#futurepowerplan

[usclimateplan]

Pipeline or rail? Dilemma offers a false choice with two destructive paths. A third way is clear: Keep it in the ground.

We’re doing our part to build support for climate policy with the Future Power campaign. If you’re tired of opposing fossil fuel projects ad hoc—if you’re ready to envision and achieve a just, equitable 21st century energy transformation—sign up to hear more about Future Power today.

Photo credit: Energyandcapital.com

What’s Happening

American oil and gas production is booming. Extraction in some states, like North Dakota, is reaching millions of barrels a day—but they have to get that product from wells to destinations that are often hundreds of miles away at ports in the Gulf and on the East and West Coasts.

The boom has driven a frenzied effort to build more oil and gas pipelines, but production is outstripping pipeline capacity. Due to that lack of built infrastructure, producers are defaulting to their only other option for transporting fuel: by rail.

Rail is a clear second choice. It’s more expensive than a pipeline, and more dangerous: Just this year oil-by-rail accidents destroyed a building in Pennsylvania, polluted water and displacement of 2,000 residents in West Virginia, and set the James River aflame in Virginia.  

As accidents pile up, many are calling for an end to transporting oil by rail. In particular, pipeline advocates point to rail as needlessly unsafe. However, the reality is that the mode of transit isn’t the problem—it’s the cargo that’s dangerous. The only way to avoid tragedy is to quit fossil fuels altogether.

Oil-by-rail is bad news

With 40 times more oil being hauled on U.S. railways in 2015 than in 2005, devastating accidents are destined to occur. Larry Mann, author of the “Federal Railroad Safety Act of 1970” warned 25 years ago, “One day a community is going to get wiped out by a freight train. Well, in 2013 that happened and unless something changes it’s going to happen again.”

The federal government has predicted an average of 10 oil train derailments a year in the next two decades. New train routes are going directly through population centers, and it is only a matter of chance that a tragedy hasn’t occurred, as it did in Quebec in 2013. A derailment near a population center, Department of Transportation researchers warn, could result in up to 200 deaths and $4.5 billion in damages.

But oil is bad news, period

So what’s the solution to oil transport by rail? Well, many think that being anti-oil trains means being pro-pipelines. This is simply not the case. Instead of choosing the lesser of two evils, we must see the bigger picture: Pipelines aren’t safe, either. They leak, burst, and explode, malicing public health, water supplies, and wildlife, and the regulatory regime is just as weak for pipelines as it is for oil-by-rail.

However you transport oil and gas, it is still dangerous to mine and even more dangerous to burn. Just this week, in a headline reminiscent of the Shell disaster in 2010, four workers were killed in a fire on a Gulf oil platform. Spills, leakages, fires, and other accidents put laborers squarely in harm’s way.

We haven’t even gotten to the biggest point of all: America should be scaling its oil and gas production down, not up. An immediate transition to renewable energy (which you can read more about here) is the only thing standing between our society and a climate crisis—and if you thought an oil spill was bad, ask yourself if you’d like to roll the dice on planetary collapse.

The lesser of two evils is still an evil; saying pipelines are safer than rail is like saying it’s safer to have a rifle to your head than a shotgun. Oil isn’t safe in a pipeline, and it’s not safe in a railcar: It’s safe in the ground.

The answer to pipeline-or-rail is, in fact, none of the above. The only answer is an end to President Obama’s “all-of-the-above” energy policy, one that involves an immediate transition away from fossil fuels and towards investment in clean energy.

It may seem like we’re on our way. While it’s certainly good news that the massive Energy East pipeline will be delayed for at least two years, it’s clear that we can no longer hope to dismantle the fossil fuel industry piece by piece—with time running out, it is more important than ever that American leadership steers the world toward tackling the climate crisis with decisive, comprehensive domestic energy policy.

[usclimateplan]

Our biggest campaign yet.

One week ago, Congress sent a bill to build the dirty, climate polluting Keystone XL pipeline to the President’s desk. Next week the President will veto that bill, and because of the efforts of thousands of people like us, it seems like he’s poised to reject the project outright once and for all.

When TransCanada first applied for a permit to build this pipeline to bring Canadian oil through the U.S. to the Gulf of Mexico to export, the State Department and Obama administration seemed all but certain to rubber-stamp the project. Six years later, the climate movement has grown strong enough to stop it in its tracks.

But with the future of our planet at stake, stopping a single pipeline isn’t enough. More fossil fuel infrastructure projects are being proposed every day, and though renewable energy is on the rise, we are not transitioning our energy system fast enough to match the scale of the challenge we face.

That’s why U.S. Climate Plan is launching its biggest campaign yet. We’re calling it the Future Power Plan, and it’s a plan to build the power needed to win ambitious national climate policy and a clean energy future. 

You can join our first training call on March 2nd at 7pm to learn more about our vision, grand strategy, and how you can start building power in your community.

The good news it that the public is on our side. A recent poll showed that 78% of Americans (including 60% of Republicans) support government action on climate change. The bad news is that folks tend to rank this low on their list of their priorities.

Right now, we have a unique chance to shift the public narrative around the necessity for bold climate action. The EPA is putting forth a rule called the “Clean Power Plan” to put the first ever limits on power sector emissions in each state. The rule doesn’t go nearly far enough, but what it does do is create an opportunity where every state in the country is now having a conversation about climate policy.

Nothing short of a livable future is acceptable, so we’ve created the Future Power Plan to take advantage of this opportunity. Working with students and others, we’ll put forth visions for policy solutions that are just, inspirational, and actually transition our economies to provide clean and safe energy for all. We’ll train and empower organizers to develop strategies specific to their communities for how to shift the debate. And we’ll escalate our tactics until we’ve built a strong enough movement to win.

This campaign is about generating a new kind of power. Not just renewable energy to power our future, but also people power to create truly transformative change. Even if we don’t win these state-level fights, we’ll be shifting the public narrative in key states necessary to win climate legislation nationally.

This Future Power Plan is only possible with you. If you’re in, sign up for our first on-boarding call on March 2nd at 7PM ET to learn more about the campaign and how you can get involved. 

The technologies and policies to create the conditions that can drive us towards a safe, just, and equitable future already exist. What we lack is political will.

Together, we can change that, and we hope you’ll join us. 

P.S. We'll be posting more about the campaign soon, (including a re-cap of the first workshop we did with students last weekend in Virginia) but we wanted to give you all taste of what we're up to. Also, if you can help us out by donating to the campaign!