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Issues: Moving Beyond Oil

Resolved: Tar sands are an expensive and risky investment

May 12, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Green Enterprise , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
BP, canada, conocophillips, gulfspill, investor, oilsands, shareholder, tarsands

RESOLVED: Shareholders request that an independent committee of the Board prepare a report (at reasonable cost and omitting proprietary information) on the environmental damage that would result from the company’s expanding oil sands operations in the Canadian boreal forest. The...

New tar sands pipeline means high gas prices, over-capacity, and losing supply to Europe

May 10, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
dirtyfuels, keystonexl, oilsands, pipeline, tarsands

Several new reports came out today all with a common message: tar sands is not the right choice for our energy future. These reports are especially timely since the United States is considering a proposal to build yet another...

Gulf spill is a wake-up call to stop dirty, dangerous and expensive fuels such as tar sands oil

May 7, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
alberta, biogems, canada, dirtyfuels, gulfspill, ogallala, oilsands, tarsands

The BP deep oil rig accident in the Gulf Coast is a tragic example of the very high dangers and costs of going after fuels that in the past we considered too difficult, dangerous or expensive to access. I have...

Tar sands oil undermines green jobs in U.S. and Canada

May 4, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
canada, climate, globalwarming, greenjobs, gulfspill, oilsands, tarsands

Today, I’ll be speaking at the Green Jobs, Good Jobs conference in DC.  When we first envisioned the topic for the U.S.-Canada climate policy panel, we did not realize that we would be in the midst of a political impasse...

Gulf Oil Spill Threatens Breeding and Migrating Birds

May 3, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places

Tags:
biogems, birds, BP, gulfspill, louisiana, oil

  We all watched with horror as the oil rig accident took the lives of eleven workers of the Deepwater Horizon rig and injured more. The still uncapped oil spill is growing and heading on a path of devastation...

Europeans Say No to Tar Sands Oil

April 20, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
canada, europe, fuels, oilsands, tarsands

Today a letter went from 17 Members of the European Parliament to the European Commission in protest of tar sands oil. This is the second letter protesting tar sands oil coming from Parliamentarians in the past half year and it...

Clearing the Waters on Tar Sands Tailings Waste

April 14, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
alberta, canada, CEC, oilsands, tailingsponds, tarsands

It is depressing that a topic as vast as 50 square miles of tar sands oil tailings waste lagoons from strip-mining the Boreal forest should be even murkier than the toxic waters stored in them. In order to clear the...

Pipeline to the Past: Tar Sands Oil Holds Back Our Clean Energy Future

April 9, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
canada, EIS, keystonexl, oilsands, pipeline, state, tarsands

Late this afternoon, the State Department made available on its webpage its draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The DEIS is oddly dated one week from now and it seems as though no...

Crude Awakening: Audubon Magazine Tells the Tale of Tar Sands and Bird Habitat

March 8, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
audubon, barryyeoman, biogems, birds, canada, oilsands, tarsands

Last summer, Audubon Magazine reporter Barry Yeoman travelled north to the open pit mines in Alberta, Canada where a dense form of oil is dug from the earth like coal. He saw the devastation caused by these tar sands mines...

Tar sands oil trial underway – Charge: the death of 1,600 ducks

March 2, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
biogems, canada, dirtyfuels, ducks, oilsands, tailingsponds, tarsands

Yesterday in Canada, one of the tar sands oil giants went to court to defend itself. The charge: killing 1,600 ducks. The oil company: the aptly named Syncrude a joint venture whose owners include ConcoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Murphy Oil....

Tar sands oil lobby revolving door

March 1, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
canada, climate, dirtyfuels, oilsands, tarsands

Many people think of Canada as large tracts of pristine forests and a strong environmental ethic. Indeed, the Canadian people and provincial governments such as Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia are working hard to fight climate change. Yet, the...

Guest Blog: Climate Game Has Changed As Premiers Meet with Governors

February 19, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
canada, climate, dirtyfuels, energy, oilsands, premiers, tarsands

By Rick Smith, Executive Director of Environmental Defence Canada Tomorrow, in Washington, DC, Canada’s Premiers will meet with U.S. Governors to talk, in part, about energy and the environment. The meeting neatly captures the fact that the Harper government has given...

Uncommon Ground over Tar Sands and Climate

February 18, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
canada, cleanenergy, dirtyfuels, oilsands, tarsands

Over the next few days, Canadian provincial leaders are visiting Washington, D.C. for the National Governors Association conference – finding common ground with their neighbors to the south that they are not finding with Canadian tar sands provinces and the...

What tar sands oil means in America’s heartland

February 17, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
dirtyfuels, keystonexl, oilsands, pipeline, tarsands, transcanada

With Elizabeth Shope, NRDC advocate One of Canada’s largest pipeline companies, TransCanada, is proposing to build a 1,800-mile-long pipeline that would cut through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas (map).  This high-pressure pipeline, the Keystone XL, would carry the...

Bird-Lovers Flock Together

February 11, 2010

Posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz in Moving Beyond Oil , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places

Tags:
biogems, birds, oilsands, tarsands, welovebirds

Bird watching is the number one hobby in America. And when we flock together, bird-lovers have a strong voice in protecting birds and bird habitat. That is why NRDC has joined together with Cornell Lab of Ornithology to create a...

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz
Susan Casey-Lefkowitz
Senior Attorney
Washington, D.C.
With a daughter almost on her way to college, I've been looking at the world...
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