Environmentalists carried an inflated faux pipeline around the U.S. Capitol grounds on January 28, calling on President Obama to reject the proposed cross-border section of the Keystone XL pipeline. In frigid eighteen-degree weather, activists paraded the giant tube which said, “Pipeline President or Climate Champion?” ahead of the President’s State of the Union address that evening.
Crude oil from Canada’s tar sands began flowing last week through the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline, from Oklahoma to Texas refineries on the Gulf Coast. Environmentalists point to numerous spills and accidents endangering communities along the pipeline route, and to the tremendous amount of greenhouse gases which would be released by burning the dirty tar sands bitumen as reasons that President Obama should not approve construction of the cross-border section.
