Happily our new administration saw the dangers of the XL Keystone pipeline and acted quickly to kill it.  Jobs and money can be replaced but our unpolluted resources can not.

The article below mentions only greenhouse gases as what is wrong with fracking.  There are many more things wrong, including earthquakes, poisoned process water that cannot be disposed of or reinserted into the water cycle, leaks around well casings, contaminated aquifers, migrating poisonous water lenses under the earth, and so on and on.

Scientists do know that climate change is hastened by greenhouse gases, but scientists do not yet know all the dangers of underground contamination and migrating toxins.

Two certainties about fracking –all wells leak sooner or later and fracking is never safe.

Read the original article here at NPR.

Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum

Biden Order Blocks Keystone XL Pipeline

As part of his ambitious plan to address climate change, President Biden is revoking a key cross-border presidential permit needed to finish the controversial Keystone XL pipeline

This likely means the end of the $8 billion pipeline, a years-long project that would have carried oil sands crude from Alberta, Canada, to the American Gulf Coast. The pipeline has come to signify the debate over whether fossil fuels should be left in the ground in order to rein in greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the worst damage from climate change.

President Barack Obama rejected the project in 2015. President Donald Trump revived it as one of his first actions in office.

Construction on Keystone XL began last year, and the company says about 300 miles of the pipeline has been built so far. TC Energy says in a statement that “advancement of the project will be suspended” and that the company likely will take a hit to its first quarter earnings.

While the company’s announcement was straightforward, oil industry groups that supported the project decried the Biden decision….

Environmentalists opposed the pipeline because of the oil sands crude it would have carried. Producing that oil requires extra processing that emits more of the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Those groups praised Biden’s decision along with his vow to rejoin the Paris climate agreement after Trump withdrew.

“It makes the United States once more part of the global climate solution — not the problem,” responded Mitchell Bernard, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said the pipeline was a key priority for him. The province of Alberta, which is an investor in the project, has said it will work with the company to pursue legal remedies.