As if we needed any more? STOP KEYSTONE XL! E. Fudd

From Care2:

Less than two weeks after President Barack Obama rightly rejected the Keystone XL pipeline, a bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate that would allow Congress to approve the pipeline.

There are plenty of good reasons to reject the pipeline; here are five of them:

1. It will spill. The State Department’s review of the project clearly says Keystone XL will spill oil. Not may, but will. The existing Keystone pipeline has already leaked 14 times since it began operating in June 2010, including one leak that dumped 21,000 gallons of tar-sands crude. Keystone XL would carry up to 35 million gallons of oil every day — so any leak has the potential to be massive.

2. It won’t be a major job producer. The State Department estimates that Keystone XL will result in only 20 permanent, operational jobs in the U.S and 2,500 to 4,650 temporary jobs. What’s more, after Keystone XL oil makes it to Texas, much of it will be exported beyond U.S. borders without paying U.S. taxes – never benefitting our economy or slacking our thirst for oil.

3. It will threaten vast pristine landscapes, rivers and wildlife. Running between Alberta, Canada and the Gulf Coast of Texas, Keystone XL will cross nearly 1,750 water bodies, like rivers and steams, and risk contaminating the Ogallala Aquifer (the drinking water source for millions of people). It would also cut through the heart of prime wildlife habitat, including homes for at least 20 imperiled species.

4. It will expand the destruction of Canada’s boreal forests. Tar sands oil is the dirtiest oil on Earth. Producing oil from sand has terrible impacts on the environment, including the destruction of tens of thousands of acres of boreal forest, pollution of hundreds of millions of gallons of water — each barrel of oil from tar sands requires three barrels of water to produce.

5. It will dramatically deepen our addiction to climate-killing fossil fuels. Greenhouse gas emissions from tar-sands development are two to three times higher than those from conventional oil and gas operations. That’s exactly the wrong direction for reversing global warming. Scientists tell us we must reduce atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million or less. Today, it’s 391 ppm, and Keystone XL would certainly drive that up and worsen the devastating effects of global warming — from rising oceans to melting glaciers to extreme and dangerous weather events – that we’re already seeing around the world.

Simply put, it’s not in our interest to court oil spills, worsen climate change and jeopardize rivers, streams, drinking water, people and wildlife. It’s time to tell Congress to stand up to Big Oil and Gas and reject Keystone XL, permanently.

Help fight our climate-changing oil addiction by signing the Center for Biological Diversity’s petition.