After writing, last Friday, the Post that came out an hour ago, called The Power of Big Money, there was a further email from Duncan Meisel of 350.org. It is reproduced in full.
RED ALERT: Obama caving on Keystone?!
Friends,
It all comes down to Barack Obama.
As I type this, Big Oil’s representatives in the House and Senate are pushing legislation that would rush approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Up until now President Obama has stood strong, threatening to reject any bill that includes the pipeline. But in the last hour, some terrible news has begun to leak from DC: President Obama seems to be on the verge of caving on Keystone.
The next few hours will be absolutely crucial — the President needs to hear from you that cutting a back-room deal with Big Oil on Keystone XL is unacceptable. If he steps up makes a public threat to veto this bill, he can stop this pipeline in its tracks.
Can you make a call right away? Here’s the White House number: 202-456-1111
Feel free to say what you want on the call, but remember to drive this one message home: to keep his promises, President Obama needs to veto legislation that would rush approval of Keystone XL. This pipeline is a threat to our climate and jobs and needs to be stopped.
After you’ve called the White House, let us know how it went by clicking here.
(Don’t worry if you get a busy signal — it’s actually a good sign: it means we’ve flooded the White House switchboard and that the movement is sending an overwhelming message to the President. Just keep on trying until you get through.)
President Obama came into office promising to “end the tyranny of oil.” This is his chance to prove he was serious. If he’s not, he needs to know right now that there will be real consequences.
Big Oil cut a back-room deal with the dirtiest Members of Congress to attach this legislation to a must-pass tax cut bill. These kinds of deals exemplify the tyranny Big Oil exercises over our government, and underscores why the President needs to threaten a veto.
We have just a few hours to convince him to stand strong and veto any legislation to rush the Keystone pipeline. Can you make a call right now and tell him that we expect nothing less? Here’s the number again: 202-456-1111
Your calls right now are absolutely crucial, and you should also be getting ready to get back into the streets in the days and weeks to come. We’re dusting off our plans to go to Obama 2012 offices and raise a ruckus. Call the White House, but also get in touch with your friends to start plotting your next steps locally.
Thanks to you, this fight isn’t over yet — not by a long shot.
Let’s go,
Duncan Meisel for the team at 350.org
P.S. Many of your friends cheered you on when you buried this pipeline the first time — share this red alert with a few clicks onFacebookand Twitter to bring them back into the game.
And then a short while later, this further email from Duncan,
Hey friends,
Just wanted to pass along an update: today, we completely flooded the White House phone lines with thousands of calls opposing this deal on Keystone XL oil pipeline.
The good news: this means we overwhelmed the White House with our calls. The bad news: it also means that a lot of people didn’t get through, and that the comment line is now shut down for the weekend.
Thanks again — we’ll be in touch soon.
Onwards,
Duncan Meisel for the 350.org Team
P.S. In your comment to the White House, make sure you include some form of this message:
To keep his promises, President Obama needs to veto legislation that would rush approval of Keystone XL. This pipeline is a threat to our climate, our communities, and the creation of a new clean energy economy. and jobs and needs to be stopped.
When I sat down at my PC around 2.30pm (MT) on Saturday, there was a further email this time from Bill McKibben, as follows:
Dear Friends,
As you might know, the Keystone tar sands pipeline is back in play.
This morning, the Senate passed a bill that requires a 60-day, expedited approval process for the pipeline in return for a payroll tax cut, and the President has said he will sign it.
The news has been swirling around Washington the last few days, with one report after another of deals and deadlines. (It’s a little weird to think that six months ago, when we started the campaign to stop this pipeline, almost no one had even heard of this thing and now it’s the center of frantic bargaining — that’s a real tribute to your efforts).
Here’s what we do know:
1) The dirty energy industry wants the pipeline fast-tracked, and is demanding that the President grant or deny a permit within two months. They’re going to do all they can to make that happen.
2) The administration knows that Americans don’t want that permit granted. They know because many of you encircled the White House in November, and submitted more public comments than on any energy project in history, and because yesterday the climate movement flooded the White House switchboard with so many phone calls that the busy signal was the sound of the day. For all that work, thank you.
Here’s what we don’t know: what happens next.
Our hope — and what you should ask the President for when you write him — is that when he signs the bill he will say the obvious thing:
“Two months is not long enough to review the pipeline. The Canadians themselves have just delayed review of their tar sands pipelines over safety concerns, and we’ve just come through a year that set a record for billion-dollar climate-related disasters; I’m not going to do a rush job just to please the oil industry lobbyists. So this pipeline is dead.”
Since the State Department has already, in essence, said two months is not enough time, this should be pretty straightforward.
We should know how it’s going to play out within 48 hours or so. We’re of course ready to fight like heck.
But for this weekend? Well, the switchboard is now closed, so to contact the White House you’ll need to send them a message here. And click here to spread the word on Facebook, and click here to share the news on on Twitter.
Once you’ve done that, I recommend eggnog, football, caroling, Hannukah-shopping — and checking the email every once in a while? We’re hanging fire on this, and we’ll let you know when we find out what’s going down and if rapid reaction of some kind is required.
So so many thanks for your continued good hearted work,
Bill McKibben for 350.org Team
P.S. We know one other thing too. On Thursday night the Republican debating society came out in favor the pipeline, which is easy for them to do since they’ve all now denied climate science. Newt Gingrich in particular blamed “San Francisco environmental extremists” with holding things up. I’m sure our California crew is happy for the shout-out, but it seemed a little unfair to Nebraska farmers, Texas ranchers, Florida College students, New York trade unionists, Wall Street occupiers, and even us Vermont granola eaters. We’re a big broad bunch and we’re going to stay that way!
Please do everything to circulate this information. Thank you!
Learning from Dogs 
Dear Friends,
About 48 hours ago, I told you we’d have a clearer picture of what was going on with the pipeline fight in 48 hours.
I was wrong, mistaken, and also incorrect. As it stands now, things in Washington couldn’t be muddier. The Senate, with the White House’s consent, passed a payroll tax cut plan with a rider attached that would have forced a speedy review of Keystone. That sounds bad — except that spokespeople from the Obama administration said quite bluntly that if they were forced to do a quick review they’d deny the permit.
That sounds good — except that now the Tea Party caucus in the House has decided they don’t want the payroll tax cut, and they do want the Senate to come back to DC for more talks, and…you get the drift. At least for the moment, Keystone is flotsam on the unchartable tides of DC politics.
We’re monitoring it as closely as we can, and if anything definitive emerges from the money-filled rooms, or if there’s any obvious action that you can take beyond all the emailing and phone-calling to date, we’ll tell you immediately. Keep an eye on your email inbox, please — and in the meantime we’ll be posting play-by-play updates to our Twitter feed and our Facebook page. You can also join our rapid-response mobile network by using your cell phone to text the word “PLUGIN” to the number 50555.*
Here’s one thing that’s emerged more plainly with each passing day. Right now in Washington, money rules. Sooner or later Big Oil will ram Keystone, and fracking, and a thousand other bad ideas down our throats unless we manage to change the system. That’s what we’re going to have to work on next year if we have any hope of ever bringing climate change under control. I think part of the problem is: we’ve come to feel that money’s hammerlock on policy is sad but completely inevitable. We’ve let ourselves be cynical, which is understandable (the Capitol should have an Exxon sign out front, and a couple of pumps, and a grubby bathroom) but also a bit weak.
Instead, I think we need to stand up for a certain kind of naïveté. We need to say it’s not right that the 234 House members who voted for Keystone last week had taken $42 million in dirty energy money. It’s no different than if before next weekend’s Patriots-Miami game, the owner of the Dolphins trotted out to midfield and handed each referee ten grand. It stinks.
Next year, we’ll be delivering this message to Representatives and Senators everywhere: if the energy industry is giving you presents, you shouldn’t be giving them presents back. Not with our money, not with our landscape, and not with our planet. You’ve given us a lot of suggestions in the last couple of weeks about how to take on the money pollution that corrupts our political system — but if you have more send them in to “ideas@350.org.” And rest up over the holidays because we’re going to need you in fighting trim come 2012.
Apologies again for misleading you about how quickly we’d know the score in DC. I underestimated, not for the first and not for the last time, how screwed up the place really is. But we can do something about that. And we will.
Onwards,
Bill McKibben for the whole team at 350.org
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Paul politicians and Big corporate business usually work in hand in glove with back-hander’s and corruption somewhere in the pipeline of administration that passes this and that.. I send out my thoughts to you all and hope this comes to an amicable solution…
I know too you have been keeping your eye on the monetary situations around our globe and in the USA, The Euro and the Dollar are in for more problems and the systems in place even I know that we cannot keep going propping up yet more and more, printing more and more.. Unfortunately it is those very same BIG Corporate Businesses that dictate the rules to those whom we think we elected for our Good, when in fact once in office, they feather their own nests first as they have to follow those who pull their strings..
January should be a very interesting month… and although I like to spread positive vibes, where this is concerned we are on a downhill spiral..
Love and Light to you and Jean.. ~Sue
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Thanks Sue, and a very Happy Christmas to you and all the other special friends (human and canine!) in your life. Yes, 2012 is going to be a most interesting year!
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