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Obama Administration Rejects TransCanada Keystone XL Plan
By Kenny Bruno, Corporate Ethics
Thursday, November 10, 2011
A drab State Department media note called “Keystone XL Pipeline Review Process: Decision to Seek Additional Information,” issued late afternoon before a three day weekend, has unleashed celebratory fireworks.
Robert Redford was quick out of the box with a thank you video addressed to President Obama that said “thank you for standing up to Big Oil. Thank you for standing up for all of us.” Oil Change's Steve Kretzmann went for the clever one-liner, saying that the President has chosen the “many over the money,” referring to thousands of people who have protested the tar sands pipeline versus the deep pockets of Big Oil. Retired Brigadier General Steven Anderson weighed in saying he is “pleased to see that the Administration has had the good sense to reject TransCanada’s current plan” because the pipeline “would set back our renewable energy efforts for at least two decades, and do absolutely nothing to move us off Middle East oil, to our enemies’ delight.” Climate leader Bill McKibben wrote supporters simply: “We won. You won.” Nebraskan rancher Randy Thompson said that “future generations will thank the President and hopefully will thank our state senators if they do the job they were elected to do for citizens not big corporations." And he’s a Republican.
This is not hype. Today’s announcement is a bombshell for many reasons.
- Although technically this is a do-over (that’s a technical term, right?), it’s pretty obvious that Keystone XL as we know it is dead. By 2013, when the new review might conclude, oil demand will have decreased and people will be no less vigilant.
- No one expected we could beat this back. TransCanada supposedly had jobs, energy security, the entire oil industry, and the US State Dept on its side. Even within groups like NRDC and Sierra Club, senior observers advised against taking this fight on.
- When we started, no one had ever heard of tar sands. And no one though anything so awful could come from Canada.
- This decision will send shock waves through the tar sands industry. which now must realize it cannot continue business as usual. It must reform, and it must end its reckless expansion.
This is a rebound for an environmental movement that has had little to cheer and lots to mourn. It’s a signal to industry: Change or Die. Cause we’re not going away.
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