My coauthor for this post is Bill McKibben of 350.org.
Once again, Big Oil and its friends in Congress are imperiling must-pass legislation to extort a profit-driven pound of flesh -- the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Luckily, long-standing environmental champion Senator Barbara Boxer stands at the helm of this legislative process. Senator Boxer has worked painstakingly for years to create a transportation bill that makes sense for America.
But where some see good public policy (and 2.9 million American jobs,) the House leadership sees another chance to deliver for Big Oil. They pushed through a shell of a bill (a short extension of the current law) and tacked on three gifts to big polluters. That means the House majority will show up to negotiate a final bill with the Senate with nothing to offer but an irresponsible free pass for the Keystone XL pipeline, an attempt to preempt safety standards for the disposal of highly toxic coal ash, and a wide-ranging rollback of one of our nation's bedrock environmental protections -- the bipartisan-enacted, 42-year-old National Environmental Policy Act.
So we cheered this week when Senator Boxer put her foot down and signaled that she won't allow cynical politics to sink a painstakingly negotiated bill that would reduce our nation's dependence on oil, reduce Big Oil's influence on our economy and our lives, and give all of us better and cleaner transportation choices. She'll stand firm against inclusion of unrelated and controversial giveaways to big polluters, like Keystone XL.
This Keystone XL pipeline first rose to national attention almost exactly a year ago, when NASA scientist James Hansen said that its source in the tar sands of Canada was one of the most dangerous projects on Earth -- tapped heavily, and added to all the coal and gas that we're already burning, this unconventional fuel would mean "game over for the climate."
In the months that followed, this issue ignited a huge outpouring of public opposition to the pipeline and what it would mean for the planet. Hundreds of thousands of people across the country took action, many engaged in civil disobedience, and thousands even came to DC to encircle the White House. And, eventually, President Obama did the brave thing. He stood up to direct threats of "huge political consequences" from the American Petroleum Institute and denied the permit, at least for now.
But Big Oil doesn't like to lose and went straight to work, running tens of millions of dollars of pro-pipeline advertising that said pretty much anything that might help to get the pipeline built. What Big Oil won't say is that it really wants this pipeline to the Gulf Coast so that it can export its product around the world. Our energy security would be weakened, our food and water security would be imperiled, and Americans in 16 states would actually end up paying more at the pump. Meanwhile, oil company profits would skyrocket by as much as $4 billion a year.
This is Big Oil spending millions to make billions. It has brought the full power of its bought-and-paid-for fleet of congressional champions to advance its agenda. They have attached Keystone XL riders to every important piece of legislation for the past six months. Now they're playing a political game that pits pipeline profits against job creation -- it's estimated the Transportation bill would create 2.9 million jobs. So House Republicans are holding millions of jobs hostage for the billions in profit the pipeline would deliver.
This week House Republicans bring their game of Big Oil chicken to the conference committee, where differences between House and Senate versions of a bill will be worked out. Republicans are hoping that the bipartisan majority in the Senate will blink.
But Big Oil has miscalculated. Barbara Boxer, as chair of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, has worked for more than a year to draft transportation legislation that would make critical strides in reducing our dependence on oil, repairing our infrastructure, and moving our transportation system into the 21st century.
Senator Boxer and a majority of other senators on the conference committee are adamant that Keystone XL and the other environmental rollbacks have no place in this important bill. In doing so, they have repudiated the cynical idea that money and power will always triumph in Washington, DC. They have struck a blow for the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose lives would be improved by the Senate transportation bill -- average Americans who need real transportation solutions, not Big Oil profits. It's moments like these -- tough moments, when the pressure is on -- that we count on our leaders in Congress to stand up for the American people. We're thankful to Senator Boxer and her colleagues for doing just that.