Read

User menu

Search form

Nationwide Protests Escalate Against Keystone XL Pipeline

Nationwide Protests Escalate Against Keystone XL Pipeline
Fri, 3/22/2013 - by Tar Sands Blockade

More than 30 actions and events this week directly confronted the corporate profiteers bankrolling the Keystone XL pipeline and the broader tar sands industry. These actions come at a critical time as investor confidence in Alberta’s tar sands is waning due to major delays and resistance to Keystone XL’s construction timeline.

The Keystone XL project has become a flagship issue for the U.S. climate movement and has spurred dozens of acts of civil disobedience and the largest climate rally in U.S. history. But while 45,000 marched on the White House, President Obama was golfing with oil executives and the southern segment of KXL in Texas and Oklahoma was still being built.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that we cannot rely on corporation-funded politicians to oppose corporate excess; we must engage this destructive industry directly. That’s what we’ve done in Texas, and it’s working: in February, TransCanada reported lower fourth-quarter earnings and admitted that the southern portion of Keystone XL (the Gulf Coast Project) was way behind schedule and only 45 percent completed.

By showing up at their offices and putting a stop to “business as usual,” we can show tar sands investors that their lives would be easier and their businesses more secure if they invested in projects that don’t endanger our communities’ health and the chance for a livable climate.

This week, grassroots activists from more than 50 organizations nationwide are uniting to send a strong message to the industry that TransCanada and its financial backers must rethink their investments in tar sands, the dirtiest fuel on the planet. We have demonstrated to companies bankrolling KXL that their investments are as toxic as the tar sands they want to pump through the pipeline. Activists are marching, holding rallies, giving trainings, and physically disrupting business for those who seek to profit from the exploitation of marginalized people and the destruction of our collective future.

Some of the top tar sands profiteers facing protest this week: TD Bank, Valero Corp, CIBC World Market, and Tortoise Investment Management, to name a few.

The March 16-23 Week of Action to Stop Tar Sands Profiteers, in solidarity with Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance's Direct Action Camp in Ponca City, Oklahoma, seeks to expose green-washed corporations like TD Bank, a top shareholder in TransCanada, and force them to divest from the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

“Its encouraging to see people around the country taking action to stop tar sands profiteers,” said Ron Seifert, spokesperson for Tar Sands Blockade. “No longer will we allow them to build KXL and invest in toxic projects that endanger the health of low-income and communities of color. We will not allow 'business as usual' to continue.”

Here are a few highlights from the Week of Action so far:

  • 100 people occupied a TransCanada office in Westborough, Mass., holding a "Funeral for Our Future" and disrupting work for several hours. Twenty-five were arrested for locking themselves inside the office.

  • TD Bank branches have seen protests at multiple locations, including three people who were arrested for locking themselves inside a branch office in Washington, D.C.

  • Twelve people were arrested for blockading a fracking pipeline in upstate New York.

  • Portland, Oregon held a bike tour of the city’s worst polluters including a rally at a TransCanada office.

Dozens of activists in Grim Reaper garb surround the Michaels Corporate office in Kirkland, Wash., demanding that Michaels stop building Keystone XL.

Check Tar Sands Blockade for live updates and to learn how to get involved in actions around the country, which are continuing through March 23.

3 WAYS TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT

ONE-TIME DONATION

Just use the simple form below to make a single direct donation.

DONATE NOW

MONTHLY DONATION

Be a sustaining sponsor. Give a reacurring monthly donation at any level.

GET SOME MERCH!

Now you can wear your support too! From T-Shirts to tote bags.

SHOP TODAY

Sign Up

Article Tabs

This last month has shown America that society will gladly tolerate vigilante violence, provided a vigilante chooses the right target.

President-elect Donald Trump isn’t just appointing incompetent buffoons to his Cabinet, but deeply immoral individuals who are completely lacking in family values.

Biden cared more about the appearance of having an independent DOJ untainted by politics than he did about holding an unrepentant criminal ex-president accountable.

The American people clearly spoke, and the drubbing Democrats received requires looking beyond just issue polls, voting patterns, campaign strategy, or get-out-the-vote tactics.

The recent decisions by two of the most influential national newspapers of record to not publish their endorsements of Vice President Kamala Harris says a lot about how seriously they take Trump’s threats to democracy and his promises of vengeance against his enemies.

This last month has shown America that society will gladly tolerate vigilante violence, provided a vigilante chooses the right target.

If the Democrats’ theme of 2017 was Resistance, the theme for Democrats in 2025 needs to instead be Opposition — and these two GOP senators may be the models to emulate.

President-elect Donald Trump isn’t just appointing incompetent buffoons to his Cabinet, but deeply immoral individuals who are completely lacking in family values.

Biden cared more about the appearance of having an independent DOJ untainted by politics than he did about holding an unrepentant criminal ex-president accountable.

The country has never moved as close to the course it took under Benito Mussolini as it is doing now — and even if Meloni is not a neo-fascist politician, she has put herself in a position to appeal to and broaden fascism's political base.

The American people clearly spoke, and the drubbing Democrats received requires looking beyond just issue polls, voting patterns, campaign strategy, or get-out-the-vote tactics.

Posted 1 month 2 weeks ago

This last month has shown America that society will gladly tolerate vigilante violence, provided a vigilante chooses the right target.

Posted 1 week 5 days ago

Biden cared more about the appearance of having an independent DOJ untainted by politics than he did about holding an unrepentant criminal ex-president accountable.

Posted 1 month 1 day ago

If the Democrats’ theme of 2017 was Resistance, the theme for Democrats in 2025 needs to instead be Opposition — and these two GOP senators may be the models to emulate.

Posted 2 weeks 5 days ago

The country has never moved as close to the course it took under Benito Mussolini as it is doing now — and even if Meloni is not a neo-fascist politician, she has put herself in a position to appeal to and broaden fascism's political base.

Posted 1 month 5 days ago

President-elect Donald Trump isn’t just appointing incompetent buffoons to his Cabinet, but deeply immoral individuals who are completely lacking in family values.

If the Democrats’ theme of 2017 was Resistance, the theme for Democrats in 2025 needs to instead be Opposition — and these two GOP senators may be the models to emulate.