It was just announced that Green America’s Green Business Network and the Green Chamber of Commerce, two of our nation’s leading sustainable business networks, have written to President Obama on behalf of their members asking him not to approve the Keystone XL—a dangerous new pipeline that would transport tar sands crude oil from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico if approved later this year.
Protesters and sustainable business groups alike are creatively and publicly opposing the project to counteract the pressure that President Obama is feeling from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Oil Industry. Just yesterday, the Chamber announced that it’s “Partnership to Fuel America,” a pro-Keystone XL propaganda and astroturf campaign, will now be focusing its attention on Nebraska—a state crossed by the proposed route of the pipeline, where both Senators have said that they’re opposed to the project—in the hopes of leaning on the business community for additional support. Many Nebraskan business owners, citizens, farmers and politicians are concerned about the impacts of the pipeline on their state, and in the face of increasing public resistance, the Chamber and its friends are scaling up their efforts.
The letter from Green America and the Green Chamber of Commerce could not have come at a more important time. Thousands of protesters from diverse backgrounds continue to participate in creative civil disobedience in front of the White House (recent arrests from the sit-in include our nation’s leading climate scientist, NASA’s James Hansen, and actress Daryl Hannah) to bring national media attention to the issue, and business owners across the nation are stepping forward to tell the President that the Keystone XL is not in the best interest of our economy, our climate or our nation as a whole.
Click the Read More link below to read the letter to President Obama from Green America and the Green Chamber of Commerce.
“We write to you on behalf of thousands of small businesses in the United States that are deeply concerned about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The well-being of our businesses and the economy in the United States are tied to the health of our environment. The Keystone XL pipeline will have an immensely negative impact on the environment. It would bring 700,000 barrels of heavy crude from Canadian tar sands to the US every day, furthering the US addiction to oil, and risking new oil spills in rivers and the Ogallala aquifer. The production of oil from tar sands would generate enormous greenhouse gas emissions, and create greater impacts from global warming.
The impacts of global warming — from droughts, to floods, to extreme weather – are bad for business in the United States. As we saw in the Gulf, oil spills also have a devastating impact on the economy. The failure to shift America away from its dependence on oil to cleaner fuels will further imperil our economy and reduce the number of green jobs we need for sustainable economic growth.
Your administration has taken bold and necessary steps to increase the green energy economy in the US. Now, we urge you to reject the Keystone XL pipeline, and further invest in clean energy technologies. It is the right decision for the US, and it is the right decision for business.”
