Whether it moves by pipeline, by rail, or by tanker, tar sands and other oil is polluting, highly combustible, and dangerous to communities and our climate. In order to avert the worst of the climate crisis and protect our communities from devastating explosions and oil spills, we must stop the industry from building any new oil infrastructure. After more than a decade of advocacy, legal challenges, and organizing in partnership with local communities along the pipeline route and across the country, we successfully blocked the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Now we are continuing to apply those same tools to winning fights against other pipelines, oil train terminals, and oil export facilities across the country.
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Minneapolis, MN -- Yesterday, the Department of State’s comment period for environmental review of Canadian company Enbridge’s Alberta Clipper pipeline concluded with high public participation. Nearly 90,000 comments in opposition to the project were submitted, with Americans sharing their serious concerns with the current draft environmental review.
Washington, DC -- Today, just after Donald Trump signed an executive order meant to undermine U.S. climate policy, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke signed a Secretarial Order cancelling the moratorium on new and modified coal leasing on public lands. The temporary pause was put in place by the Obama Administration in 2016 as taxpayers were losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year while public lands, critical water resources, and the climate were being threatened and damaged.
Washington, DC -- Today, the Sierra Club, Northern Plains Resource Council, Bold Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a federal lawsuit in Montana, challenging the State Department’s border-crossing permit and related environmental reviews and approvals for the Keystone XL pipeline.
MONROE COUNTY, OH - Yesterday, the US Geological Survey reported an earthquake in Monroe County with the epicenter located at 39.6663º N, 81.244º W. The 3.0 magnitude earthquake was located in the Marietta Unit of the Wayne National Forest. Approximately 40,000 acres of the forest are slated for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) by the Bureau of Land Management.
Anchorage, AK -- Over the weekend, Hilcorp, the company responsible for an ongoing three-month long methane leak, announced that it had spilled oil in the Cook Inlet. The cause of the spill continues to be investigated, and the layer of ice over the Inlet makes it difficult to investigate and impossible to fully clean up.This spill comes as Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans are looking at ways to circumvent President Barack Obama’s designation to permanently protect the Arctic Ocean from offshore drilling.
Oklahoma City, OK -- Today, the Western Oklahoma District Court announced, after the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), the state agency tasked with regulating oil and gas operations, took several steps towards tackling the earthquake epidemic, that it planned to dismiss without prejudice a landmark lawsuit against three of the largest fossil fuel companies in Oklahoma. The week after the notice of intent to sue was filed, the OCC announced a volume reduction plan for several dozen disposal wells in western Oklahoma.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Environmental Protection Agency has made available on its website the plan for the first tranche of Volkswagen’s National Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Investment sp
Deadhorse, Alaska -- A British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas well on Alaska’s Northern Slope that blew out on Friday continues to spill crude oil and gas uncontrollably. No one was injured when the well blew out. This disaster comes on the heels of two spills in Alaska’s Cook inlet and less than a week before the seven year anniversary of BP’s Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
Sacramento, CA -- Today, the California State Lands Commission announced that will begin the process of decommissioning Platform Holly, an oil and gas infrastructure in the Pacific Ocean.The news comes as Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, is set to give a speech in Santa Barbara amid speculation that the Trump administration is planning on opening up offshore drilling operations in previously banned waters.
Columbus, OH -- Yesterday, it was revealed that Energy Transfer’s Rover pipeline has had two major spills of drilling fluids into Ohio’s wetlands in just the past week. Construction began on the project on in mid-March 2017. On April 14th, 50,000 gallons of drilling fluids were spilled into a wetland in Richland County, Mifflin Township.