The Climate Minute: Keystone is the Key

With only a few weeks left in the Keystone comment period, Rob and Ted spend a considerable amount of time of this podcast talking about the pipeline and what you can do about it. As always, click on the “MCAN Climate Minute” picture to the right to start the recording in a new window. Thanks to all who came to the MCAN/TAC conference this past weekend.  We had a great time and enjoyed meeting new people, learning some new things, and generally sharpening both our knowledge and our enthusiasm. We'll be posting materials from the conference on this site (look at the "Conference 2013" tab at the top), but for now why don't you check out some of the photos, or listen to the podcast Ted put together (about putting together podcasts -- how meta!). In other news, the comment period for the Keystone Draft Environmental Impact Statement is ticking down, with comments due in mid April. The New York Times provided its comment against the pipeline here. Tom Friedman (also of the Times) thinks that the President is likely to approve the pipeline... and that means it's time to get crazy.  Friedman opines that if we make enough noise about the Keystone decision we might get some concessions -- a carbon tax perhaps, or some other sweetener. Grist thinks the President should do the right thing from the get-go and just disapprove the pipeline, crack down on existing dirty power plants, and that talk of trades is defeatist. Of course, even a Presidential approval might not be the end of this story.  Several environmental lawyers who know their way around the National Environmental Policy Act think that the Keystone EIS doesn't meet the requirements of the the law and is legally insufficient.  It's quite likely this decision could end up in court either way -- one assumes Transcanada would file some sort of appeal to the President's decision as well. The website Credo has made it easy to submit an electronic comment here.  They'll provide you with a generic comment text which you can change, and they'll electronically deliver the comment for you.  They're apparently half-way toward their goal of delivering 200,000 comments on the pipeline. And there are of course other ways to express your objection to the pipeline and use of tar sands.  Congratulations to the young activists arrested in the Westborough, MA, headquarters of TransCanada.  You can follow their actions on their blog.   Tom Ashbrook of NPR had an interesting discussion with a number of young people talking about the edgier, more urgent new face of climate activism. Rep. Waxman, Senator Whitehouse, and a number of other congresspeople are "crowd sourcing" new carbon capping legislation.   They are asking for comments and your thoughts on the best ways to place a price on carbon.  Their discussion draft can be found here. Waxman is a quiet leader on climate change.  You don't see if on the Sunday morning talking-head shows too often, but he is a passionate advocate for these issues, to the point of being unafraid to push the president in caucus. On the local scene, Rep. Tom Conroy (D-Wayland) and Sen. Michael Barrett (D- ) have filed h. 2532, "An Act relative to shifting from carbon emissions to transportation investment" which would place a state-level carbon tax.  We'll keep you informed as to when the bill is up for a hearing. Finally, More concerns have arisen about Energy Secretary designee Ernest Moniz's positions, this time surrounding his work on clean coal.  I think it's important to remember that Moniz is a researcher, and was researching the potential for carbon sequestration to reduce or eliminate coal combustion's carbon emissions.  Now while sequestration would not address some of the horrible aspects of coal production (such as mountaintop removal or the toxic water pollution caused by coal mining), it would provide lower emission coal power -- which would be positive from a carbon standpoint. But more importantly, Moniz understands and agrees the we live in a "carbon contrained world," which is something we need and should support in our Energy Secretary. It's been a pleasure sharing climate news and views with you as always.  You know, you can subscribe to our iTunes feed and get our podcasts automatically here.  Feel free to give us your thoughts on our Facebook page, or through old-fashioned email. Remember, for climate activities near you check out our MCAN climate action calendar.  You can enter events as well as browse for interesting things to do. As always -- remember, for these reasons we have discussed, the United States must place a price on carbon.  See you next week.