| Dear Indiana, Last week, President Obama vetoed Republicans' bill forcing approval of the "game over for the climate" Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. As they sent him the bill, we sent the president something else: A new letter calling on him to take the next step and officially reject Keystone XL. (Full text below.) More than 140 artists, Tribal Nations, landowners, and climate leaders have signed. Will you join them? Co-sign your name to the #NoKXL Unity Letter to President Obama now. The President was right to veto the Republican's bill, but the veto was separate from the much bigger decision he'll be making soon on the State Department's official permit process – and he needs to reject Keystone XL, officially. President Obama says climate change is a significant threat to Americans. And his EPA says that Keystone XL will significantly increase the pollution causing climate change. This should be easy. But still, he has avoided this decision for years. President Obama can't be a serious climate leader if he approves Keystone XL. It's time for a decision. And it's time for a rejection. Co-sign the letter calling on President Obama to formally reject Keystone XL now. This was the first time Congress has been able to send the president a bill forcing approval of Keystone XL. But it almost certainly won't be the last. The fact is, the Keystone XL fight has shifted dramatically. We have to be ready to fight in new ways. In 2011, the president was virtually silent on climate change. His State Department was mired in a corrupt environmental analysis, barreling toward approval. Activists stood up in a way we hadn't seen in a generation. 1,250 people were arrested at the White House in 2011. In 2012, CREDO, Rainforest Action Network and the Other 98% launched the Pledge of Resistance, and nearly 100,000 people committed to risk arrest in massive, distributed civil-disobedience if the State Department recommended approval. Today, grassroots pressure has held-off approval. Our pressure has turned the tide. The president is talking about the urgent threat of climate change. He's taking more and more action on climate. He's made it clear he's not buying the oil industry propaganda about the project. And he set a climate test for Keystone XL – which the EPA just said it fails. Co-sign the letter calling on President Obama to formally reject Keystone XL now. But with the Republican's sweeping victory in November, they now control the Senate, and with it the tools to force President Obama to approve Keystone XL. They're already planning to, repeatedly, attach Keystone XL to must-pass spending bills. And even if we can convince President Obama to hold the line with government-shutdown at risk, Republicans only need to flip four votes in the Senate to have a veto-proof majority. So while we remain committed to doing everything in our power to keep President Obama from approving Keystone XL – including risking arrest if the State Department recommends the pipeline as being in the national interest – the president's decision doesn't end this fight. We have to be prepared to stand up to and highlight the Republican obsession against Keystone XL. And if we manage to hold the line with President Obama and Congress for two more years, oil companies will try and force the point again with the next president. The fact is, we rarely win permanent victories when it comes to climate – much of what we win is only temporary, and we have to defend what we gain or continue to block what we stop again and again and again. This tar sands pipeline will be no different. This doesn't mean President Obama rejecting Keystone XL wouldn't be a big deal. It will be huge: A massive crack in the fossil fuel industry's dominance as it pursues building out a fossil fuel infrastructure that will lock us into climate catastrophe. Pressure from activists, including the nearly 100,000 who committed to escalate action with the Pledge of Resistance, has gotten us this far. And it may be enough to stop the pipeline, forever. But we have to keep fighting. Now the president needs to show his commitment, and that he understands that he can't square approving Keystone XL with serious climate policy. Please co-sign the letter, which you can read below. Thanks for all you do. Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets
NoKXL Unity Letter: Dear Mr. President, The long and worthy fight over the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is at an end, and the time for a decision draws near. We appreciate your pending veto of the congressional bill, and we fully support an outright rejection of the permit. We have followed the question of Keystone XL's impact for many years, and those years have clarified a few key points. First, most of those who care about this project oppose it, and with an intensity matched by few issues in recent time. Beginning with Tribal Nations and with farmers and ranchers, the opposition spread over time to climate scientists, college students, moms, financial experts, many trade unionists, renewable energy proponents, nurses, artists and an ever-growing swath of the general population. A historic number of them were arrested for this cause; millions wrote public comments, or emailed their elected officials; everyone engaged in public dialogue in precisely the fashion you have asked. Everyday people have stood up to the money on the other side, and done so with civility, firmness, creativity and passion. Second, it's now clearer than ever that the tar sands pose an incredible risk to the health and safety of our families and a livable planet. As a major study in Nature last month confirmed, a serious effort to control global warming must keep the 'dirtiest oil in the world' safely underground. Keystone XL must be evaluated not just as a pipeline but as part of the tar sands industry's plans for rapid and reckless expansion. As you have stated, the climate impacts of major infrastructure projects are a matter of national -- and international -- interest. Rejecting Keystone XL is the kind of the principled choice leaders need to make. There is no way to reconcile this pipeline with a serious climate policy. Third, the arguments for this pipeline—never strong—have disappeared on closer examination. It is not a potent job-creating tool, nor a route to American energy independence; tar sands expansion is not inevitable; and the sheer number of leaks and spills means a tar sands pipeline would pose a clear danger to public health. It is, instead, a classic boondoggle, whose only beneficiaries will be a handful of rich oil companies while our families take on all the risk. Many of the choices that define a presidency come by accident or chance — some storm or crisis that demands a quick response. But this one is firmly in your control. Climate change will be a defining issue of this century. Rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline will powerfully demonstrate your commitment to stopping the rising of the oceans, set the stage for further climate action and build a legacy worth sharing. In unity, Indiana Willie Nelson, Musician; Mark Ruffalo, Actor; Neil Young, Musician; U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse; Julianne Moore, Actress; Naomi Klein, Author; Alec Baldwin, Actor; U.S. Congressman Raul Grijalva; Robert Redford, Actor; Norman and Lyn Lear, Producers; Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor; Rev. Jim Wallis, Preacher; Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network; Bill McKibben, 350.org; Jane Kleeb, Bold Nebraska; Thom Yorke, Musician; Michael Brune, Sierra Club; Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Lubicon Cree First Nation; James Hansen, Climate Scientist; Randy Thompson, Nebraska Rancher; Daryl Hannah, Actress; Jean Ross, Karen Higgins, Deborah Burger, National Nurses United; Faith Spotted Eagle, Ihanktonwan Treaty Council; Vanessa Redgrave, Actress; Larry Hanley, Amalgamated Transit Union; Michael Kieschnick, CREDO; Susan Sarandon, Actress; Lance Bass, Musician... and many others. Add your name: | 
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