Thanks to you, people power once more squeezed out a victory over oil money.
Today the Senate defeated legislation to build the Keystone XL pipeline. The vote was close, but given that this pipeline was a 'no brainer' a year ago, it's pretty remarkable that people power was able to keep working, even in the back rooms of the oil-soaked Senate. (See the full vote count here) Thanks to your hard work -- most recently sending 802,000 messages to the Senate in just 24 hours, not to mention all the calls to your Senators -- we have kept the pipeline at bay yet again. It's unlikely the Senate will take another vote on Keystone XL, but then again, one can't underestimate the corrupting influence of the money Big Oil is pumping into Capitol Hill.
Still, the news isn’t all good. Last week, TransCanada announced plans to build the half of the pipeline that runs from Oklahoma to Texas; and while it doesn’t let them get new tar sands oil across the Canadian border, it’s a blow for folks along the southern half of the route, who we’ll keep fighting side by side with. And TransCanada also announced plans to reapply for a permit to cross the border—so even the partial win we’ve got at the moment may turn out to be temporary. But for right now, there is pipe rusting in big piles across the heartland of the country, instead of sitting underground pumping dirty oil at 700,000 barrels per day. Our victory may not last forever. But today big oil actually lost something big.
We've been playing defense for months, now we've got to go on offense.
The reason this fight has been so hard is because of the financial power of the fossil fuel industry, which brings me to where we go from here. Going forward, we'll be working with the huge majority of Americans who want to end government handouts to the fossil fuel industry. We've learned a lot, not all of it savory, about how the political process works and we're going to put that to use.
The problem couldn’t be more blatant—Senators and Representatives take money from people like Exxon and Koch Industries, and they give them gifts, with our money. It’s gone on for years, and it needs to stop. The vote today is a perfect example: the Senators voting for the pipeline have received $27,552,302 from fossil fuel industries, on average 3 times more than those voting against it.
This fight will stretch out all year long, and you’ll be getting requests for specific actions in your towns and cities in coming weeks. The first thing we’ll need to do is get every Representative, Senator and candidate on the record about their stand on subsidies.
This email isn’t to ask you to do anything in particular, besides just get ready for the next chapter. I think we all need a little well-deserved breather here.
All these battles are connected. We’re finally starting to stand up to the most powerful industry on earth. Sometimes we’ll do it by going to jail, and sometimes by dialing the phone, and sometimes we will win, and sometimes we will lose, but we are—day by day, action by action—building a movement. Together.
Thank you.
--Bill McKibben
350.org is building a global movement to solve the climate crisis. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for email alerts. You can help power our work by getting involved locally and donating here.
What is 350? Go to our website to learn about the science behind the movement.
Big Oil Messes Up and Announces Keystone XL Victory Before Realizing They Lost
Another attempt to revive the Keystone XL pipeline zombie failed in the Senate today, despite a massive lobbying campaign from Big Oil to force approval of the project.The fossil fuel industry was so convinced that their bribery was going to pay off, that minutes after the vote in the Senate, industry front group, the American Petroluem Institute, sent out a press release celebrating that Sen. John Hoeven's amendment to approve the pipeline had passed.
"Bipartisan Senate majority approves building Keystone XL pipeline" crowed the title of the release, which went on to congratulate the Senate for takign a "bold step" in approving the project.
One small problem. The amendment actually failed.
API quickly realized their mistake and a few minutes later, sent out a corrected version of the press release, deleting the title that mentioned the legislation and making the quick edit of "tried to take the bold step" in approving the project. Whoops.
Make no mistake, this vote was close. But remember, just four months ago, a poll of 300 “energy insiders” still found 97% predicting that Keystone XL would get it's permit. For now, that prediction has come remarkably untrue. TransCanada can of course re-apply, but that will be another battle, down the road. For now, people power (the largest civild disobedience action in 30 years, 800,000 messages to the Senate in a single day, bodies encircling the White House shoulder to shoulder five deep) overturned the odds -- and made Big Oil eat their words.
Stop Dirty Fuels:
Tar Sands
Stop Dirty Fuels : Tar Sands : Liquid Coal : Oil Shale
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/dirtyfuels_tar.asp?gclid=CLf3p-nC3K4CFQdN4AodI0HXWg
In Canada, the oil industry is transforming one of the world's last remaining intact ecosystems into America's gas tank.
Alberta's boreal forest and wetlands are home to a diverse range of animals, including lynx, caribou and grizzly bears, and serve as critical breeding grounds for many North American songbirds and waterfowl. Oil companies are scraping up hundreds of thousands of acres of this wildlife haven to mine tar sands -- silty deposits that contain small amounts of crude bitumen.
Extracting tar sands, and turning bitumen into crude oil, uses vast amounts of energy and water, and causes significant air and water pollution, and three times the global warming pollution of conventional crude production. The rush to strip-mine and drill tar sands in the boreal will destroy and fragment millions of acres of this wild forest for low-grade petroleum fuel.
Alberta's boreal forest and wetlands are home to a diverse range of animals, including lynx, caribou and grizzly bears, and serve as critical breeding grounds for many North American songbirds and waterfowl. Oil companies are scraping up hundreds of thousands of acres of this wildlife haven to mine tar sands -- silty deposits that contain small amounts of crude bitumen.
Extracting tar sands, and turning bitumen into crude oil, uses vast amounts of energy and water, and causes significant air and water pollution, and three times the global warming pollution of conventional crude production. The rush to strip-mine and drill tar sands in the boreal will destroy and fragment millions of acres of this wild forest for low-grade petroleum fuel.
Keystone XL
Click thumbnail to see the mapTar sands developments are already wreaking havoc on both people and wildlife in the region. For aboriginal peoples, the mining reduces local water supplies and increases exposure to toxic substances. Expanding tar sands operations also heightens the risk for NRDC's Peace-Athabasca Delta BioGem -- just downstream from these developments.
In addition to the extraction impacts, the proposed pipeline would stretch 2000 miles from Alberta, Canada to Texas, threatening to contaminate freshwater supplies in America's agricultural heartland and increase refinery emissions in already-polluted communities of the U.S. Gulf Coast.
At a time when we must embrace a clean energy future, tar sands take us far in the wrong direction. The United States should instead implement a comprehensive oil savings plan and reduce oil consumption by increasing fuel efficiency standards, hybrid cars, renewable energy, environmentally sustainable biofuels, and smart growth to meet our transportation needs.
Read our fact sheet and say no to the Keystone XL pipeline.
Take Action Now!
Thank the President for standing up to Big Oil!
President Obama has changed the rules of the game by listening to the American people, rejecting Big Oil’s political bullying and rejecting the destructive Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Please send him a message of thanks right away.
More about Dirty Fuels from
NRDC's staff blog
- Growing concern that climate change is causing disastrous and expensive weather events underscores why we can't risk expanding tar sands oil extraction
- posted by Liz Barratt-Brown, 3/9/12
- House in Trussville, Alabama destroyed by a recent tornado, February 2012, Photo Credit: Federal Emergency ...
- Victory in the Senate: No revival of the rejected Keystone XL tar sands pipeline
- posted by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, 3/8/12
- Tar sands destruction. Photo credit: Peter Essick, National Geographic In a victory for people across ...
- Texans Fight to Protect Their Land from the Keystone XL Pipeline
- posted by Rocky Kistner, 3/8/12
- Down in Texas there’s an old saying; “You can put your boots in the oven but it don’t ...
- Senate should not approve defunct Keystone XL tar sands pipeline
- posted by Anthony Swift, 3/7/12
- Many Senate Republicans are pushing yet another bill to approve the already rejected TransCanada Keystone ...
- Canadian threat to send tar sands oil to Asia more bluff than ace in the hole
- posted by Liz Barratt-Brown, 3/7/12
- When the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline permit was rejected in January, the Canadian Prime Minister ...
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