To: Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State
Hillary: Help Jeff Sachs Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline
Just Foreign Policy
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should join development economist Jeffrey Sachs in calling on President Obama to reject the permit application for the Keystone XL pipeline.
Why is this important?
The recent State Department environmental impact statement for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline was widely interpreted as signaling a greater likelihood that the pipeline would be approved by the Obama administration later this year. The proposed pipeline would facilitate the mass extraction and use of oil from Canada's tar sands, harming the climate much more than the same amount of conventional oil.
As development economist Jeffrey Sachs has noted [1], if we don’t keep some of the world's oil, gas, and coal reserves under the ground, we’re going to wreck the planet. The State Department’s environmental review didn’t even consider how helping to exploit Canada’s tar sands could fit inside a plan for limiting the extraction and use of fossil fuels to a level that doesn’t cause catastrophic climate change. [2] It just assumed that the Canadian tar sands are going to be fully exploited no matter what.
We have a key strategic opportunity now to turn this around. Because it is widely assumed that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for President in 2016, if she comes out against approval of the Keystone XL pipeline now, it will galvanize opposition to the pipeline among Democrats, and make it much less likely that President Obama will approve it.
Urge Hillary to join Jeff Sachs in lobbying President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline by signing our petition.
References:
1. "Keystone: The Pipeline to Disaster," Jeffrey Sachs, Huffington Post, February 3, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/keystone-the-pipeline-to_b_4716229.html
2. "Kerry’s State Department Ignored Obama’s Climate Action Plan," Steve Kretzmann, Oil Change International, February 17, 2014, http://priceofoil.org/2014/02/17/kerrys-state-department-ignored-obamas-climate-action-plan/
As development economist Jeffrey Sachs has noted [1], if we don’t keep some of the world's oil, gas, and coal reserves under the ground, we’re going to wreck the planet. The State Department’s environmental review didn’t even consider how helping to exploit Canada’s tar sands could fit inside a plan for limiting the extraction and use of fossil fuels to a level that doesn’t cause catastrophic climate change. [2] It just assumed that the Canadian tar sands are going to be fully exploited no matter what.
We have a key strategic opportunity now to turn this around. Because it is widely assumed that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for President in 2016, if she comes out against approval of the Keystone XL pipeline now, it will galvanize opposition to the pipeline among Democrats, and make it much less likely that President Obama will approve it.
Urge Hillary to join Jeff Sachs in lobbying President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline by signing our petition.
References:
1. "Keystone: The Pipeline to Disaster," Jeffrey Sachs, Huffington Post, February 3, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/keystone-the-pipeline-to_b_4716229.html
2. "Kerry’s State Department Ignored Obama’s Climate Action Plan," Steve Kretzmann, Oil Change International, February 17, 2014, http://priceofoil.org/2014/02/17/kerrys-state-department-ignored-obamas-climate-action-plan/