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New York Times editorial says no to Keystone XL tar sands pipeline
By Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, NRDC
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Today, the New York Times editorialized that Secretary Hillary Clinton should not permit the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The pipeline would carry nearly a million barrels of oil from northern Alberta all the way to the Texas coast for refining, cutting through the American heartland and one of the nation’s most important aquifers, the Ogallala. It would be the third such dedicated tar sands pipelines to be permitted in as many years, adding to an overcapacity of pipelines to import tar sands into the United States. While it commends the State Department for doing a deeper review of the environmental and other impacts of the pipeline, it says that ultimately the pipeline permit should be denied because “the environmental risks for both countries are enormous”. The editorial concludes, “Moving ahead would be a huge error. From all of the evidence, Keystone XL is not only environmentally risky, it is unnecessary.”
This is very big news for those of us working on the tar sands and clean energy issues. The editorial, the first on this topic for the New York Times and one of the first in any major U.S. newspaper, will help elevate the debate about whether Canadian tar sands, the dirtiest oil on the planet, has a place in our clean energy future. While that debate has waged furiously amongst environmental groups, native peoples, and the major oil companies and governments of Alberta and Canada for many years, it has yet to burst into full view of the public and decision makers. This editorial, which so clearly enunciates the risk of expanding our reliance on tar sands oil, will no doubt be seen as contributing to the turning point in the debate over our energy future as our country struggles to move away from its deep addiction to oil.
Read more on the NRDC website…
Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, new york times
