Today marks six years since the Keystone XL pipeline was proposed. At a time when we were finally moving away from the Bush-era “anything oil and mining interests say, goes” approach to environmentalism, the pipeline served as a poignant reminder of what we were bidding good riddance to. The days of “streamlining,” “cutting red tape” or “using sound science” – that is, findings funded by industries who were trying to brush real science under the rug – were finally coming to an end.
Or so we thought. Six years later, the pipeline is still lurking in limbo. The residents of eight states who rely on the Ogallala aquifer – directly in the path of the proposed pipeline – are still waiting for assurance that the water they drink, farm and bathe in will remain clean. And the Native American tribes, whose national sovereignty would be violated if the pipeline is built, are still waiting to find out if we will respect their borders.
There’s good reason for all of this concern. According to the National Resources Defense Council, the tar sand diluted bitumen that would flow through the Keystone XL is 3.6 times more likely to spill than regular oil. So for the people who live and survive in these territories and states, this pipeline is more than a political issue in Washington – it’s a threat to their water, their lands and their agricultural economy.
Keystone XL is more than just a pipeline – it’s a line in the sand. If we don’t want to see another crucial decision about our environment determined by whoever has the deepest pockets, then we have to fight. The Republican position on Keystone XL, and environmental policies in general, is clear. Just yesterday, they pushed through a vote in Congress on an energy package comprised of more than a dozen disastrous bills that would do everything from blocking vital EPA protections to ordering federal agencies to pretend that carbon pollution and climate change do no harm, to – you guessed it – exempting the Keystone XL pipeline from all permitting requirements, to ensure that it gets built.
So the urgency behind this UN Climate Summit could not be more pronounced. We may have thought America was ushering in renewed environmental stewardship when Bush left town, but oil and gas interests, and the Republicans they donate to, aren’t about to roll over. Climate change is undeniably the greatest challenge of our time – the question is not whether our planet is warming but whether we are committed to meeting this threat head-on. It’s up to us to not just fight for sound environmental policies, but to do right by those who will inherit the earth when we are gone. We owe it to them to solve this problem before the effects are irreversible.