Anti-Energy Activists Form Human Chain to Block Keystone Pipeline Construction in Texas

“Another Delay!” “Another Victory!” That’s how environmental activists describe efforts in Saltillo, Texas aimed at scuttling production of the Keystone Pipeline XL in the Southwestern U.S. Since this portion of the pipeline does not extend across an international border, President Obama cannot step in to delay construction. TransCanada, the pipeline company based in Alberta, has settled upon a gradual, incremental approach to construction in lieu of U.S. approval for extending the line out of Canada. The Keystone project would provide multiple locations in the U.S. with access to crude oil from the tar sands in Canada. But an organization called “Tar Sands Blockade” is working tenaciously to block construction that could ultimately connect Americans with access to cheap, affordable energy in a stable, friendly region of the world. Activists are now chaining themselves to equipment in Texas that would be used to build the pipeline. A Sept. 5 press release from “Tar Sands Blockade” claims these efforts have been met with “considerable success.”  There was just one small trip up that was reported on KLTV, a local television news station: “TransCanada says the protestors chained themselves to a third-party contractor’s equipment that was not going to be used today.” The report goes on to say that construction proceeded elsewhere in Texas without interruption. Tar Sands Blockade describes itself as a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and climate organizers using peaceful and sustained civil disobedience to stop the construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline...more