I got your public comment, Keystone XL
All that oil money and they still only claim 35 jobs?
It has been one week since the public comment period opened on the State Department report on Keystone XL. Mother Nature has already delivered her public comment, what follows is mine, and you can log yours by clicking here.
This report was paid for by oil companies. Apparently our State Department has learned nothing from drug companies and their studies, where you can get the study you pay for but that information will come out, and you will look bad. It will come out, and you will look bad. And thanks to the great reporting of Brad Johnson and Inside Climate News, the State Department already is beginning to be seen that way.
While it was obviously a biased, paid for report, it still makes the claim that only 35 jobs. To put that in context, that's the same amount of jobs one solar installation created in North Jersey. All without causing "Game Over" on the climate.
Nancy Pelosi gets it, though she says she is still waiting to read the report. Hopefully she will just read some blog posts like this and save her time. Speculation is also rampant that Obama will "trade" Keystone approval for something else we want, like taking into account the climate cost of new government projects. As a re-elected incumbent, Obama should be above such planet-gambling tradeoffs.
But we don't have to wait for President Obama. We can speak out clearly now: No bargains with our climate. No to Keystone XL.