Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has a post by that title up on DailyKos today. Here’s an excerpt:
Beyond Keystone’s costs to our economy and health is the real cost of failing to lead the charge on climate change. Last year, President Obama’s Climate Action Plan set the goal of “galvanizing international action to significantly reduce emissions.” That means doing the hard work of convincing the international community to cut carbon pollution. Allowing Keystone to pollute our air and harm our businesses and communities for generations would only discourage the sort of action the President called for.
So no, this isn’t just any old pipeline, and it’s definitely not in our national interest. I hope you will send your own message telling Secretary Kerry and the President to recognize this and reject Keystone. If they do, they will send the world a message: that America is serious about climate change.
The whole thing is well worth a read, and it’s timely too – today is the last day for public comment to the State Department concerning this project. Here’s a link to the page where you can comment:
Comment page at Regulations.gov
I just left my comment asking them to reject this enormous boondoggle that will only exacerbate climate change – please do the same if you’re so inclined!
This same comment appears in the database for 99,210 / 124,989 “public comments”:
“Dear Secretary Kerry:
I’m writing to encourage you to approve the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline as quickly as possible. The pipeline will provide much needed, good paying jobs for our economy while ensuring our country’s energy and national security.
Please act now. We cannot afford to wait any longer”
All of them appear to come from an organization named BKM Strategies, a PR firm from Alexandria, VA. I hope this stuffing of the comments box is not given any weight as legitimate support for Keystone XL.
Very interesting… the astroturf tactics are coming to MA now with a group working to support a similarly dangerous pipeline that would export natural gas, the NED — Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct pipeline…