Nebraskan rancher and anti-pipeline spokesperson Susan Leubbe who is featured in the film Pipe Dreams.

As Pipe Dreams demonstrates, the project—despite claims by TransCanada and others—provides very little (if any) economic benefit to the United States, has devastating environmental consequences and poses grave threats to human health, livestock and agriculture. The proposed route crosses some of the most environmentally sensitive areas in the region and through the family lands of hundreds of farmers and ranchers. As Nebraska Republican Senator Mike Johanns has observed: “[There] could not be a worse route in the entire state of Nebraska … Maybe couldn’t be a worse route in the entire country.”

View the trailer for the documentary Pipe Dreams

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tars sands, also known as dirty oil, bears little resemblance to the smooth brown liquid we pour in our cars every three months or 5,000 miles. As a recent NWF report concluded, “The Canadian tar sands industry is, by almost any measure, one of the most wasteful and polluting industries humanity has ever invented.” Producing oil from tar sands creates toxic lakes with cancer-causing chemicals, and emits three times the greenhouse gases of conventional oil. And tar sands oil also has an atrocious safety record—it accounted for over half of all crude oil spilled in the U.S. in 2010. Recent spills in Montana in the Yellowstone River and in Michigan in the Kalamazoo River attest to the destructive nature of the spills—tars sands oil is difficult to clean up as unlike conventional crude, it sinks in water.

So given all these alarming statistics I just cited, why I am thankful?

This pipeline was thought to be a done deal by TransCanada. Yet a grassroots movement by the American people caused President Obama to delay the project and request further environmental review.

The Q&A panel at the Pipe Dreams premiere in Los Angeles

Although the Obama administration recently delayed the decision of the Keystone Pipeline XL, we still need to take action to ensure the project is permanently halted. Visit NWF’s Tar Sands Action center to find out how you can help. 

Pipe Dreams is showing at the Laemmle Sunset 5 Theater in Los Angeles through November 24 at 7:30 pm daily. For showings of Pipe Dreams in your area, visit the film’s website.

In a Montana District Court case brought by Missoula County, the National Wildlife Federation, the Montana Environmental Information Center and the Sierra Club; the parties are suing the state over the permits to allow the haul of massive tar sands mining equipment from Asia through parts of the U.S. The oversize loads, or megaloads, are disruptive to ecosystems and wildlife NWF has argued. NWF has asked the judge to halt the shipments until the effects and potential hazards of the loads are thoroughly analyzed. Western Regional Executive Director and Montana based NWF attorney Tom France has pressed the case along with his co-plaintiffs.

Two months after the hearing on NWF’s motion to preliminarily enjoin Imperial Oil from moving the massive components across Montana highways to the Alberta mining operations, the Montana District Court issued an order this evening granting our motion and halting the project. The court held that the Montana Department Transportation violated the Montana Environmental Policy Act by failing to consider alternative routes, failing to consider decommissioning the highway modifications needed for the project and failing to conduct an independent evaluation of the proposal.  The document can be viewed here: Montana Court Order

The order comes as the state deals with a spill from the Silvertip Exxon pipeline purported to carry tar sands, and as the U.S. government considers approval of a massive tar sands pipeline project called “Keystone XL” that would cut through Montana.

A 2007 Enbridge pipeline explosion. Could it happen again?

As the State Department likely wraps up a comment period on the second round of environmental review for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline on Monday, the US Department of Transportation today issued a first-ever “Corrective Action Order” for the leak-prone one year old Keystone pipeline. The order requires TransCanada to meet 14 conditions before the pipeline can restart and raises serious doubts about TransCanada’s ability to build safe tar sands pipelines.

Ryan Salmon, NWF energy policy advisor sees it this way, “We shouldn’t supersize a spill-prone pipeline that’s proven to be a hazard.”

DOT’s Jeffrey Wiese writes in the order,

“After evaluating the foregoing preliminary findings of fact, I find that the continued operation of the pipeline without corrective measures would be hazardous to life, property and the environment. Additionally, after considering the circumstances surrounding the May 7 and May 29, 2011 failures, the proximity of the pipeline to populated areas, water bodies, public roadways and high consequence areas, the hazardous nature of the product the pipeline transports, the ongoing investigation to determine the cause of the failures, and the potential for the conditions causing the failures to be present elsewhere on the pipeline, I find that a failure to issue this Order expeditiously to require immediate corrective action would result in likely serious harm to life, property, and the environment.”

See the order here: 320115006H_CAO_06032011

Conservations groups and members of Congress have warned that TransCanada’s pipelines are unsafe and put property and the environment at risk.

In the video below, Nebraska landowner Randy Thompson expresses grave concern about Keystone XL running so close to area water supply.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Many House members say Sec. Clinton's team bungled the environmental impact statement for a controversial oil sands pipeline.

June 1 Breaking News – Thirty four House members wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today to request a meeting over the agency’s “failed” environmental review.

They issue a series of conditions State should take prior to continuing the permitting process and twice request a meeting with the Mrs. Clinton and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

Among the conditions – an analysis of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions, an assessment of impacts toward meeting President Obama’s goals of reducing oil imports, an analysis of alternative routes for the pipeline, and several others.

Signer Rep. Chris Murphy sits on the influential House Foreign Affairs Committee and Reps.  Weiner, Inslee, Schakowsky, and Capps sit on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

See the letter here: SDEIS Letter to State and EPA

The period for public comment on the new assessment ends June 6. You can make your voice heard here.