Norton Says President’s Rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline Asserts Global Leadership Needed to Save the Planet
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released the following statement on the President's decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline project permit.
"The President's decision today to reject the permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline just a few weeks before the Paris summit on climate change reflects emerging economic and environmental realities. With climate change already showing itself sharply in the U.S. and throughout the world, the U.S. could hardly have gone to the Paris Summit at the end of the month with Keystone undecided. Low oil prices are closing oil fields in this country and alternative fuels, from wind to natural gas, compete with increasing favor with oil. With the President taking the lead, top greenhouse gas emitters, such as China and India, are stepping up, even though they are industrializing economies.
"Bringing out tar sands oil, among the dirtiest in the world, at a time when the market for oil in the U.S. is rapidly decreasing would have been difficult for an advanced economy to justify, especially considering that building Keystone would yield no net jobs in the U.S. once the pipeline was built. An independent study showed the pipeline would kill as many jobs as it would produce.
"The President's decision was courageous, particularly considering that the Congress is controlled by climate change deniers. Even they, however, can no longer simply deny the existence of climate change. Today, the President took action on the survival of the planet itself, the most important global issue in the 21st Century."