10 Reasons to Oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline

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Tuesday February 18, 2014 · 1:07 PM PST

2014/02/18 · 13:07

Here's a commentary by National Nurses United Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro

With the clock ticking down on a final decision by the Obama administration on Keystone XL, it’s time to update why the nation’s largest nurses organization is opposed to a project that looks more like a pathway to pollution than a gateway to our gas pumps.

Citing the threat to public health and how the project would hasten the climate crisis, nurses have been on the front line of protests against Keystone, a 1,700-mile pipeline that would transport 830,000 barrels of dirty tar sands oil every day from Alberta, Canada to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, largely for export.

Here’s a top 10 of reasons why National Nurses United opposes Keystone and a critique of some of the main arguments for it:

National Nurses Movement

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Tuesday February 04, 2014 · 3:37 PM PST

2014/02/04 · 15:37

no image description available — Nurses deliver care as part of RN Response Networks mission to help survivors of Typhoon Haiyan.

Nurses visit children in a tent city near pop-up health clinics in Iloilo, Panay, the Philippines.

Nurses deliver care as part of RN Response Networks mission to help survivors of Typhoon Haiyan.

We are traveling on a narrow road from one barangay, or Philippine village, to the next. Along our way, we see palm trees bent in the middle, bowing their tattered heads toward our caravan, evidence of the storm. The smell of burning debris is everywhere as people burn the remnants of their lives, intact before the arrival of Typhoon Haiyan, known as Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines.

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Pressure mounting on call to fight hospital price gouging

National Nurses Movement

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Thursday January 23, 2014 · 4:11 PM PST

2014/01/23 · 16:11

Momentum is growing, finally, for a crackdown on the disgraceful practice of price gouging in the healthcare industry – and the devastating effect it has on so many American patients and families.

Major national news coverage by, among others, the New York Times, Time magazine, and ABC news have focused an unflattering spotlight on hospitals, drug companies, insurers, medical device manufacturers, doctors, nursing homes, medical labs, and other sectors.

Hospitals, where patients are at their most vulnerable, have drawn probably the most scrutiny.

National Nurses Movement

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Monday November 11, 2013 · 7:26 PM PST

2013/11/11 · 19:26

In the aftermath of the devastation from Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN), a project of National Nurses United (NNU), has put out a call for volunteers and donations through its vast network of direct-care nurses both nationally and internationally.

In the first 24 hours more than 500 RNs have stepped up to volunteer. The nurses are also seeking public support with financial donations to help their relief effort.

Click to donate now.

Click to volunteer now.

National Nurses Movement

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Friday November 08, 2013 · 1:10 PM PST

2013/11/08 · 13:10

In the face of heavy-handed opposition by the $1.2 billion District of Columbia hospital industry, a broad cross section of DC registered nurses, patients, and other community leaders today made a compelling case for safer care in DC hospitals.

More than 150 Washington DC nurses, backed by many others, packed a hearing today of the DC Council Health Committee to demand the Council act to improve public safety and protect vulnerable hospital patients by enacting the Patient Protection Act.

The bill would set specific limits on the number of patients RNs can care for (nurse-to-patient ratios), with additional staffing required based on individual need, similar to limits on class sizes or minimum standards for clean air and water.

Indeed, as a society, we regularly demand minimum standards in areas of public safety. For example, Veda Shook, president of the Association of Flight Attendants (Communication Workers of America) testified that “there can be no less than 1 flight attendant for every 50 passenger seats on a plane.”

National Nurses Movement

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Saturday October 12, 2013 · 8:47 AM PDT

2013/10/12 · 08:47

Let’s try to remember a lesson we all should have learned as kids. Just because you were picked on by the neighborhood bully is no excuse to go home and kick the dog or punch your little brother.

Maybe some inside the Beltway need a refresher course. Just because a handful on the right have shut down government and threatened default on the debt that’s no excuse to embrace proposals to slash Medicare and Social Security.

But that is exactly what is on the agenda, the “compromise” reward for those who engineered the lunacy of the last two weeks with the attempt to reverse the results of last November’s election by refusing to fund government services or pay the debt unless the Affordable Care Act is defunded or repealed.

National Nurses Movement

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Monday September 02, 2013 · 1:10 PM PDT

2013/09/02 · 13:10

In a week in which we honored the 50th anniversary of the historic 1963 March on Washington, this year’s Labor Day is a good time to reflect on the broader vision of what it means to be a union member and a working class American.

The hundreds of thousands who traveled many miles to Washington half a century ago, marched and rallied for racial justice, freedom, and equality.

But as many have noted, economic justice and jobs were also a foremost subtext to that day, as represented by many union participants and, of course, Dr. King himself who five years later would literally give his life speaking out for workers.

National Nurses Movement

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Thursday June 20, 2013 · 6:22 PM PDT

2013/06/20 · 18:22

With the magnificent expanse of the Golden Gate Bridge as backdrop and pathway, rallied on Thursday to call an end to the Keystone XL Pipeline project, a ghastly effort to transport poisonous tar sands 1,700 miles from Canada to Texas, exposing hundreds of communities en route to calamitous spills, ruined water systems and deleterious health effects.

Nurses also called for an end to the politics of austerity, one that puts the false choices – jobs through environmental degradation – before us.

“Nothing related to Keystone XL is good for our families, our communities, or our planet,” announced Debra Burger, RN and NNU co-president from the rally stage. “From extraction to transport to refining, tar sands oil will exacerbate our current health emergency…. This is a clear and present danger to public health.”

National Nurses Movement

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Tuesday June 18, 2013 · 5:43 PM PDT

2013/06/18 · 17:43

Nurses and environmental activists from across the U.S. are joining hands this week to step up the message that there is still time to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline before it stops all of us.

Join us for a march across the Golden Bate Bridge in San Francisco Thursday, June 20, beginning with a noon rally at Battery East, near the Golden Gate Bridge Pavilion at Fort Point adjacent to the Bridge.

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Do you oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline?

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Do you oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline?

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We Are Going to Be Everywhere!

National Nurses Movement

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Sunday April 21, 2013 · 9:16 AM PDT

2013/04/21 · 09:16

The U.S. Treasury was today renamed “A Citigroup Subsidiary, Jack Lew, Inc. CEO,” as Robin Hood and a merry band of 2,000 hoisted a banner with the Treasury building as backdrop on the corner of 15th St. NW in Washington, D.C.

“Who does Secretary Lew work for?” asked Jennifer Flynn of Health GAP, one of the founding organizations of the Robin Hood Tax Campaign.

“The people,” answered all. RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, another founding RHT organization, called out, “I see the Treasury; we all see Hypocrisy!” to which she heard a loud and resounding echo from the spirited protesters spilling into the intersection, a stone’s throw from the White House.

“We are going to be everywhere!” said DeMoro.

National Nurses Movement

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Wednesday April 17, 2013 · 4:53 PM PDT

2013/04/17 · 16:53

This is a huge day,” Rep. Keith Ellison announced Wednesday at a press conference within view of the Capitol, referring to legislation he reintroduced for a Wall Street Tax with huge purpose.

Take, for example, this passage from the bill’s “Findings.”
“The global crisis cost Americans $19 trillion in lost wealth.... American citizens provided the money to stabilize the financial sector…. The global financial crisis, along with wars, unabated and unaddressed climate change, unsustainable tax cuts, and a continuing unemployment crisis, if unaddressed, will deprive a generation of a meaningful role in the larger economy.”
-- Inclusive Prosperity Act, H.R. 1579, Sec. 2.

National Nurses Movement

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Tuesday February 05, 2013 · 9:52 AM PST

2013/02/05 · 09:52

They lined the hallways, crowded the stairwells and eventually packed the Hearing Room of the District of Columbia Council Monday. Room 412 may never have seen such a spirited gathering – 200 RNs – and some additional supporters, with a press section full up. Quality healthcare reaches into all our lives.

The way to get there for Washington DC patients, explained Rajini Raj, RN, is to pass and implement the Patient Protection Act, a new measure introduced by DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson with the support of 10 of 13 DC Council members.

The bill is already endorsed by National Nurses United Catholics United, DC Jobs with Justice, the Government Accountability Project, Housing Works, the Washington Teachers’ Union and many others. The outpouring of support for this bill is pervasive and powerful.

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