County, Opinion

A Look at the News: Who killed the XL Pipeline?

RBC I On Earth Day 2014, a group of farmers, ranchers and Native Americans who live along the proposed Keystone XL pipeline route marched and rode horseback through Washington, D.C., wearing cowboy hats and feather headdresses. On the National Mall, they erected tipis and held ceremonies; a couple of days later, they gave a hand-painted tipi to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, in President Barack Obama’s honor. They gave the tipi the same names that the Lakota and Crow gave Obama in 2008—“Man Who Helps the People” and “One Who Helps People Throughout the Land.”

The message was implicit: The man who helps the people rejects the Keystone pipeline.
The fight over Keystone XL gained national attention when prominent environmentalists like Bill McKibben positioned it as a litmus test of Obama’s commitment to fighting climate change. The pipeline would have connected the Canadian tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries, and most environmentalists argued that it shouldn’t be built because it would lock in the continued exploitation of one of the dirtiest fuels on earth.
But for those who marched on Washington last year, the battle was more personal. Farmers and ranchers in Nebraska feared the pipeline would leak, polluting their land and water and jeopardizing their livelihoods. Tribes worried about water contamination, disturbances to treaty lands and the possibility of man camps popping up near their communities and increasing crime.
Many landowners said TransCanada, the company behind Keystone, tried to bully them into signing easements.
“They didn’t like that a private corporation could use eminent domain for their own gain,” says Jane Kleeb, who organized opposition in Nebraska. “And they really didn’t like that it was a foreign corporation.”
Together, the self-described cowboys and Indians and the climate crusaders proved a potent political force. National groups gave the local concerns additional weight, and the locals provided the national fight with unexpected—and often conservative— spokespeople.
Keystone became a common enemy activists rallied around. They brought populist passion to the national environmental movement—a fervor that it’s lacked for years, but that’s crucial for pressuring politicians to take stands on controversial issues.
“Keystone was a proof-of-concept that infrastructure fights can garner some political constituency and can be won,” says Eric de Place, policy director for the Sightline Institute, a Northwest think tank that opposes coal exports and crude-by-rail facilities. “I spent a huge portion of my life working on carbon pricing and trying to explain demand curves. But when an oil train goes off the rails and explodes”—as has happened in North Dakota and Canada—“it really highlights for people just how dangerous the fossil fuel infrastructure is.”
Northwestern communities have already beaten back proposals for major new developments to export U.S. coal to Asia, and now they’re working to defeat additional coal and oil train and shipping terminals.
Days after Obama rejected Keystone, the Portland, Ore., City Council passed a resolution opposing any new infrastructure that would increase the city’s capacity to store or transport fossil fuels.
“Taken collectively, there’s real momentum against any new fossil fuel infrastructure,” says Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune.
Should oil prices rise, it’s easy to imagine that momentum encountering more friction. In USA Today recently, Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute and Steven Hayward of Pepperdine University argued that the “fracking revolution” that flooded the market with oil and dropped prices is what really enabled Obama to kill Keystone.
In rejecting it, Obama acknowledged that to confront climate change, we have to start leaving some fossil fuels where they are. It was a statement that would have been hard to imagine at the start of his tenure, when “drill baby drill” dominated the energy debate, as well as a symbolic win for climate activists, who are coalescing behind a new campaign to “keep it in the ground.”
That idea is gaining some traction. This month, Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a bill to end the leasing of federal lands and waters for fossil fuel extraction. The gesture shocked even environmentalists.
“It’s radical,” de Place admitted, in a delighted, if slightly baffled, tone. “This is the sort of thing that only a few people were talking about five years ago. Now, with the rejection of Keystone, we can contemplate a Senate bill that seemed unsayable a few years ago. It’s evidence that there’s been a broad, titanic shift in the way people talk about energy.”

By Cally Carswell
High Country News

One Comment

  1. This is the best time in history to be alive.

    We are living longer now than at anytime as a species and Smog Warning Days have been rare for decades in the U.S. and Canada and now fracking’s fossil fuel abundance is ending the oil wars with possible world peace with reliable energy for generations to come.

    And for 35 years climate change science has never agreed a CO2 end of days was as real as they agreed smoking causes cancer, just “99% certain”. Be happy it wasn’t real.

    Spread the love not needless panic.

Come say hi!

@ht.1885
  • Jake Blazon at bat for the Meeker Cowboys. The MHS team brought home two wins against Olathe and lost two against the North Fork Miners. The location for this weekend’s games has not been announced due to weather and field conditions. Read the full story online at ht1885.com.
  • The 2024 Meeker High School boys basketball team held their awards banquet last week. Jace Mobley was named Player of the Western Slope League and all-conference, Ryan Sullivan all-conference, Jonathon Fitzgibbons all-conference, Ethan Quinn honorable mention all-conference, Jacob Simonsen honorable mention all conference. Mobley will play in All State games. Coach Klark Kindler was named Western Slope Coach of the Year. Left to right: Bryan Rosas, Simonsen, Quinn, Fitzgibbons, Mobley and Sullivan.
  • It's that time again! Another edition of great local news stories is 
🐰 Hopping 🐰 your way this morning! Catch up on everything thats 🐣 hatching 🐣 in Rio Blanco County this week.
Need a copy? Signing up is fast and easy! Visit our website at ht1885.com/subscribe to get a copy sent to your door every week! 
We appreciate all your continued support!
  • It’s getting late, do you know where your kids are? Read all the Rio Happenings for this week in print or online at ht1885.com.
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Rio Blanco County and the White River and Douglas Creek Conservation Districts are still asking for your help to identify additional hatch-outs of crickets so that control efforts can be put in place. The success of the program will highly depend upon local landowners and the public helping to locate crickets as soon as they hatch.  See last week’s paper for a list of ways to help or contact the County Weed & Pest District at 970-878-9670 or the Conservation District office at 970-878-9838 with any questions. Website: www.WhiteRiverCD.com
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Jake Blazon at bat for the Meeker Cowboys. The MHS team brought home two wins against Olathe and lost two against the North Fork Miners. The location for this weekend’s games has not been announced due to weather and field conditions. Read the full story online at ht1885.com.
Jake Blazon at bat for the Meeker Cowboys. The MHS team brought home two wins against Olathe and lost two against the North Fork Miners. The location for this weekend’s games has not been announced due to weather and field conditions. Read the full story online at ht1885.com.
10 hours ago
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The 2024 Meeker High School boys basketball team held their awards banquet last week. Jace Mobley was named Player of the Western Slope League and all-conference, Ryan Sullivan all-conference, Jonathon Fitzgibbons all-conference, Ethan Quinn honorable mention all-conference, Jacob Simonsen honorable mention all conference. Mobley will play in All State games. Coach Klark Kindler was named Western Slope Coach of the Year. Left to right: Bryan Rosas, Simonsen, Quinn, Fitzgibbons, Mobley and Sullivan.
The 2024 Meeker High School boys basketball team held their awards banquet last week. Jace Mobley was named Player of the Western Slope League and all-conference, Ryan Sullivan all-conference, Jonathon Fitzgibbons all-conference, Ethan Quinn honorable mention all-conference, Jacob Simonsen honorable mention all conference. Mobley will play in All State games. Coach Klark Kindler was named Western Slope Coach of the Year. Left to right: Bryan Rosas, Simonsen, Quinn, Fitzgibbons, Mobley and Sullivan.
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It's that time again! Another edition of great local news stories is 
🐰 Hopping 🐰 your way this morning! Catch up on everything thats 🐣 hatching 🐣 in Rio Blanco County this week.
Need a copy? Signing up is fast and easy! Visit our website at ht1885.com/subscribe to get a copy sent to your door every week! 
We appreciate all your continued support!
It's that time again! Another edition of great local news stories is 🐰 Hopping 🐰 your way this morning! Catch up on everything thats 🐣 hatching 🐣 in Rio Blanco County this week. Need a copy? Signing up is fast and easy! Visit our website at ht1885.com/subscribe to get a copy sent to your door every week! We appreciate all your continued support!
16 hours ago
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2 days ago
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Rio Blanco County and the White River and Douglas Creek Conservation Districts are still asking for your help to identify additional hatch-outs of crickets so that control efforts can be put in place. The success of the program will highly depend upon local landowners and the public helping to locate crickets as soon as they hatch.  See last week’s paper for a list of ways to help or contact the County Weed & Pest District at 970-878-9670 or the Conservation District office at 970-878-9838 with any questions. Website: www.WhiteRiverCD.com
Mormon crickets have hatched near Rangely. They were all sighted on BLM land north of Hwy. 64 near the junction of CR 96 and CR 1, down a dirt road near the Moffat County line. The picture shown was taken yesterday by Mary Meinen from Rangely. She says the crickets are about the size of a ladybug (less than 1/2”). Some of them are actually yellow in color but most of them are darker. They are milling around and getting ready to start moving soon. Note: Photo is not to scale. Rio Blanco County and the White River and Douglas Creek Conservation Districts are still asking for your help to identify additional hatch-outs of crickets so that control efforts can be put in place. The success of the program will highly depend upon local landowners and the public helping to locate crickets as soon as they hatch. See last week’s paper for a list of ways to help or contact the County Weed & Pest District at 970-878-9670 or the Conservation District office at 970-878-9838 with any questions. Website: www.WhiteRiverCD.com
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Meeker FFA Chapter members competed at the District Leadership Development Event in Craig, Colorado, this month. Top row from left to right: Eva Scritchfield, Charlie Rogers, Alan Rivera, Trent Sanders, Koy Weber, Orion Musser, Said Rodriguez, Carlos Carrillo, Aidan Tapia, Hayden Garcia, Tristan Rollins, Mathew Willey, Quentin Simpson. Middle row: Sidney Keetch, Aurora Stallings, Sydnie Ross, Ava Nay, Lili Piper, Leah Wood. Bottom Row: Jaicee Simmons, Kailynn Watson, Cody Richardson, Kayla Castillo, Braydin Raley, Autumn Stallings, Aimee Shults, Emily Hamm. Read the full story online at ht1885.com.
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A crew from the Flat Tops Chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation joined forces last summer to remove obsolete fences to improve habitat for wildlife. Read the full story and the foundation’s update from their 30th Anniversary meeting in this week’s edition and online at ht1885.com.
A crew from the Flat Tops Chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation joined forces last summer to remove obsolete fences to improve habitat for wildlife. Read the full story and the foundation’s update from their 30th Anniversary meeting in this week’s edition and online at ht1885.com.
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