It seems unbelievable, but right now, the Senate is considering legislation that would resurrect the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The same pipeline that President Obama sanely rejected last month.
We need to act fast. Please act immediately and send a message to Congress, urging our elected representatives to block any efforts to revive the tar sands pipeline and reject the pressure that Big Oil lobbyists are applying. A deal might be coming together in the next 24 hours.
“Anyone who thought environmentalists were graying into irrelevancewas wrong…If we can keep this momentum up for another 18 hours we’ll have our half million signatures, and we’ll have proof that Americans who are paying attention want the president’s courage backed up by the Congress.“
Once you’ve signed and made your voice heard, check out this photo-documentary just completed by Ben Powless. Make sure to scroll over the ‘READ’ graphic to hear stories from those fighting for justice.
Wait a minute! Hang on! Didn’t we celebrate that Obama announced that the Keystone XL permit decision (whether or not approve TransCanada’s application to build a mega pipeline to transport dirty tar sands oil from northern Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico) was off the agenda until 2013? Yes, we did. BUT then the payroll tax cut extension came up for consideration in Congress and outraged Republicans decided to attach legislation forcing President Obama to approve or deny Keystone XL in sixty days. This happened on December 23. Happy Holidays climate change, environmental destruction and indigenous rights.
Since then advocates for Keystone XL have put the full court press on President Obama – pressuring, lobbying, tweeting, blogging, placing ads and demanding Obama’s approval:
On Jan 4, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee launched a ‘countdown clock’ asking, “Will President Obama choose jobs and energy security for America?” If you are not great at math, like me, the clock is kind of handy.
Lobbyists for the oil industry – The American Petroleum Institute – launched ads on Jan 11. Ah, lobbyists.
Speaker John Boehner blogged on Jan 13 asking what you’d decide if you were President, and is asking for feedback: “Let Speaker Boehner know in the comments section … on Google+, on Twitter using the #KXL hash tag, and on Facebook by answering our Question here.” Take action, friends!
So, while all this is going on the count down to a thumbs down is on. Obama’s spent twenty-one days, seventeen hours and two minutes (of his sixty days) from the time this blog is posted. In December White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer tweeted that the countdown “simply shortens the review process in a way that virtually guarantees that the pipeline will NOT be approved.” Today Business Week quoted Mike McKenna, an oil-industry lobbyist and president of MWR Strategies Inc. in Washington, saying, “The president is going to say no. The only recourse the Republicans have is to make it painful, politically, for him.”
Months ago Maude Barlow recounted a conversation that she had with a taxi driver in DC on her way to participate in the days of protest to stop Keystone XL this summer. She asked the man what Obama should decide on the pipeline. He said that Obama is in a tough place, if he approves the project he’ll anger his supporters who elected him but if he denies it, he’ll anger the big corporations pressuring for approval. Maude agreed and then asked him again what he though that Obama should do. The driver responded, ‘If Obama can’t please everyone, then he should do the right thing and deny the pipeline’.
Below is a short film about tar sands extraction – beyond Keystone XL, other oil giants are working to increase extraction in other directions, from northern Alberta to the west coast through a project called the Northern Gateway. This short film was ranked as one of the Top Ten Revolutionary Videos of 2011.
Our rising voices are being heard!
The action comes as we pass the two month mark since #OWS began and just days after NY Mayor Bloomberg ordered a raid on Zuccotti Park and barred the 99% from returning and re-establishing the camp.
Our rising voices are being heard!
The action comes just days after teachers and students protested in California. On Tuesday, 5,000 students attended the General Assembly at the UC Berkeley campus to establish #OccupyCal. On Wednesday, teachers and teachers’ aides took a strike vote, and today, students protested outside the Cal State University Trustees offices in Long Beach as Trustees voted to raise tuition by 9%.
Our rising voices are being heard!
These actions come just a week after a major victory for people and the planet! On November 10, the Obama administration announced it will delay approval of what Bill McKibben has famously called the ‘poster child’ for the Occupy movement – the Keystone XL pipeline. Obama has postponed any decision until 2013 due to concerns about the proposed routing through Nebraska and the Ogallala Aquifer. This, after 12,000 people surrounded the White Houseat a mass day of action, is a step in the right direction to cancel the project entirely.
Our rising voices are being heard!
If riot police spend their days evicting occupy sites, we will return and we will continue to grow. Today’s Mass Day of Action is one of many. This week’s remarkable action by students in Berkeley is one of many. Our victory to stop Keystone XL will be one of many. As it has been said, you cannot evict an idea whose time has come.
In two months we have changed the national conversation. From headlines in newspapers to conversations at our local coffee shops, people are now speaking of righting the inequality that exists and creating a just, safe and resilient future.
We have the attention of the 1% and as former US Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich declared at the UC Berkeley, “Moral outrage is the beginning. The days of apathy are over, folks. And once it has begun it cannot be stopped and it will not be stopped.”
On Sunday, November 6th the Tar Sands Action will return to Washington D.C. for a massive rally that sends an unmistakable message to the President.
The following is a statement and call to action issued by a diverse group of movement leaders about this momentous action:
Exactly one year before the next presidential election, we want to encircle the whole White House to ask President Obama to reject Keystone XL and live up to his promise to free us from the tyranny of oil. In doing so, we want to remind him of the power of the movement that he rode to the White House in 2008. This is bigger than any one person – President or no – and we will carry on, with or without him.
We’ve never tried something this ambitious before, and we don’t know if there are the thousands of people that it will take to encircle the White House. But if we can pull it off, it will be an unmistakable message. Also, we’re not expecting any arrests at this action, which means that anyone and everyone is able to participate.
Bill McKibben had this message to share about the Nov. 6th event:
November 6th will be a crucial moment for everyone hoping to stop Keystone XL. We don’t have very much time – the President will make a decision about the pipeline in December – so it’s critical that we make this action as large as possible. If the President sees that our movement has the strength to do something as ambitious as encircle the White House, he’ll know there will be real consequences for not living up to his promises. We hope that exactly one year from the next election, he would take that as a sign he needs to change course and start living up to the high expectations he set in 2008.
It seems unbelievable, but right now, the Senate is considering legislation that would resurrect the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The same pipeline that President Obama sanely rejected last month.
