Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.
2 days until JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS TAKE THE OATH OF OFFICE
Jake Johnson at Common Dreams writes—Indigenous-Led Movement Credited With 'Huge Victory' as Biden Plans to Rescind Keystone XL Permit on Day One:
President-elect Joe Biden is reportedly planning on the day of his inauguration to rescind a federal permit allowing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in the United States, a move environmentalists said would represent an immense victory for the planet attributable to years of tireless Indigenous-led opposition to the dirty-energy project.
CBC News reported Sunday that "the words 'Rescind Keystone XL pipeline permit' appear on a list of executive actions supposedly scheduled for Day One of Biden's presidency," which begins with his swearing-in on Wednesday. The withdrawal of the Keystone XL permit is among several environment-related actions Biden plans to take via executive order during his first day in office, a list that includes rejoining the Paris climate accord.
"A huge victory for Lakota and Indigenous front liners and Water Protectors. None of this would have been possible without their sacrifices," Nick Estes, a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and an assistant professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico, tweeted in response to Biden's reported plan for Keystone XL, a sprawling $8 billion tar sands project that the Trump administration repeatedly sought to advance amid legal challenges and widespread grassroots resistance.
Kendall Mackey, Keep It in the Ground campaign manager for 350.org, said in a statement late Sunday that preventing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in the U.S. would be a "momentous sign" that Biden "is listening, taking action, and making good on his promises to people and the planet."
"This decision to halt the Keystone XL pipeline on day one in office sets a precedent that all permitting decisions must pass a climate test and respect Indigenous rights," said Mackey. "We expect the administration to make similar announcements on Dakota Access Pipeline and Line 3. We celebrate this great victory and the powerful movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground."
Dallas Goldtooth, Keep It in the Ground campaign organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in response to Biden's plan to rescind the pipeline permit that "our communities have been fighting KXL for over a decade, tooth and nail, in the dirt and in the courts."
"We formed an immensely powerful, unlikely alliance of voices and we never gave up," said Goldtooth. "I will wait for the ink to dry before I fully celebrate, but shit this feels good."
THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING
TOP COMMENTS • RESCUED DIARIES
TWEET OF THE DAY
QUOTATION
“It was very clear to me in 1965, in Mississippi, that, as a lawyer, I could get people into schools, desegregate the schools, but if they were kicked off the plantations – and if they didn’t have food, didn’t have jobs, didn’t have health care, didn’t have the means to exercise those civil rights, we were not going to have success.” ~~Marian Wright Edelman
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2008—Support These Troops:
When a coal miner goes underground, he knows he is going into danger. The training that you get on the first day in the mines is designed to force you face to face with the worst that came happen—dust that can destroy your lungs, dangerous equipment and electrical lines hiding in the gloom, buildups of gas that can suffocate or lead to devastating explosions, and the horrifying idea that the tons of rock above your head might come crashing down.
Against those fears, the miner must trust the people operating the mine. He has to trust that their engineering is sound, that they are monitoring for dangerous gases, and that they've designed the mines entries and panels so that the roof is well supported. He also has to trust the government. Trust that the mine is being regularly inspected, and that attempts to take shortcuts on safety are met with swift, severe penalties that are large enough to discourage repeats of that behavior.
Unfortunately, over the last seven years both those trusts have been betrayed. When the Crandall Canyon mine collapsed last summer, the mine owner swore that he was not responsible.