public does not want to see Congress approving a dirty energy project.
The facts for why the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is such a bad idea bear repeating. Tar sands strip-mining and drilling is destroying Canada’s great Boreal forest and spewing climate changing greenhouse gases. Tar sands pipelines are not like regular oil pipelines. They are more likely to leak and once tar sands spills it is more difficult to clean up. And who benefits while we are put at risk? The proposed Keystone XL pipeline will make climate change worse and threaten America’s heartland with oil spills all so that oil companies can get a higher price for their product by exporting it overseas.
The irony is that we do not need this tar sands pipeline. The United States already has more pipeline capacity than there is tar sands oil for decades to come. Make no mistake, this is not a project meant to benefit America. This is a project so that oil companies can divert tar sands from the Midwest and have the ability to get a higher price for tar sands oil by reaching overseas markets. The pipeline company TransCanada has said this itself.
Stopping Keystone XL will make a real difference for our climate. It is false to argue that tar sands will be expanded even without the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Tar sands does not have a path to Asia and is unlikely to get one. But we are inundated with misleading arguments as Big Oil throws itself into securing a pipeline to make its already enormous profits even bigger.
We’re going all out in the next 24 hours to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and are asking you to take action. Don’t forget to tell all your friends and ask them to take action as well.
Take action at: www.StopTar.org.
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Comments
Linn Anne Saunders — Feb 13 2012 01:28 PM
This pipeline is a bad idea. Its placement hasn't been well enough studied, and it stands to impact hundreds of miles of animal and human habitat, in order to propagate terribly dirty fuel production. Please vote no on anything that pushes this project further towards realization.
Anne O'Shea — Feb 13 2012 02:39 PM
If we are to take responsible action to preserve our Eaarth, (Google Bill McKibben), the Keystone XL pipleline project should be rejected.
BS — Feb 13 2012 03:36 PM
For those who may be coming to this page with an open mind, I'd suggest you try to sort through the misinformation and false statements that the NRDC feeds you before you make up your mind.
For example, they have absolutely no statistically valid data to support the notion that a pipeline carrying diluted bitumen from Canada is more likely to leak.
They will also tell you that it is more acidic (higher sulfur and higher Total Acid Number, or TAN) than other crudes shipped in the US. This is also completely false, as high TAN and high sulfur crudes are very common.
They're probably correct about a spill being harder to clean up IF that spill occursin water (which is generally unlikely, but certainly possible). Since a significant portion of the oil is heavier than water, it will sink to the bottom rather than float. This, however, does not at all translate into more difficlut cleanup on land and there is also no evidence that a pipeline puts the Ogallala acquifer at risk of contamination.
I'd also direct you to many of the other articles they have up at: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/keystonexl.php. You'll see that they have been consistently unable to back up their claims when challenged.
BS — Feb 13 2012 03:41 PM
What they also won't tell you is that all of the forest areas that will be strip-mined will later be returned to their original natural condition (with obvious exception that the trees will all be new). Oil companies are committed to a decades-long remediation process, and I believe they're required to put up money up front for this purpose.
They also won't tell you that the area being strip-mined is actually quite small and that something like two-thirds of the oil sands area with recoverable reserves will be produced through methods that will not disturb the forest (primarily because the deposits are too deep for strip-mining in the first place).
L. E. Groux — Feb 14 2012 12:36 AM
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Vote for this pipeline
and the planet is screwed
L. E. Groux — Feb 14 2012 01:11 AM
hey, BS...
Do those initials stand for something?
Are you one of the people that have been hired to infiltrate online blogs, and commentaries?
You say that 'they' will use methods that will not disturb the forest?!
Have you actually taken a look at the photograph that accompanies this article? Youtube has been deluged by slickly-produced pro-pipeline propaganda, but if you look hard, you can see exactly what happens to the earth (see the National Geographic photos).
Don't make the mistake of thinking that the oil companies have your best interests at heart. Millions of dollars have been spent to convince you otherwise.
Don't drink that koolaid. It's been made with dirty water.
BS — Feb 14 2012 08:22 AM
L.E. I said about 2/3 of the area will be produced without disturbing the forest. Doing some simple math, that leaves another 1/3 that is strip mined.
If you want to rely on pictures to make up your mind, please also google pictures of strip mines that are being or have already been remediated. Once production is done, companies then spend decades remediating the area. Oil companies have to put up the reclamation money before they start strip mining. The process takes so long and is so exacting that only one certificate has been issued so far, but much acerage is well on it's way to being fully restored.
Those are also facts that you'll never hear from the NRDC.
Please educate yourself with facts rather than making snap emotional decisions.
To answer your questions about my "agenda", I have worked in the oil industry for a little over 10yrs. I did some work on the Keystone design back in 2008. However my loyalty to the oil industry does not extend to supporting any actions that are illegal, immoral, or environmentally destructive. What I do want is for decisions to be made based on the truth. And you won't get the truth from the NRDC.
Since the NRDC is unable to defend it's positions, I'd be happy to discuss further with you. Let's see if your views hold up to scrutiny better than the NRDC's do.
Joel drotts — Feb 17 2012 01:04 AM
Does your company have any investments into newer energy forms? If so what?
How much of the contracts will be granted foreign contractors?
If the bill were voted or passed, how many jobs may the American public expect in return for our allowing the pipe-line?
Where are the parts being manufactured?
Personally, as an American I have to problem with my government allowing your company the contacts. On condition that all parts used pass or satisfy the made in the USA branding laws (as currently defined). I believe that's 80% made on our soil.
I would like you to take 10% of your profits and re-invest it in yourself or other energy partners of American business origin, to which you may keep the profits from. However, the sum total of the 10% re-invest in yourself and your country as well (I am assuming you're an American company. If not the answer is no, or partner 50% with an American energy company. ), and the money shall be invested in NEW clean/electric technologies and job creating investment entities on US soil. If you do that, the states which you're crossing don't mind, I'd be OK with it. I am more of the mind that if old energy asks the American public for a favor, then we better get something good for it. WE want jobs, and our economy back in gear.
Is this to much to ask of your company, for the favor you seek from the American public? And if so, why?
Respectfully Independent,
Joel Drotts Juris Doctorate