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The Progressive

NewsWire

A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact:

Brett Hartl, (202) 817-8121, bhartl@biologicaldiversity.org

Trump Approves Disastrous Keystone XL Pipeline

WASHINGTON

Following an Executive Order signed by President Trump in January, the U.S. State Department approved the Keystone XL pipeline today. In approving the pipeline, the State Department ignored its own previous environmental analyses concluding the pipeline would be a disaster for the climate and is not in the national interest.

"The Keystone XL pipeline is a disaster for people, wildlife and the planet," said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Donald Trump only cares about making his special interest pals richer even though our children will inherit a world ravaged by climate change. We will use every tool we have to fight this pipeline from the courts to the streets."

Keystone XL would carry up to 35 million gallons of oil every day from Canada's tar sands -- one of the dirtiest, most carbon-intensive energy sources in the world -- to refineries in Texas.

The 1,700-mile pipeline would cross rivers, streams and wetlands that are a source for drinking water for people and provide habitat for at least 20 rare and endangered species, including whooping cranes, pallid sturgeons, interior least terns and piping plovers. Since 1986 pipeline accidents have spilled an average of 76,000 barrels per year, or more than 3 million gallons of oil and other substances.

At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.

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