Your turn now to help stop the Keystone XL Pipeline

Comments on the Keystone XL Pipeline project to the U.S. Dept. of State and to President Obama are welcome for one more week. April 22nd is the closing day of the last public comment period on this project.

If you have something to say, it's time to say it.

Go ahead. Finish your tax returns. Then write an e-mail to Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama at keystonecomments@state.gov.

You can find that e-mail address and the State Department's reports on the project (however compromised by the involvement of 'big oil' insiders) at http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov.

Here's what I wrote to the State Dept. this morning. Feel free to crib if doing so will help you become part of a decision that needs to be influenced by the many who will be affected if the pipeline is built.

Secretary Kerry and President Obama,

I am writing to express strong opposition to approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline. This project should be denied. It should not be built.

Exploiting tar sands oil is not in the U.S. national interest. It profits from the oil industry's ability to legally but recklessly 'externalize' damage to the only biosphere we have in which to live. Oil companies will profit, and everyone will suffer the consequences of carbon-release and fracking: everyone including Americans and citizens of other nations throughout the world.

Arguments that this pipeline's construction is a necessary source of U.S. jobs are smoke and mirrors: the State Department's own Draft Supplemental EIS acknowledges that construction job creation will be far less impactful than original numbers indicated by initiators of the project, and that permanent employment will be negligible.

Stacking up the job numbers vs. the damage makes it clear to this U.S. citizen that Keystone XL is not in our national interest. As a citizen of the planet, it is also clear that the project is not in the interest of humans or of other species.

It boggles the mind to imagine how President Obama could reconcile approval of this pipeline project with his statements on the subject of climate change in his State of the Union address in 2013: "for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change." How could any supporter of the President and the Democratic Party reconcile approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline with the President's statement to Congress: "I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy"?

I strongly urge the State Department to recommend against approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and the President to reject its construction.

Sincerely,

[...]

There are plenty of opportunities to construct a comment and send it through an organization: 350.org is a great choice; Friends of the Earth via democracyinaction.org is another.

To your keyboards............


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Thanks to NFWblogs for the April 2013 image of workers mopping up tar sands oil from the Exxon Mobil Pegasus pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas.