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Keystone XL construction to begin next year, but indigenous activists vow to keep fighting

Construction on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline is set to rev up next year. The project received a green light from the State Department late last week — the latest salvo in a contentious decade-long battle between indigenous communities and TransCanada, the pipeline’s developer.

On Friday, the State Department issued a 338-page supplemental environmental impact statement for an alternate route through Nebraska. The agency has determined that major environmental damage stemming from the $8 billion, 1,180-mile project would be “negligible to moderate.” According to the report, there will be safeguards in place that would prevent a leak from contaminating ground or surface water.

“Keystone XL has undergone years of extensive environmental review by federal and state regulators,” TransCanada spokesperson Matthew John said. “All of these evaluations show that Keystone XL can be built safely and with minimal impact to the environment.”

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The review comes a little more than a month after a Montana court required the State Department to conduct a separate analysis — not part of the pipeline’s 2014 environmental impact study — of the updated route under the National Environmental Policy Act. The new route will be longer than TransCanada’s preferred route.

Following the release of the environmental assessment, TransCanada lawyers filed a response on Friday to address concerns by environmental and indigenous groups that are challenging the pipeline’s permit to cross into the U.S. from Canada in the Montana court.

But as TransCanada moves ahead with plans to construct the pipeline — which would carry up to 830,000 barrels of heavy crude from Canada’s oil sands in Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska — tribal communities living in its path remain steadfast in challenging the review’s conclusions.

“It’s a total disregard for the land, and the animals, and the people that reside on it and have for generations,” Faith Spotted Eagle, a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe in South Dakota and a vocal opponent of major oil-pipeline projects like the Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access pipeline, told Grist. “I think the thing to remember is that the people who are building this pipeline — they don’t care because they don’t have to live here. But it’s not going to stop me from fighting back.”

Pipeline-opponents on the front lines like Spotted Eagle are gearing up for what comes next, pledging to fight until the pipeline project is halted for good. Earlier this month, the Fort Belknap Indian Community of Montana and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota sued the Trump administration after it granted the pipeline a permit which they claimed didn’t assess how it’s construction “would impact their water and sacred lands.”

Indigenous groups aren’t the only ones voicing their discontent — the Sierra Club called the new State Department report a “sham review.” “We’ve held off construction of this pipeline for 10 years, and regardless of this administration’s attempts to force this dirty tar sands pipeline on the American people,” said Kelly Martin, director of the group’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign. “That fight will continue until Keystone XL is stopped once and for all.”

Members of the public have 45 days to comment on the State Department’s review, but Spotted Eagle is skeptical that the powers that be will even bother to consult with indigenous people residing in the pipeline’s route. “There is no regard to nation-to-nation relationships with tribes,” she says.

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Keystone XL construction to begin next year, but indigenous activists vow to keep fighting

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Watch a US Senator Use a Snowball to Deny Global Warming

“I ask the chair: You know what this is? It’s a snowball.” The Senate’s most vocal critic of the scientific consensus on climate change, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, tossed a snowball on the Senate floor Thursday as part of his case for why global warming is a hoax. Inhofe, who wrote the book The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, took to the floor to decry the “hysteria on global warming.” “In case we have forgotten, because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair, ‘You know what this is?’” he said, holding up a snowball. “It’s a snowball, from outside here. So it’s very, very cold out. Very unseasonable.” “Catch this,” he said to the presiding officer, tossing the blob of snow. Read the rest at The Huffington Post. Master image — Screenshot: Slate/CSPAN Original post – Watch a US Senator Use a Snowball to Deny Global Warming

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Watch a US Senator Use a Snowball to Deny Global Warming

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Climate Hawks Are Not Impressed by Obama’s Methane Plan

Environmental groups say the new emissions rules don’t go far enough. LonnyG/Thinkstock You would expect environmentalists to offer effusive praise as President Obama releases the final major component of his Climate Action Plan: a proposal to clamp down on methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. And at first glance, they did. “This announcement once again demonstrates the President’s strong commitment to tackling the climate crisis,” said League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski. A number of other environmental groups echoed that sentiment. If you didn’t read between the lines, you might think Obama had given them all they wanted. He did not. Not even close. Environmental leaders, while praising the Obama administration’s intentions, warned that it will have to do much more than it pledged to on Wednesday if it is to meet its own stated goal for cutting methane emissions. Read the rest at Grist. Taken from: Climate Hawks Are Not Impressed by Obama’s Methane Plan

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Climate Hawks Are Not Impressed by Obama’s Methane Plan

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Billionaire Democrat Sets Eye on Senate Races

Tom Steyer, whom Republicans have depicted as a one-man special interest group, plans to raise $100 million to run campaigns on climate issues and efforts to block the Keystone XL pipeline. Credit:  Billionaire Democrat Sets Eye on Senate Races ; ;Related ArticlesFewer Honeybees Died Over the Winter, a Report SaysAs Park Service Culls Deer in Washington, It Helps Charities Fill BelliesPanel Questions Experts on Closed Reactor Risks ;

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Billionaire Democrat Sets Eye on Senate Races

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Is Oil Money Turning the NRA Against Hunters?

Two new reports examine how America’s “number-one hunter’s organization” takes oil money and lobbies for anti-conservationist policies most hunters oppose. Eduard Vulcan/Thinkstock Last week, as the National Rifle Association geared up for its annual meeting in Indianapolis, a spokesman summed up the group’s base. “Everyone thinks our strength comes from our money. It doesn’t,” Andrew Arulanandam told the Indianapolis Star. “Our strength is truly in our membership. We have a savvy and loyal voting bloc.” The NRA regularly cites its devoted 4-5 million members as evidence of its clout and relevance. Yet while the gun lobby publicly extols its grassroots supporters, it has also been overlooking their interests while catering to those of the oil and gas industry. The NRA calls itself ”the number-one hunter’s organization in America.” But two new reports published by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Gun Truth Project and Corporate Accountability International show that, following contributions from oil and gas companies, the NRA lent its support to legislation that would open up more federal public lands to fossil-fuel extraction, compromising the wilderness that many hunters value. In 2012, six oil and gas companies contributed a total of between $1.3 million and $5.6 million to the NRA, according to CAP. (The companies are Clayton Williams Energy, J.L. Davis Gas Consulting, Kamps Propane, Barrett Brothers Oil and Gas, Saulsbury Energy Services, and KS Industries.) Read the rest at Mother Jones. View article:  Is Oil Money Turning the NRA Against Hunters? ; ;Related ArticlesNo, New York Times, Keystone XL Is Not A “Rounding Error”Germany’s Key to Clean Energy Is…This Coal Mine?Watch Live: Darren Aronofsky Discusses “Noah” and Climate Change ;

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Is Oil Money Turning the NRA Against Hunters?

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Oil Spills, Fracking Blowouts & Pizza?

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Oil Spills, Fracking Blowouts & Pizza?

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Valentine’s Love for Bees and More Environmental News

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Valentine’s Love for Bees and More Environmental News

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The Shutdown Will Slowly Reduce Our Weather Preparedness

“I can’t imagine a major potato chip maker saying that it could survive without potato farms.” jpstanley/Flickr On Monday afternoon, a line of storms hundreds of miles long crossed the Appalachians and struck cities on the Eastern seaboard. Earlier that day, tornado watch was issued, stretching from New York City to Washington, DC, that lasted until 5 p.m.; broadcasts and web journalists picked up the news and transmitted it to millions in the affected region. Most people who heard about that tornado watch learned about it from journalists and journalist-meteorologists who work at private media companies. But, perhaps without realizing it, everyone who heard about it depended upon the meteorologists, one level down and less visible, who work for the National Weather Service, a program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. To keep reading, click here. Credit:  The Shutdown Will Slowly Reduce Our Weather Preparedness ; ;Related ArticlesCampaign Against Fossil Fuels Growing, Says StudyWhy Big Coal’s Export Terminals Could be Even Worse Than the Keystone XL PipelineSplitsville for Obama and His Chief Climate Adviser ;

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The Shutdown Will Slowly Reduce Our Weather Preparedness

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Scientists Find Canadian Oil Safe for Pipelines, but Critics Say Questions Remain

The study found that the crude proposed for the Keystone XL pipeline posed no increased risks of transport, but environmental groups said its possible environmental hazards required scrutiny. Continue reading here:  Scientists Find Canadian Oil Safe for Pipelines, but Critics Say Questions Remain ; ;Related ArticlesBP Challenges Settlements in Gulf Oil SpillAlgae-Engineering Joint Venture DisbandsNews Analysis: Clean Air Act, Reinterpreted, Would Focus on Flexibility and State-Level Efforts ;

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Scientists Find Canadian Oil Safe for Pipelines, but Critics Say Questions Remain

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