Keystone XL was the first Trump pipeline that President Biden rejected, but it should not be the last.

President Biden boldly rejected KXL within a few hours of his inauguration. That was a testament to the unlikely alliance of farmers, ranchers, Tribal Nations, and climate advocates that stood together for over a decade.

We now stand with our friends across the country that are still battling pipelines approved under Trump without any regards to their lives, the land, the water, or climate.

We ask Pres. Biden to stand with us, to keep acting boldly on climate, and to choose our families over risky pipelines. #ClimateSummit #StopTrumpPipelines

The image below (PDF) was featured in a full-page advertisement in The New York Times on Thursday, April 22:

The ad text reads: When President Biden listened to the unlikely alliance of farmers, ranchers, Tribal Nations, and climate advocates by stopping the reckless Keystone XL pipeline, he rejected Donald Trump’s approach and applied a Biden standard — basing his decision on science, honoring treaties, respecting property rights, and focusing on racial justice, climate, and clean water.

But the country’s land and water — and the climate — remain under threat. Keystone was the first Trump pipeline that Biden rejected, but it should not be the last. It’s time to reverse course on the risky projects that Trump pushed through that ignore science, and threaten our land and water.

We can invest in our communities through modern infrastructure that creates millions of good- paying union jobs without polluting our water or destroying the planet.

In the American Jobs Plan, there are tens of billions of dollars for creating clean energy, capping old oil wells, and for replacing lead pipes that poison children in cities across America.

Creating jobs, protecting clean water, listening to science, and respecting our Tribal and local communities — that is the Biden standard and that is how we build back better — with bold action by a bold President.

President Biden, Thank You.

We stand with you to stop the Trump pipelines.

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Throughout the Keystone XL fight, Nebraskans spoke up and took action to help stop TransCanada’s / TC Energy’s proposed tarsands export pipeline. Local activists in communities across the country can utilize the lessons we learned as a resource and inspiration to create actions in their own fights similar to what helped us in Nebraska achieve an historic victory over Big Oil, where KXL was rejected three times now. There’s lots of information to share, about a fight that some of us have faced daily for over a decade now.

Pipeline Fighters at the "Build Our Energy" solar-powered barn, paid for with online donations and built by volunteers on land directly in the path of the Keystone XL pipeline near Bradshaw, NE. (Photo: Mary Anne Andrei)
Pipeline Fighters at the “Build Our Energy” solar-powered barn, paid for with online donations and built in 2013 by volunteers on land directly in the path of the Keystone XL pipeline near Bradshaw, NE. (Photo: Mary Anne Andrei)

WATCH: Nebraskans and Pipeline Fighters from across the country testify at the State Dept. hearing on the environmental review for Keystone XL during an all-day hearing in Grand Island, Nebraska on April 18, 2013.

All levels of local government have the ability to enact laws that require proper routing and siting of pipelines; processes on abandonment of the pipeline; emergency and spill response plans; bonding of road use and other insurance issues; liability of spills; and regulation of neighboring land uses.

Instead of continuing to subsidize fossil fuels and line the pockets of Big Oil and Gas, and worsening the impacts we’re already seeing from carbon emissions and climate change, we want to see investments in clean, American-made renewable energy. We need to enact stronger protections for our land, water, and citizens at all levels of government.

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Wizipan Little Elk, of the Rosebud Sioux, and Art Tanderup, a Nebraska farmer—members of the Cowboy and Indian Alliance—risk arrest by standing in the Washington Monument Reflecting Pool in D.C. to protest TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which threatens water from the Ogallala Aquifer in America’s heartland, during the “Reject & Protect” weeklong series of actions in D.C., April 2014. (Photo by ©Garth Lenz / iLCP)
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Nebraskans march in front of the U.S. Capitol during the “Reject & Protect” weeklong #NoKXL action in Washington, D.C. in April 2014. (Photo: Mary Anne Andrei)

RESOURCES

  • Keystone XL:  Research papers and action ideas from our six-year pipeline fight: https://boldnebraska.org/transcanada-pipeline-background-and-resources
  • The Nebraska Easement Action Team was an allied group during the KXL fight that organized landowners into a legal group, the archived website has great information: http://www.nebraskaeasement.org
  • Domina Law Group provides an overview on the legal issues and challenges of TransCanada exerting powers of eminent domain to take U.S. citizens’ land, including links to all the lawsuits filed during the KXL fight and a legislative memo on what states can do to regulate oil pipelines: http://www.dominalaw.com/TransCanada-Keystone-XL-Pipeline.aspx  
  • The Pipeline Safety Trust is a nation citizen group that pushes for safer pipelines, they have a Landowners Guide and an annual conference: http://pstrust.org
  • Standing Bold: Bold Nebraska interviewed many of the landowners who joined with the Nebraska Easement Action Team to collectively battle eminent domain claims against their land for Keystone XL, about their experiences with TransCanada and during the years-long court battle they fought (and continue to fight!). An excerpt from the documentary film project is below.

WATCH: Nebraskans talk about why they were fighting Keystone XL, featuring the Hammond, Harrington and Kleinschmidt families on whose land Bold Nebraska built a solar-powered barn directly in the path of the pipeline.

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