After yesterday’s Nebraska Supreme Court decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, the ball is back in President Obama’s court. It’s time for him to reject the pipeline now.
Next Tuesday, organize or join a Reject Keystone XL rally near you!
Yesterday, the Nebraska Supreme Court finally weighed in on whether the proposed pipeline route for Keystone XL was legal. This was the decision we’ve all been waiting for–the Obama administration put the State Department environmental review process on hold pending the resolution of this case. And now the wait is over.
Unfortunately, the court sided with Big Oil over the Nebraska landowners. But President Obama can still come down on our side, and at the end of the day this decision is still his alone to make. With the question of the Nebraska route now settled, the president has no reason to delay issuing a final rejection on the pipeline.
The bottom line on Keystone hasn’t changed. President Obama vowed that the pipeline won’t be built if it it adds significantly to the problem of climate change. And the evidence continues to roll in that the pipeline would be “game over” for the climate; new research published this week in the journal Nature found that if we want to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, nearly all Canadian tar sands need to stay in the ground.
But this pipeline has never been just about the facts. Keystone XL has always also been about power: people power vs. the power of Big Oil. While President Obama has come a long way in recent months—and just last week pledged to veto pro-Keystone legislation working its way through Congress—we know that we won’t win a final rejection unless we step up pressure on the president to reject Keystone now.
That’s why we’re joining with our allies at CREDO, 350, and the Sierra Club to launch a nationwide day of coordinated rallies in communities from coast to coast next Tuesday, January 13th. Will you organize or attend a rally near you?
For years the insiders have predicted that Keystone’s approval was a done deal, and again and again we’ve proven them wrong. We know that we can defeat this pipeline. But we have to be relentless, and force the issue to a head, now more than ever.
President Obama’s recent rhetoric on Keystone has been encouraging, and his promise to veto pro-Keystone legislation is a huge step in the right direction. But it’s not enough. We need to send a clear message to President Obama that if he’s serious about his legacy of global leadership on climate change, history will judge him harshly unless he rejects Keystone XL once and for all.
Let’s show President Obama we mean business. Join us next Tuesday at a Reject KXL rally near you.
