According to a Buzzfeed report, VP Joe Biden told an environmental activist in South Carolina that he opposes KXL, TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline, but in the Obama administration, he’s in the minority. Biden made the remark at Rep. Jim Clyburn’s annual ‘World Famous Fish Fry’ Friday evening, where he met Elaine Cooper, a Columbia resident [...]
Tag Archives | Keystone XL Pipeline
KXL Pipeline, State’s “Study” and Minnesota’s 30,000 Gallon Tar Sands Spill
Short version: TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline is under construction. The related study and report by the State Department was outsourced to a consulting firm with ties to TransCanada. A couple of days ago there was a tar sands spill when a train derailed in Minnesota. When the content is toxic, any spill – from train, [...]
Senate Passes Non-Binding “Budget” in “Vote-a-Rama” and Amendment-palooza
On Friday, however, Senate Democrats stood up and voted for almost a trillion dollars more in tax hikes — and that’s on top of the tax hikes in the fiscal cliff deal. That’s about $375 billion more in tax increases than even Obama has been asking for lately. Republicans always said Senate Democrats needed to [...]
State Dept. Late Friday Draft Release Clears Keystone XL Pipeline Construction
“You know the news is bad when it comes out at 4 PM on Friday.” – Michael Brune, Sierra Club The Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the Keystone XL pipeline’s route was released just a few weeks after about 35,000 people gathered in DC to urge the project not be built, and after several [...]
Environmental Protection Provided by Keystone (Pipeline) Cops
The Keystone XL Pipeline and the effort of activists to stop it are significant for many reasons. I’ve written about this frequently, especially the grassroots efforts of Tar Sands Blockade, and recently, about the Forward On Climate Change event in DC last weekend, with approximately 40,000 people participating. Now, I want to focus some of [...]
Obama’s Decision on Keystone XL and His Response to Climate Change
There’s nothing unusual about politicians and Electeds saying one thing and doing another. It’s a bipartisan thing. We the Electorate are so accustomed to it that it’s a shock when actions actually follow the words spoken. Regarding Mr. Obama’s strong inaugural speech section related to climate change, we’ll soon have one indication of how closely [...]
500 Years of Resistance [VIDEO]
Yesterday on Facebook I noticed a couple of posts making fun of the actions of Idle No More, a “worldwide indigenous movement,” and other groups acting in solidarity with INM. That came as I was thinking about what I’d read at Idle No More; at Roar Magazine, “A continuation of 500 years of indigenous resistance”; [...]
Interview — Tar Sands Blockader Grace Cagle: The “Path of This Pipeline is Like a Map of Power and Poverty”
Grace Cagle is a 22 year old, from the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. She tells me she doesn’t consider herself an activist, but “a person aware of the injustices in this society who is willing and privileged enough to be able to resist those creating injustice.” That’s what she did a few weeks ago, when she [...]
John Kerry is a Better Choice for State Than Susan Rice
The problem with making Susan Rice secretary of state isn’t Benghazi. It’s war. Rice, like her “mentor,” former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, and the current secretary, Hillary Clinton, has supported just about every proposed U.S. military intervention over the two decades. The president should nominate someone that occasionally opposes a war. [...] Rice is [...]
BREAKING: Construction of KXL Section Halted by Judge Over Landowner’s Fraud Claim
From Tar Sands Blockade: Mike Bishop has won a temporary restraining order against TransCanada A judge ordered TransCanada to halt construction on Mr. Bishop’s land until a hearing on December 19th. If successful, that hearing could lead to a more long term temporary injunction against TransCanada which could stop work for months! Here’s a brief [...]
Tar Sands Blockaders Barricade Themselves Inside Keystone XL Pipe
From Tar Sands Blockade: Several protestors with Tar Sands Blockade sealed themselves inside a section of pipe destined for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to stop construction of the dangerous project. Using a blockading technique never implemented before, Matt Almonte and Glen Collins locked themselves between two barrels of concrete weighing over six hundred [...]
Reports That Sec. of State Candidate Rice ‘Has a Major Financial Stake in Canadian Tar Sands’
Writing at On Earth, Scott Dodd’s Secretary of State Candidate Has a Major Financial Stake in Canadian Tar Sands has introduced an environmental / energy factor into the conversations about Susan Rice. There’s another possible consideration involved: a potential conflict of interest. Susan Rice, the candidate believed to be favored by President Obama to become [...]
Chasing Ice: Going Over the Climate Change Cliff Looks Like This (VIDEO)
Human beings seem to have an infinite capacity to accept word spins and tricks and diversions, like “fiscal cliff,” for example, while having an equally unlimited capacity to turn facts into fantasies and myths, like “climate change.” I think it has something to do with comfort zones, not wanting to take responsibility for needed changes, [...]
Hunger Strike Launched in Solidarity with Tar Sands Blockade: Demands That Valero Divest From Keystone XL (VIDEO)
From Tar Sands Blockade: Earlier today, Longtime Gulf Coast activists Diane Wilson and Bob Lindsey Jr. … locked their necks to oil tanker trucks destined for Valero’s Houston Refinery in solidarity with Tar Sands Blockade’s protests of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. Valero Energy Corp. is among the largest investors in TransCanada’s toxic tar sands pipeline [...]
UN Climate Change Convention Begins Today, Tar Sands and Fracking Protests Continue
Take a deep breath (unless you’re outdoors some place like “America’s energy sacrifice zone,” on the Gulf Coast – more on that later), and take in the rather lengthy description of what begins today, in Doha, Qatar: the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, [...]
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