The State Department’s 30 day comment period for the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Keystone XL pipeline is underway and will end on March 7, 2014. That will bring us another step closer to the President making a final decision.
Amazingly, the FEIS stated that there will be no significant environmental impact if the pipeline is built, which is simply put – unacceptable. The report essentially sidesteps the question of climate impacts by stating that the tar sands would be developed one way or another. Read more about the flawed FEIS at DesmogBlog.
350.org response: During the State of the Union, President Obama said he wanted to be able to look into the eyes of his children’s children and say he did everything he could to confront the climate crisis. How exactly does he plan on explaining to his grandchildren how building a 800,000 barrel a day tar sands pipeline like Keystone XL helped solve climate change? The twisted logic in the State Department’s environmental assessment might provide some political cover in DC, but it will be small comfort for future generations who have the bear the impacts of the climate crisis.
We need to FLOOD the State Department with our comments, and make sure that Secretary Kerry & President Obama hear us!
TAKE ACTION: Submit your comments at the State Dept Website: http://www.regulations.gov/#!
Please feel free to use the talking points below, or to write your own. Either way, make sure you GET ON RECORD as another person opposing the Keystone Pipeline.
KEY POINT: The Keystone Pipeline is not in our National Interest.
The Keystone XL Pipeline is dangerous, dirty, and destructive. America’s best climate scientists have said that the pipeline will lead to a substantial increase in carbon emissions, as well as threaten America’s credibility as a climate leader.
- Keystone XL will contribute dramatically to climate change. The State Department confirmed that tar sands fuel is up to 19% more greenhouse gas intensive than conventional fuel, and the tar sands industry admits that Keystone XL will lead to more tar sands production.
- The total carbon pollution impacts of Keystone XL are the equivalent of putting 51 million cars on the road when considering the total emissions of tar sands and refining processes.
- Contrary to claims made by supporters of the pipeline, the pipeline could end as many jobs as it creates with toxic spills in farmland or water resources.
- Only 10% of the created jobs would be filled by local people living in communities along the route.
- Building a new pipeline now will lock us in to higher carbon emissions when we should be rapidly investing in renewable energy that cannot be exported and will provide a secure energy future.
- Processing heavier, dirtier tar sands oil will increase the amount of toxic pollutants in communities near refineries that are already suffering from high rates of asthma and cancer.
- New data suggests that the current analyses of the impacts of tar sands under-estimate the climate impacts of tar sands pollution by at least 13% because they don’t account for a high-carbon byproduct of the refining process used as a cheap alternative to coal: petroleum coke.
- The pipeline’s risk to water has not changed at all with the new route. It still crosses the Sandhills and the Ogallala aquifer, and this was the reason that Gov. Heineman, Sen. Johanns and President Obama rejected the route the first time around.
- The pipeline will cross more than 1,000 water bodies across 3 states and 875 miles threatening drinking water for people, farms, and ranches with a devastating tar sands spill.
- This pipeline poses an unacceptable risk to water. TransCanada’s first Keystone pipeline spilled 14 times in the U.S. in its first year of operation, and Enbridge, another pipeline operator, suffered a spill of more than one million gallons in the Kalamazoo River in 2010.
One Response
As a chemically sensitive person, I can hardly breath when neighbors are using laundry detergent with strong fragrances and dryer sheets to do their laundry, as it leaves the dryer vents it really pollutes the air. I am not willing to add another source of petro chemical pollution to the air,water and dirt, these laundry products often contain petro chemicals so I can tell you they can affect people quite adversely.