Center for Biological Diversity

For Immediate Release, March 24, 2017

Contact: Brett Hartl, (202) 817-8121, bhartl@biologicaldiversity.org

Trump Approves Disastrous Keystone XL Pipeline

WASHINGTON— Following an executive order signed by President Trump in January, the U.S. State Department approved the Keystone XL pipeline today. In approving Keystone, the State Department ignored its own previous environmental analyses concluding the pipeline would be a disaster for the climate and is not in the national interest.

“The Keystone XL pipeline is a disaster for people, wildlife and the planet,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Donald Trump only cares about making his special interest pals richer, even though our children will inherit a world ravaged by climate change. We'll use every tool we have to fight this pipeline in the courts and in the streets.”

Keystone XL would carry up to 35 million gallons of oil every day from Canada's tar sands — one of the dirtiest, most carbon-intensive energy sources in the world — to refineries in Texas. 

The 1,700-mile pipeline would cross rivers, streams and wetlands that are a source for drinking water for people and provide habitat for at least 20 rare and endangered species, including whooping cranes, pallid sturgeons, interior least terns and piping plovers. Since 1986 pipeline accidents have spilled an average of 76,000 barrels per year, or more than 3 million gallons of oil and other substances.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.2 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

www.biologicaldiversity.org

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