Tar Sands

Utah Tar Sands Opponents Sentenced

January 12, 2015 Utah Tar Sands Resistance, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Climate Change, Climate Justice, Tar Sands

At a press conference in Salt lake City that afternoon to Environews.tv, UTSR’s Jesse Fruhwirth stated that “They (the charges) were heavy-handed and a bit ridiculous. I suppose that was an effort to scare and repress any sort of further activity or tone down the aggressiveness of any future resistance. The reality is however that this has backfire, the felony accusations gathered a lot of attention and support, and made people begin to realize just how grave and serious this battle is.” Responding to the question of whether the results of the court proceeding is going to slow UTSR down, Jesse responded “No, in fact it’s really emboldened us. The upside of facing a challenge like this is you see people who come and vocally and explicitly tell you how much they support you and how much they want to join and contribute and do what they can.

NE Supreme Court Sides With TransCanada, Not Landowners

January 9, 2015 Mark Hefflinger, www.boldnebraska.org Resist! KXL pipeline, Tar Sands, TransCanada

Lincoln, NE — In a split decision, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled on Friday to allow LB 1161 to stand. Four of the seven justices sided with landowners, but we needed five to win — as a “supermajority” of concurring justices is required when constitutional issues are raised. The Nebraska Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision that stated the Unicameral and Governor used an illegal routing process for the Keystone XL pipeline. TransCanada is left with a risky route to defend. The decision is now in Pres. Obama’s hands. This is a bad day for property rights in Nebraska. Private, foreign corporations now know they can buy their way through our state. This ruling does clear the way for the State Department to complete their analysis and for federal agencies to weigh in on risks to water and climate.

2015: The Year We Turn Away From Tar Sands

January 7, 2015 350.org, www.350.org Resist! Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Tar Sands

In 2014 Naomi Klein popularized the term “blockadia” in her bookThis Changes Everything using the term as a sort of catch-all to describe the grassroots insurgency emerging across the globe in the face of extreme energy development. This past year also saw the continued desperate push by tar sands peddlers to build more pipelines, new mines and rush to dig up every last drop of tar sands crude. Thankfully, community opposition from the source to every coast (and even across the Atlantic in Europe, where protests met the arrival of the first shipment of tar sands to Europe) has risen up. As we leave 2014 and look forwards to 2015, here is a snapshot of the global movement to stop the tar sands.

21 Utah Tar Sands Blockaders Face Charges, Including Felonies

January 6, 2015 Resist! Blockades, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Energy, Environment, Police abuse, Tar Sands, Utah

Uintah County prosecutors have filed felony and misdemeanor charges against 21 people from 10 states who were arrested during a summer protest at the site of a controversial tar sands mine. he charges stem from a July 21 protest at the U.S. Oil Sands mine site, which sits on land leased to the Canadian energy firm by the state School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration. During the protest, 12 environmental activists climbed an 8-foot-tall, chain-link fence topped with barbed wire and entered the mine site, according to court records. Five of the activists chained themselves to heavy equipment inside the fenced area, deputies said. About 30 protesters outside the fenced area were told to leave the mine site or face arrest, according to court records. Only one of the 30 failed to follow that order and was arrested. In July, Utah Tar Sands Resistance spokeswoman Jessica Lee said deputies treated the protesters so roughly during the arrests that it amounted to police brutality. "This is a clear example of the Uintah County sheriff escalating things," Lee said at the time, noting that protesters were "grabbed in an aggressive manner" and some were "thrown to the ground."

Closed For Risky Business: Stop Supporting Toxic Tarsands

December 19, 2014 Toronto Media Co-op, www.toronto.mediacoop.ca Resist! Canada, Energy, Environment, Tar Sands

This morning more than a dozen affiliates of Enbridge and the Tar Sands have been locked out of their workplaces throughout Ontario. Individuals in 9 cities have participated. Doors to banks, political offices, and other institutions associated with Enbridge have been locked or otherwise disabled, with “Closed for Risky Business” notices posted. The National Energy Board has already had to crack down on Enbridge's Line 9 project this year for negligence and safety concerning watercourses line 9 crosses however, anti-Line 9 activists are adamant that the public cannot rely on the NEB to be an effective watchdog sinceenvironmental protection is not in their mandate.

Tar Sands Flow Through KXL Clone

December 12, 2014 Steve Horn, www.desmogblog.com Educate! Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Tar Sands

In his December 8 “Colbert Report” appearance, President Barack Obama gave his strongest signal yet that he may reject a presidential permit authorizing the Alberta to Cushing, Oklahoma northern leg of TransCanada's Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Yet just a week earlier, and little noticed by comparison, the pipeline giant Enbridge made an announcement that could take the sails out ofsome of the excitement displayed by Obama's “Colbert Report” remarks on Keystone XL North. That is, Enbridge's “Keystone XLClone” is now officially open for business.

Corporation With Long History Of Abuse Mining Tar Sands

December 8, 2014 Rachel Stoeve, www.truth-out.org Educate! Energy, Environment, Law, Tar Sands, Wars and Militarism

The debate over the Keystone XL pipeline has launched Canadian tar sands into mainstream American discourse, but few people seem to know that a tar sands mine is now being constructed in the United States. The project is being managed by former Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. KBR is not without its own controversies. In March 2008, The Boston Globe reportedthat the company "avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies" based in the Cayman Islands. When it comes to environmental and health matters, of most concern is KBR's alleged use of "burn pits" to improperly dispose of waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why We Might Just Win Fight Against Tar Sands

November 29, 2014 Mike Hudema, www.huffingtonpost.ca Resist! Canada, Energy, Environment, Protests, Social Change, Tar Sands

In the fight against the tar sands there are good weeks and bad weeks and then there are weeks like this one where you can't help but feel that we might just win. This week on both sides of the country tar sands pipeline pushers got a huge wake-up call. On the west coast, the pictures and stories from Burnaby Mountain have been continuously inspiring as day after day, row after row of people ranging in age from 11 to 87 have climbed the mountain to risk arrest and say no to Kinder Morgan's tar sands pipeline plans and yes to a green, just, and renewable energy future.

Singing As He Is Arrested, Grey Cloud Defends Grandmother Earth

November 19, 2014 Ann-erika White Bird, www.lakotavoice.com Resist! Climate Change, Climate Justice, KXL pipeline, Tar Sands

Grey Cloud, an enrolled member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and co-founder of Wica Agli and anoka wicasa, was removed from the senate chambers for singing after the vote on the KXL pipeline. Grey Cloud explains the translated song as: “Grandfather look at me, I am standing here struggling, I am defending grandmother earth and I am chasing peace.” He goes on to say that the song was “not just from me, but my brothers in Wica Agli. We’re defending our women and children in our community. The song itself was very influential for why I sang that here.” Grey Cloud stated that he was carried outside chambers by Capitol police, thrown against the wall and arrested, singing the song the entire time. He was detained in the D.C. jail for five hours for interrupting the Senate and given a court date for December 10, 2014. Grey Cloud, a resident of the Rosebud Reservation, requested permission to use the song. Rosebud Sioux Tribal member Pat Bad Hand Sr. explained the origins of the song,created by Howard Bad Hand at Big Mountain as a protest song around coal mining. Bad Hand Sr. agreed that it was appropriate to sing.

Tar Sands Devastation Unveiled Outside Energy Roundtable

November 19, 2014 No Tar Sands, www.no-tar-sands.org Resist! Energy, Environment, Protest, Tar Sands

A coalition of climate and social justice organizations and artists held a silent presence and unveiled a large landscape which depicts the devastation caused by Canadian tar sands outside the Canada Europe Energy Roundtable this morning. “Communities from across the UK have come together to make this banner to show our solidarity with those communities on the front lines of tar sands who have lived for generations in close relationship with the land” said Amanda Cid, a community artist “it is important to make visible the animal species and cultures that are being pushed to extinction because of decisions being made behind closed doors between industry and government.”

Utah Tar Sands Protestors Burn Money At Shareholder Meeting

November 17, 2014 Emerson Urry, www.environews.tv Resist! Energy, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Tar Sands

On November 12, 2014 as protestors from the group Utah Tar Sands Resistance (UTSR) assembled in front of the Alta Club building to voice their opposition to the Delaware-based, French-backed company Red Leaf Resources. The event was staged to coincide with Red Leaf’s annual shareholder meeting in an effort to deter would-be investors from putting their money into the company – a financial choice that UTSR equates to throwing precious dollars away into the fire of Red Leaf’s proposed massive rock-cooking oven. The protest was also intended to voice opposition against dirty fossil fuels as a whole, as well as the company’s oil shale strip-mining project; currently underway in its preliminary stages in Northeastern Utah.

Impact Of Protests: Canadian Oil Sands Profits Fall 65%

November 2, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Blockade, Tar Sands

More evidence that protests, lawsuits and blockades work. The Canadian oil sands are seeing a dramatic decline in profits . . . Canadian Oil Sands (OTCQX:COSWF) reports Q3 net profit fell 65% Y/Y to C$0.18/share, citing lower revenue and foreign exchange-related losses. Q3 sales volume rose to 87,787 bbl/day, up4% Y/Y, but average crude prices fell to C$102.58/bbl from C$112.55 a year earlier, and operating expenses rose to to C$47.73/bbl, up from $46.15. Cuts its annual maximum output target to 100M barrels of oil, down from a previous 104M barrels and an initial forecast of up to 110M barrels. Canadian Oil Sands owns a 37% stake in its main operating asset, Syncrude, with six other companies owning the remainder, including lead operator Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) unit Imperial Oil (NYSEMKT:IMO) and Suncor Energy (NYSE:SU).

Foreign Corporation Sues Protesters For Trespassing In Park

November 2, 2014 Resist! Energy, Environment, Pipelines, Tar Sands

“I feel outraged politically that this could happen in a democracy – that a foreign massive company can accuse you of trespassing on a park" - SFU professor Stephen Collis Texas-based Kinder Morgan has hit several Burnaby residents and two SFU professors, who have spoken out against the company’s pipeline test work on Burnaby Mountain, with a multi-million-dollar lawsuit according to the defendants' lawyer. SFU professor Stephen Collis received the 1000-page stack of legal papers at his university office, just before he went out to teach his literature class late Thursday. “Personally, you feel pretty freaked out – when they start saying $5.6 million in damages, and all this jazz.” “I feel outraged politically that this could happen in a democracy – that a massive foreign company can accuse you of trespassing on a park. That they can use the courts and their money and influence from barring you from your constitutional right to free speech,” said Collis on Friday morning.

Popular Resistance Newsletter: Internet Emergency

November 1, 2014 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Blockade, Climate Change, Cove Point, Extreme Energy, Ferguson, Fracking, Gas, Internet, Net Neutrality, Oil, Pipelines, Police abuse, police brutality, Snowden, Tar Sands

The FCC meeting on December 11 is likely to be the day they announce new rules for the Internet. We’ve made a lot of progress in ensuring net neutrality but are not there yet. We need you to act now. Take two steps: Take a photo of yourself holding a sign that says #RealNetNeutrality, #ReclassifyTheInternet. You can add another slogan if you like, e.g. Save the Internet, Equal Access for All, My Voice Matters. Then upload a photo to the campaign page: My Voice Matters that will show a broad national consensus for no compromise on net neutrality. Sign up to join us in taking action this Thursday evening. We are urging people to take a very simple action to save the Internet. Organize an event in your community, at your college quad, a local Comcast or Verizon – or wherever works for you. The event should be in the evening so you can hold your cell phone lit up to symbolize the Internet. And, hold a sign like the one we describe in the first action. Sign up your event on our map. Do this now so we quickly show momentum and build the day of action; and people can learn about your event and join you.

Resistance Blowing Huge Hole In Oil Industry’s Bottom Line

October 31, 2014 Lauren McCauley, www.commondreams.org Resist! Energy, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Fracking, Keystone XL, Oil & Gas, Tar Sands

The growing tide of tar sands resistance—seen in blockades, tree sits, petitions, education efforts and calls to divest—is having a measurable negative impact on the bottom line of the tar sands industry, according to a new report, prompting researchers to declare that "business as usual for tar sands is over." Published Wednesday by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and Oil Change International, the report, Material Risks: How Public Accountability Is Slowing Tar Sands Development (pdf), finds that tar sands production revenues were down about $30.9 billion from 2010 through 2013. And according to the report, more than half of that lost revenue, roughly $17 billion, can be attributed to the fierce grassroots campaigns that have sprung up throughout North America in the past few years.

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