This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience while browsing it. By clicking 'Got It' you're accepting these terms.
Most recent
Trending
The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!
TransCanada Sues Obama Administration for $15 Billion for Rejecting Keystone XL
By Stop Dirty Tar Sands
TransCanada announced Wednesday that they are throwing the corporate equivalent of a temper tantrum over the rejection of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline by filing a lawsuit under NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), in hopes of forcing American taxpayers to pay them billions of dollars to recoup their losses on the ill-fated project that they spent seven years trying to bully the U.S. into letting them build.
The company said it is looking to recover USD$15 billion in costs and damages as a result of what it says is a breach of obligations under Chapter 11 of NAFTA. TransCanada asserts that the "U.S. administration's decision to deny a presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline was arbitrary and unjustified."
Jane Kleeb of Bold Nebraska disagrees. “The rejection of Keystone XL was justified in order to protect the land, water and property rights of farmers and ranchers," she said. "This desperate attempt by TransCanada is a move to show their shareholders they have a viable project when they have hit a dead end."
As President Obama affirmed in his rejection of the pipeline, KeystoneXL was not in America's national interest. It would not have contributed to our economy, lowered gas prices or contributed to our energy security, and it would have posed a serious threat to land and water along the route and to the climate by significantly increasing carbon emissions.
“This isn't going to get the pipeline built, and it is going to remind Americans how many of our rights these agreements give away," Bill McKibben, 350.org co-founder, said. "The idea that some trade agreement should force us to overheat the planet's atmosphere is, quite simply, insane. But the oil industry is so used to always winning that I fear this kind of tantrum is predictable. Corporate power is truly out of control."
This lawsuit will do nothing to change Keystone's fate; it will merely serve to remind the American people that companies like TransCanada are working against their interests, and that trade agreements like the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) would only strengthen their ability to do so.
“Keystone XL is dead and nothing about this legal maneuvering changes that," Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said. "But, TransCanada ought to be ashamed of trying to extract billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars to boost its profits after being stopped in its tracks from building a dirty, dangerous tar sands pipeline in our backyards."
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
'It's About Time': California Governor Declares Porter Ranch a State of Emergency
2015 Wildfire Season Shatters National Record With 10 Million Acres Burned
Outraged Birders Warn Oregon Militia: 'We Are Watching Your Every Move'
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
A coalition of some of the largest environmental groups in the country joined forces to file a lawsuit in federal court challenging the Trump administration's maneuver to weaken the Endangered Species Act.
By Kimberly Holland
Children who eat a lot of gluten in their earliest years may have an increased risk of developing celiac disease and gluten intolerance, according to a new study published in JAMATrusted Source.
Sanders Unveils Green New Deal Plan to Avoid Climate Catastrophe, Create 20 Million Jobs
By Jake Johnson
Calling the global climate crisis both the greatest threat facing the U.S. and the greatest opportunity for transformative change, Sen. Bernie Sanders unveiled today a comprehensive Green New Deal proposal that would transition the U.S. economy to 100 percent renewable energy and create 20 million well-paying union jobs over a decade.
The Parties to CITES agreed to list giraffes on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) today at the World Wildlife Conference or CoP18 in Geneva. Such protections will ensure that all giraffe parts trade were legally acquired and not sourced from the poached giraffes trade and will require countries to make non-detriment findings before allowing giraffe exports. The listing will also enable the collection of international trade data for giraffes that might justify greater protections at both CITES and other venues in the future.
Trending
The WHO stressed that more research is needed on the potential health risks of microplastic ingestion. luchschen / iStock / Getty Images Plus
The UN's health agency on Thursday said that microplastics contained in drinking water posed a "low" risk at their current levels.
However, the World Health Organization (WHO) — in its first report on the potential health risks of microplastic ingestion — also stressed more research was needed to reassure consumers.
'This is a Sick Statement': Brazil’s Bolsonaro, Under Pressure for Anti-Environmental Policies, Blames NGOs for Record Amazon Fires
Brazil's right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro is giving President Trump a run for his money in the alternative facts department.
Trending
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who made solving the climate crisis the center of his presidential campaign, is dropping out of the 2020 Democratic primary race.
'Work Together' or 'Destroy it': Goldman Prize Winner Francia Márquez on World's Second Deadliest Country For Environmental Activists
In April 2018, Afro-Colombian activist Francia Márquez won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, thanks to her work to retake her community's ancestral territories from illegal gold mining. However, her international recognition comes at a very risky price.