Daily Kos activists in San Jose join a protest of the Keystone XL pipeline
during President Barack Obama's visit on May 8, 2014.
In a
letter sent Monday to Secretary of State John Kerry, Transcanada
asked the Obama administration to suspend its review of the cross-border Keystone XL pipeline the company proposes to build to carry tar sands petroleum from Alberta to Texas.
In the letter, Transcanada states that it is appropriate to suspend the review while the Nebraska Public Service Commission makes a decision on whether to approve a new pipeline route the company has chosen through the state. The administration, Transcanada points out, suspended its review last year when a constitutional challenge was launched against the state statute setting out who has authority for approving a pipeline route. The PSC review could take seven months to a year.
Those of us who have battled KXL over the years greeted the news with both glee and disdain. The request is a desperate attempt to put the decision on whether to grant permission to build the long-delayed project into the hands of the next president or deep into election season when such a decision could have an influence at the voting booth. Rather than suspend the interdepartmental review underway to determine whether KXL is in the national interest, Obama should reject the project.
A key opposition leader in the fight against the pipeline—designed to carry 830,000 barrels a day of bitumen from the tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast—is Bill McKibben. Along with thousands of others, he was arrested several times as part of civil disobedience actions directed against the pipeline. In a message of thank-you to the Daily Kos community posted Tuesday, McKibben writes of Transcanada's request:
They're simply trying to avoid the final ignominy of a ruling against them, and President Obama should not give them the satisfaction, which is why there's a petition here that needs signing.
But the real story today is—a done deal has come spectacularly undone. This was the first time that a huge oil infrastructure project has simply been blocked by citizens. It wasn't because of low oil prices—long before the price began to fall big investors started pulling billions from tar sands expansion. It was because citizen pressure overturned expectations. There were politicians involved—Bernie, for one, who came on board in September of 2011. But he'd be the first to cite, and to celebrate, the citizen activism that began with indigenous North Americans, scientists, farmers and ranchers, people of faith. It's been glorious to watch.
Head below the fold for more.
Anthony Swift of the Natural Resources Defense Council said:
'Pause or no pause, we now know more than enough to do the right thing—reject the pipeline because it would worsen climate change. Altering its route through Nebraska isn't going to change that. Keystone XL isn't in the national interest and the president should reject it."
John H. Cushman Jr. at InsideClimate News
writes:
The surprise request suggests that the company feared that President Obama was about to reject the pipeline—and that, in any case, low oil prices had seriously undermined the project.
It's also the latest sign that fundamental changes confront the fossil fuel industry under the twin influences of shifting markets and a global transition away from high-carbon fuels, as climate negotiations reach a climax in Paris next month. Tar sands are among the dirtiest of fossil fuels.
There's been an intensified expectation over the past few months that Obama's decision on the pipeline is just around the corner. But such "predictions" of an imminent ruling have been made several times over the past few years.
Whatever the president decides, the fight against Keystone XL will be remembered as crucial in building a diverse coalition determined to keep fossil fuels—especially the dirtiest ones—in the ground and the greenhouse gases emitted by their extraction and burning out of the atmosphere. First Nations people of Canada and American Indians in the United States joined with environmental activists, ranchers and other property owners to create an aggressive grassroots eco-movement that will outlive the pipeline fight to push other actions regarding climate change issues.