ACTION ALERT: Ask Biden to Halt the Line 3 Tar Sands Pipeline
Andy Pearson / 350.org
MINNESOTA (November 14, 2020) — I am an organizer in Minnesota with MN350. I don’t usually write emails like this, but today I have a really important update and a favor to ask.
Minnesota just granted some of the final permits needed for the Line 3 tar-sands pipeline that would carry heavy Canadian oil across 340 miles in North Dakota, northern Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
But even though construction could begin as soon as next month, this fight isn’t over. An amazing movement of tribal nations, climate and environmental groups, Indigenous organizers, and allies have been fighting this project for over six years, and we’re not stopping now.
While Trump signed an executive order expediting pipeline approvals, the Biden administration can review these rushed federal permits and stop the project. With enough national pressure, we can make this pipeline a top issue for Biden — among the likes of Keystone XL and Dakota Access. But it will take all of us rising up.
If constructed, this pipeline would carry 760,000 barrels of tar sands oil from Canada every day through a three-foot-wide pipe, as big as Keystone XL — devastating our climate, threatening the Mississippi River, and violating treaty rights.
There is no way that Biden can recognize the implications of Keystone XL on our climate and communities and ignore the consequences of Line 3.
Climate science, treaty rights, and economics clearly show that this pipeline would harm sacred sites and push our climate further into crisis.
ACTION: We must prove to Biden that there is a vocal majority across the country who oppose this dirty pipeline and reject tar sands altogether.
Andy Pearson is MN350’s Midwest Tar Sands Coordinator.
Stop the Line 3 Pipeline: For Water. For Treaties. For Climate.
Line 3 is a proposed pipeline expansion to bring nearly a million barrels of tar sands per day from Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin. It was proposed in 2014 by Enbridge, a Canadian pipeline company responsible for the largest inland oil spill in the US. Enbridge seeks to build a new pipeline corridor through untouched wetlands and the treaty territory of Anishinaabe peoples, through the Mississippi River headwaters to the shore of Lake Superior.
Why the Opposition
All pipelines spill. Line 3 isn’t about safe transportation of a necessary product, it’s about expansion of a dying tar sands industry. Line 3 would contribute more to climate change than Minnesota’s entire economy. Minnesota’s own Department of Commerce found our local market does not need Line 3 oil.
We need to decommission the old Line 3 and justly transition to a renewable, sustainable economy. Line 3 would violate the treaty rights of Anishinaabe peoples and nations in its path — wild rice is a centerpiece of Anishinaabe culture, it grows in numerous watersheds Line 3 seeks to cross. It’s well-past time to end the legacy of theft from and destruction of indigenous peoples and territories.
What We Can Do
We can keep organizing, educating, and advocating to stop Line 3 and build the future we want. Legal and grassroots efforts have kept Enbridge’s Line 3 destruction at bay — it was supposed to be complete in 2017. We are holding events in our homes, community centers, churches, schools, and online.
We are talking to our politicians, speaking up at hearings, marching in protests, taking nonviolent direct action together, and reporting Enbridge’s activity along the proposed route. We are teaching and learning from each other. We are growing food and investing in renewable energy. Wherever you are and whatever your skill set, there is a place for you in the movement to stop Line 3.
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