Today when Native tibes from across the nation met with President Obama a number of the Tribes shared a common concern: the Keystone Pipeline project to import even more super dirty oil from Canadian Tar Sands.
UPDATE: Now Secratary Clinton's ties to her a former presidential campaign manager turned pipeline lobbyist are coming under scrutiny:
Spotlight on Clinton Ties to Pipeline Lobbyist in Permit Battle
TransCanada lobbyist once worked for her presidential campaign; company says permit review will unavoidably be based on the merits
By Elizabeth McGowan
WASHINGTON—Nebraska’s senior senator might now be convinced that the U.S. State Department is adhering to appropriate protocol before deciding on a thumbs up or down for a multi-billion dollar, controversial Canada-to-Texas tar sands oil pipeline.
Now three watchdog groups are seeking any correspondence between the State Department and Paul Elliott, a former presidential campaign manager for Clinton. Elliott is the chief Washington, D.C. lobbyist for TransCanada.
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Two of the three advocacy organizations that filed the Freedom of Information Act request this week—Friends of the Earth and the Center for International Environmental Law—joined five other groups Nov. 4 in calling for Clinton to remove herself from the pipeline decision-making process
The additional groups are the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace USA, the Indigenous Environmental Network, Plains Justice and Public Citizen.
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Lertter PDF
The Keystone Pipeline needs Secretary Clinton's OK to proceed, and her decision due any time now.
A letter signed by 28 members of Congress, who say the original State Department study was deeply flawed, was released Tuesday by the No Tar Sands Coalition, which includes the Natural Resources Defence Council.
Among the signatories were Steve Cohen, who sits on the House committee that oversees U.S. pipelines, and Jay Inslee, who is on the House committees that deal with energy and natural resources.
The letter says the politicians are concerned about Clinton's statement the U.S. State department is "inclined to approve" the Keystone project.
Tar Sands: Top-Ranking Congressmen Warn Secretary Clinton That TransCanada Pipeline Poses "Major Environmental and Public Health Hazards"
Opposition to the proposed pipeline is growing rapidly: Recently, Nebraska's elected Republican and Democrat Senators came out in vocal opposition to the pipeline and its potential impacts on the Ogallala aquifer in the event of a spill. Earlier this year Representative Waxman (D-CA) and over 50 house members and 11 senators also expressed their opposition to the pipeline.
Tribal Councils in U.S. and Canada Uniting Against Oil Sands Pipeline
Marty Cobenais, a member of the Red Lake Band of the Chippewa and a Minnesota-based organizer with the network, is doing much of the groundwork.
Tribes have varying reasons for rejecting the pipeline, Cobenais said, including that it potentially threatens the enormous Ogallala Aquifer or desecrates sacred lands on traditional homelands.
He estimates there are 15 to 20 tribal councils along the 1,375-mile section that starts in Montana and stretches through South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
“We want the Canada and U.S. tribes to stand in unity to fight this,” Cobenais said, adding that this is a prime opportunity to stand behind President Obama’s public statements about the need to wean the U.S. from fossil fuels. “We can’t allow a divide-and-conquer mentality to prevail.”
The U.S. has been importing increasing levels of oil from the Canadian Tar Sands ramping up the scale of its super carbon intensive, and super destructive extraction methods that now affects hundreds of square miles of boral forest. Opposition is picking up along the Keystone pipeline's route across the American heartland.
FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA FROM CHARGE D'AFFAIRES BREESE
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR THE PRESIDENT'S TRIP TO OTTAWA
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Terry A. Breese, reason 1.4 (d)
¶6. (C) Canadians wish that more Americans would recognize
that Canada is the largest source of imported energy for the
U.S. (including for both oil and natural gas), although there
is also keen sensitivity over the higher environmental
footprint of oil from western Canada's oil sands and concern
about the implications for Canada of your energetic calls to
develop renewable energies and reduce our reliance on
imported oil. Canada is also rich in hydroelectric power,
has similar objectives for developing renewables, and is
working strenuously to improve the environmental impact of
production from the oil sands and to expand its own wind
power capacity.
wikileaks
WikiLeaks Seeps into XL Pipeline Fight
he latest WikiLeaks document dump is now part of the fight over a controversial Canadian oil pipeline that would cross through Nebraska.
It appears that a previously confidential diplomatic cable sent to President Barack Obama raises new concerns about the oil’s effect on the environment.
Several environmental groups, including BOLD Nebraska and Friends of the Earth, have criticized Canada’s tar sands oil production program. If approved by the United States government tar sands oil would be transported from Canada to Texas through the Keystone XL Pipeline, owned by TransCanada. Pipeline critics argue a leak would endanger the Ogallala Aquifer which provides much needed water for agriculture and nearly 80 percent of Nebraska’s drinking water.
Giant Alberta-bound oil-sands shipments stall in Idaho as opposition mounts
The largest of the massive modules, built as pieces of an $8 billion project in Alberta's oil sands, are wide as two-lane highways, taller than freeway overpasses and two-thirds the length of football fields.
For $100 million or so, Imperial intended to relocate overhead wires in Idaho and Montana, build dozens of highway pullouts and haul each load in the dead of night to Canada. The route, on winding highways free of overpasses, would avoid a much longer journey through the Panama Canal, the Great Lakes and Minnesota.
But Imperial finds its initial 34 shipments stranded in Lewiston, lacking state highway permits to complete the U.S. portion of the trip and facing activist groups with names like Fighting Goliath and All Against the Haul. Environmentalists are seizing the chance to rally U.S. opposition to Alberta's oil sands, where miners wrest tarry deposits from sand and send about 780,000 barrels of petroleum a day to the United States.
The opposition to the pipeline and Tar Sands in general extends far beyond the U.S.
Cancun Protesters Target Canada, U.S. over Oil Sands Pipelines
CANCUN, MEXICO -- North American native groups urged the United States and Canada to abandon support for carbon-heavy oil sands in one of the first visible protests at the UN climate talks in Cancun.
They regard the booming oil sands industry in Alberta as the main reason for Canada's reluctance to embrace stronger greenhouse gas reduction targets and its failure to meet its Kyoto commitments. The U.S. is the largest purchaser of the Canadian crude.
The indigenous groups are particularly concerned over the possible U.S. approval of a 1,700-mile cross-border pipeline known as the Keystone XL. The project, proposed by TransCanada, would eventually pipe 900,000 barrels of oil sands crude each day from northern Alberta to refineries in Texas and tankers off the Gulf Coast.
The pipeline permit has become a focus of attention among U.S. lawmakers especially since the BP Gulf of Mexico oil disaster heightened concern over environmental security. The Keystone XL line would cut through the largest underground aquifer in the U.S. vital to agriculture and population centers in the region and crisscross the lands of several Native American tribes.
Young campaigners in Cancun said they've been denied the right to protest.
"We're being silenced by the UNFCCC," said Abigail Borah of SustainUS, who said they must get pre-approved for any action or risk losing credentials to attend the talks.
"Even if we were to sit in a line we have to get approval. If we have a banner, we have to get approval," she told SolveClimate News.
Michael Pica, another youth activist, said the UNFCCC has shot down most of his requests to protest. They want to keep youth in roped off areas with no visibility, he lamented.
Environmentalists is the U.S. are taking their case against the Keystone Pipeline directly to the American people with a new ad campaign.
Pressure in U.S. mounts against oilsands pipeline
New ad campaign targets TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline
CALGARY - Environmental groups in the United States have launched a $500,000 US campaign against a proposed Canadian bitumen pipeline, calling for President Barack Obama to reject TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL pipeline proposal.
Of course the American Petroleum Institute had to get into the act too.
Oil industry launches campaign to promote Canadian oil sand imports
The American Petroleum Institute, the powerful oil and natural-gas industry trade group, said Wednesday it will launch an advertising campaign and “grassroots outreach” effort in January that will focus on “the benefits of oil sands to U.S. consumers.”
While researching this diary I kept seeing little Google ads like this one along the margins.
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But every approaching crisis equals an opportunity for investors...
An adherent of Disaster Capitalism at its finest.
The Best Oil Sands Company You Can Own!
Inside, You’ll See...
* Why Oil Sands Could Save Our Energy Future
* How the Best Oil Sands Company Can Line Your Pocket With Huge Profits
* Where to Find the Best Growing and Profitable Energy and Resource Stocks.
Simple open-pit drilling techniques are able to extract some oil sands oil. The drillers use hot water to help separate bitumen (the good stuff) from the sand and clay.
But over 80% of oil sands deposits are located too deep to grab using regular drills.
So the drillers pump hot steam into the wells, and what comes out is the oil — leaving much of the bad stuff behind.
Tar Sands Development is attracting lots of capital from our Rape Ruin and Run Elites.
I've taken Secretary Clinton to task for giving a previous a Tar Sands pipeline approval in a previous diary when Hillary signed off on Enbridge Energy's pipeline in August of 2009.
Why did U.S. just OK new pipeline to import Tar Sands Oil?
I IMPLORE all of you to get in contact with the Secretary Of State and urge Hillary to make the correct choice for future generations of Americans.
202-647-4000
Dept. of State Public Communication Division: 202-647-6575
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