Action to protest Keystone

NOVEMBER 6 was a day of action to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil, the world's dirtiest fuel, from Alberta, Canada, across the Great Plains to the Gulf Coast.

Chanting "Yes we can--stop the pipeline!" and "We are the 99 percent!" some 12,000 activists gathered in Washington, D.C., to surround the White House and send a message to Barack Obama that the environmental movement expects him to make good on his promise to invest in clean energy.

The 1,661-mile pipeline would deliver 700,000 barrels of crude a day by crossing Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. If it goes ahead, the project will cause untold damage on Montana's Sandhills region, where the Ogallala aquifer, which provides drinking water to 1.5 million people, is located.

Obama said that he is delaying a decision on the pipeline in order to hear the results of an investigation by the State Department's inspector general into allegations of possible conflicts of interest.

In Portland, Ore., some 400 people gathered in Terry Schrunk Plaza to demand that the plan to build the Keystone XL pipeline be halted. Some speakers called on Obama to do the right thing and "say no" to the pipeline. Others, like Kari Koch of Climate Justice Portland, said that they were "done waiting for politicians to do the right thing and done waiting for this system of exploitation to end."

Koch said that the rally, endorsed by Occupy Portland, Climate Justice Portland, 350.org, the Oregon chapter of the Sierra Club and others, was not just about the Keystone XL pipeline, but about "health, sustainability and an end to the capitalist control of this world."

People marched from the plaza to the Courthouse adjacent to Pioneer Courthouse Square, linked hands and chanted for almost an hour. Favorite chanted were those calling for green jobs and an end to the dirty pipeline. The local band Boka Marimba also played.