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Fast for the Earth Protests TransCanada and Government Flunkies Who Put Oil Über Alles

Last updated on 2012.12.22

ÜI heard some corporate propaganda from TransCanada on WNAX yesterday, an ad touting that Keystone XL would be "the safest pipeline in America." Hmmm... that's like advertising that you have the cleanest hookers in Las Vegas, or maybe the best meth on the prairie.

TransCanada's propaganda responds to the concerted effort of Bold Nebraska and other grassroots activists to organize Nebraska landowners in opposition to TransCanada's effort to permanently seize and imperil our land for foreign profit.

TransCanada doesn't face the same amount of opposition in South Dakota, but there are some South Dakotans trying to stop the unhealthy fossil fuel addiction Keystone XL would feed. Brookings-based Fast for the Earth included a protest at TransCanada's regional office out on the bypass by Brookings in its "Launch Week" activities on August 7. Fast for the Earth has also issued its first "Fooling Mother Nature" awards, with a strong focus on TransCanada's trespasses against the environment and justice. THe winners:

"Pinnochio" Award: Governor Dennis Daugaard:

When campaigning for governor, Daugaard promised that he would meet with farmers opposed to the Hyperion oil refinery, but later refused to do so. Relative to the Keystone XL pipeline, the governor has maintained that it will create hundreds of jobs for South Dakotans, when a Cornell study has concluded that it will not be a major source of any U.S. jobs. But the real clincher in Daugaard's selection was his decision to award TransCanada, a foreign oil company, millions of dollars in economic development funds while he was cutting school funding and causing teachers to lose their jobs because the state suddenly had a budget crisis. (A crisis that didn't exist, he said, when he was running for office.)

"See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil" Award: South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources and DENR chief Steve Pirner, for rubber stamping what fossil fuel and mining companies want and ignoring "the concerns of farmers and ranchers whose land is being impacted by TransCanada."

"My Favorite Boss" Award: Senator John Thune, for supporting TransCanada's use of eminent domain to build its pipelines, even though the oil will go to China and raise our gasoline prices.

"Sparkling Waters" Award: TransCanada, for endangering our water and wildlife for filthy tar sands profit.

For more home-grown environmental commentary, follow Fast for the Earth on their blog, Fast Talk. You can also find them on Facebook, where they have, among other things, some photos from a tour of Mike and Sue Sibson's farm. The photos show the same land I visited three years ago, when TransCanada tore up the Sibsons' land, against their wishes, to lay Keystone 1 in the ground. TransCanada said the land would be "as good or even better" for the Sibsons' cattle to graze. Weeds now stand over the pipeline where native prairie grass once grew. TransCanada said they would restore those native grasses, but TransCanada apparently forgot, at the Sibsons must graze their cattle elsewhere.

7 Comments

  1. Julie Gross (NE) 2012.08.14

    -but there are some South Dakotans trying to stop the unhealthy fossil fuel addiction Keystone XL would feed.

    Yeah, better to spend billions on concrete, rebar, copper, gravel, fiberglass, and removing millions of acres of cropland from production with turbine towers that happen to kill thousands of birds every day.

    And electrical generators require rare earth--95% of which is produced in China. So let's trade one cartel for another?

  2. Julie Gross (NE) 2012.08.14

    --but there are some South Dakotans trying to stop the unhealthy fossil fuel addiction Keystone XL would feed.

    There you have it: the irrational hate for oil. It's not about the environment, or farmnland, or pollution or anything else--it's about making a value judgment (not based on scientific fact) that certain forms of energy are preferable to others.

    The ideology of Socialism at its best.

  3. Justin 2012.08.14

    Julie, it's hard to take you seriously when you start equating socialism to anybody that isn't under the thumb of big oil.

  4. Julie Gross (NE) 2012.08.15

    --Julie, it’s hard to take you seriously when you start equating socialism to anybody that isn’t under the thumb of big oil.

    Gov't making value judgements about what form of energy (or any other biz) is to be promoted or banned is at the heart of socialism.

  5. larry kurtz 2012.08.15

    Wyoming's Rep. Lummis wants to keep dumping mercury on the chemical toilet; now blaming the President for collapse of the coal market: Gillette News Record.

  6. Justin 2012.08.15

    "Gov’t making value judgements about what form of energy (or any other biz) is to be promoted or banned is at the heart of socialism."

    Exactly why DD should lose his secret "large business development fund" for giving a rumored $25 million to Keystone XL while hording a $50 million surplus and cutting education by $50 million. And why ethanol subsidies should end.

    It's a popular talking point, but it is a fact that far more money goes to big oil than alternative energy sources. They just want it "all".

  7. Justin 2012.08.15

    I guess the more obvious question is how you could make that argument and think it didn't define you as a socialist?

    Can you count your brain cells on one hand?

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