Earth Day Network Applauds Obama’s Decision to Reject Keystone Pipeline

Statement of Kathleen Rogers, President, Earth Day Network

Earth Day Network applauds President Barack Obama’s decision to reject the Keystone Pipeline’s extension.  Proponents of the pipeline were asking America to marry its energy future to the unsustainable, dirty fuel of the past, and the president was right to dismiss their shortsightedness. The tar sands in Alberta, Canada, are the second largest pool of carbon on the entire planet. And the scientific community has warned that allowing them to be exploited would contribute significantly to producing catastrophic climate change. Moreover, the safety record of the existing Keystone Pipeline is abysmal.  It has already leaked a dozen times over the past year. The extension would further endanger land and aquifers in the United States and put our communities’ health at risk. The limited, non-renewable fuel we’d extract from the tar sands was never the answer for meeting the rising global fuel demand. The money that would have been thrown away on this supposed temporary “fix” will be better invested in the next generation of renewable, clean fuels and other green technologies – an economic sector in which the United States is already playing catch-up with the rest of the world. With the American public strongly in favor of tackling climate change, creating green jobs, and moving beyond our dangerous addiction to oil and toward a clean energy future, today’s decision also makes political sense. President Obama was right to recognize that there isn’t black gold in the tar sands; there’s fool’s gold.

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Earth Day Network mobilizes over one billion people in 192 countries through year-round advocacy, education, public policy and consumer campaigns to protect the environment. archiveedn.wpengine.com