[PAA-Discuss] Another twist in the Keystone XL saga

[Juli Kring]

Dear Friends,
Yesterday we saw another twist in the twisted Keystone XL tar sands pipeline saga -- TransCanada announced they’re going to build the southern leg of the pipeline, from Cushing Oklahoma, through Texas to the Gulf of Mexico.
This is bad news, particularly for our allies along the route, some of whose land is being taken by eminent domain – a fight that is breeding some unusual alliances between environmentalists and the Tea Party. This fight will now play out almost entirely within Texas and Oklahoma, where those unusual alliances and old-fashioned community organizing will be absolutely critical.
I've been in touch with several folks on the front lines of this fight in Texas, and there is powerful organizing against the pipeline already underway. I was hoping you would be able to join in, and help give the oil industry a real fight, right in their back yard. Can you step up to be a part of the campaign against the pipeline in Texas and Okalhoma?
Click here if you'd like to step up and join the fight
Meanwhile, TransCanada also announced that, as expected, they will re-apply for a presidential permit allowing them to build the pipe across the US-Canadian border. This is the leg that would bring new tar sands oil into the country - the same permit that President Obama denied last month.
There’s no way to stop them from doing this—anyone can apply for a permit. But as we now know, there are plenty of ways to fight it. We’ll be keeping an eagle eye on the process, making sure that the White House keeps its promises to vet not only the route across sensitive aquifers, but also the climate impacts of opening up tar sands oil. If they actually carry out a real review, we think the permit will be denied—but we've also seen how easy it is for big oil's money to compromise the process. 
And that big money, of course, continues to operate in the Congress, where some senators still want to revive the border crossing without a Presidential review. We sent them 800,000 messages the week before last, and a vote is delayed for at least a few weeks. 
As Bill McKibben wrote over the weekend, Keystone is one battle among many, and we’ll keep calling on you for more support on other issues too. But this is an important, iconic fight—big oil knows that, which is why they are pushing so hard. And you know it, which is why so far, for once, they haven’t gotten their way,
Many thanks,
--Duncan
Articles and sources:
"The Keystone Fight Is Uniting Tea Partiers With Environmentalists" Talking Points Memo, Feb. 27 2012.
tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/keystone-opposition-creates-strange-bedfellows-in-rural-america.php

	
	
	
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