Our quest for independence from foreign oil may have some severe consequences here at home.

TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline is a 1700-mile-long crude oil pipeline awaiting a permit from President Barack Obama to be built, starting from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, pounding through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas along the way. If the plan is put into action, the pipeline will transport approximately 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day, according to the State Department website for the Keystone project.

Spokespeople for the project have advertised the Keystone XL as a safe, reliable, technology-forward, “shovel-ready” project. TransCanada would like us to believe that the Keystone XL pipeline will provide “ethical oil” to meet a growing demand for energy and jobs in the US.

However, “ethical oil” supporters and the State Department’s environmental impact statement about the pipeline fail to show the devastations caused to indigenous First Nations tribes, which are located in the Alberta Canada tar sands refinery vicinity. Over the years, their already small tribes have been greatly reduced in population due to various forms of cancer caused by asphalt extraction.

Proponents of the pipeline have not revealed information about the TransCanada Corporation threatening the use of eminent domain, the legal seizure of land, against families in east Texas.

These biased sources do not represent the faces of the people in Montana whose family farms and livelihoods were ruined when an existing Exxon pipeline spilled crude oil into the Yellowstone River. The Keystone XL would also pass through the Yellowstone River but would be twice as wide as the Exxon pipeline.

Their pro-oil ads do not show the faces of the schoolchildren that have developed respiratory problems from living next to oil refineries in Houston.

In the last month, thousands of students, professionals, and retirees have been arrested in front of the White House to show Obama their opposition. One of those arrested was James Hansen, a former NASA climate scientist who has deemed the tar sands “game over” for climate change.

Even the Dalai Lama agrees, along with other Nobel laureates, that the Keystone XL pipeline is not in the best interest of the U.S. and that Obama has a choice to make right on his word as president.

“The night you were nominated for president, you told the world that under your leadership—and working together—the rise of the oceans will begin to slow and the planet will begin to heal,” the Dalai Lama said in an open letter to the president. “You spoke of creating a clean energy economy. This is a critical moment to make good on that pledge, and make a lasting contribution to the health and wellbeing of everyone of this over.” As a community that cares for the wellbeing of our neighbors, we must act. One way we can start is to spread awareness and encourage people to attend the State Department hearings in Austin and show President Obama and the State Department that Texans are against oil sands. Hearings will be Sept. 28 at the UT LBJ Auditorium from 12-8pm.

 

*Editor’s note: This article has been changed to reflect the fact that the oil spill in Montana was caused by an Exxon pipeline, not a TransCanada pipeline.