Tell the White House: Don’t silence key advisor John Podesta on the presidential decision on Keystone XL

The petition reads: "Advisors or contractors with a financial stake in the outcome of Keystone XL – like TransCanada-linked contractor ERM – should recuse themselves from the White House decision on the tar sands pipeline. But a key advisor like John Podesta who has a fact-based track record opposing climate change and raising concerns about Keystone XL should not be silenced now that he has accepted the position of White House counselor. The White House should encourage John Podesta to provide his best counsel in deliberations on the presidential permit TransCanada requires to build Keystone XL." Automatically add your name:

Dear William, Apparently in the White House, having common sense now constitutes a conflict of interest. John Podesta is the highly respected founder of the Center for American Progress and recognized as a uniquely effective chief-of-staff to President Clinton. He announced Tuesday he'll be going to work as a top advisor to the president. That should be good news. But because he has a fact-based track record on climate change and has publicly and truthfully criticized the Canadian tar sands for being a highly inefficient and environmentally irreconcilable source of energy, the White House has already announced Podesta will recuse himself from participating in the decision on whether or not to award a foreign oil company the presidential permit necessary to build the Keystone XL pipeline across our northern border.1 It's simply shameful. Podesta has no financial interest in the Keystone XL decision. Meanwhile, key players allied to the oil industry with massive conflicts of interest are playing a major role in Keystone XL decision making. State Department contractor ERM is writing the key environmental impact statement for the State Department, an analysis on which the White House will base its decision making, despite ERM's having direct financial ties to TransCanada. Tell President Obama: If anyone should be recused from discussion of Keystone XL, it’s the ethically compromised ERM, not John Podesta. Don’t silence key White House advisors who tell the truth about tar sands and climate change. Click here to automatically sign the petition. Oil-industry contractor ERM has direct financial ties to the builder of the Keystone XL pipeline. That's as direct a conflict of interest as you can get. But instead of recusing ERM from involvement in the decision when this information came to light, the State Department literally attempted to cover it up!2 Podesta will be a valuable advisor on the Keystone XL decision precisely because he doesn’t have compromising ties to the fossil fuel industry. On the contrary, he has issued honest, straight ahead indictments of their worst products. This perspective has been marginalized at high levels of the Obama administration, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that climate change poses serious dangers to our national interest through heat-waves, fires and superstorms, not to mention escalation of overseas conflicts that are exacerbated by drought, devastating floods and the refugee crises they provoke. That's why after three years we’re still fighting a pipeline whose approval the president’s own leading climate scientist declared would help lead to "game over for the climate." This decision, which is President Obama’s alone, should have been a non-starter given President Obama's previous commitments on climate change and dirty oil. Far from a radical environmentalist, Podesta has touted a widespread embrace of natural gas - something we disagree with. Still, in a White House that has sorely lacked in prominent climate champions, his employ is a welcome addition. And the decision to silence him on what may be the single most closely watched decision of the Obama presidency is a shameful indication that the White House is not yet ready to face the challenge before us as a generation and embrace the climate leadership he promised and we so desperately need. Tell President Obama: We need climate leadership in the White House! Let John Podesta speak on the Keystone XL decision. Click the link below to automatically sign the petition: http://act.credoaction.com/go/2918?t=5&akid=9622.4923402.Vbd6qQ Thanks for taking action. Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets Automatically add your name: Learn more about this campaign 1. "John Podesta Recuses Himself From Keystone Issue, White House Aide Says," Reuters, December 11, 2013. 2. Andy Kroll, "EXCLUSIVE: State Dept. Hid Contractor's Ties to Keystone XL Pipeline Company," Mother Jones, March 21, 2013.

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Tell President Obama and Secretary Kerry: You can't ignore us. You must reject Keystone XL

President Obama and the State Department just wish you would go away.

That was the message they sent yesterday to the 36 activists who sat in and risked arrest in Boston, and the hundreds of folks who came out in support.

First, they tried to intimidate us from showing up at all, with threats of federal charges carrying sentences of up to 30 days in jail, a $5,000 fine, and likely four or five court appearances. Then, when not a single person backed down from taking action, they refused to arrest the peaceful protestors, despite their sitting in and blocking two entrances to the State Department office over the course of two hours.

But the brave stand of the 36 dignified and peaceful protestors in Boston sent the president and secretary of state a different message: You have to face us. And we aren't going anywhere until you reject the Keystone XL pipeline once and for all.1,2

You can send that message too, by joining the local Pledge of Resistance sit-in being planned near you. Click here to find yours.


If you don't have an action near you, you can still chip in to support this massive organizing effort to build a wave of resistance to Keystone XL.

Over 75,000 of us have signed the Keystone XL Pledge of Resistance. We are ready to commit mass civil disobedience if the State Department recommends the White House grant TransCanada a presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.

And to show the White House that these 75,000 pledgers mean what they say, CREDO, Rainforest Action Network and the Other 98% have organized actions in Chicago where 22 of us were arrested, in Houston where 13 were arrested at the front door of TransCanada’s corporate offices, in D.C. where dozens risked arrest at the State Department, and now in Boston to send a message directly to Secretary Kerry.

One woman traveled all the way from Florida to Boston to send the message in Secretary Kerry's hometown, that as head of the State Department, he must live up to the commitments he has made to fight climate change.

Secretary Kerry has rightly called climate change the biggest "long-term threat" to our national security.3 And the Keystone XL pipeline is one of the biggest long-term threats to our climate.

We will not be silent if Secretary Kerry and his State Department try to claim in their upcoming final evaluation of Keystone XL, as they did in their sham first draft, that its approval carries "no significant impact" -- when Secretary Kerry so clearly knows the dangers of "game over" for the climate.

Build the resistance to Keystone XL – be part of your local Pledge of Resistance sit-in.

It is a testament to our growing power that two years after everyone thought the Keystone XL pipeline would certainly be approved, it still has not been. We hope we never have to trigger the Pledge of Resistance and start a wave of civil disobedience that will sweep the country, but we must be ready to do so if we are going to stop the White House from approving this pipeline.
The time for delays has passed. The recent comprehensive (and restrained) report from more than 900 of the world's top scientists stated unequivocally that we have only a few decades to stop burning carbon.4 But those building pipelines do so to keep them in operation for far longer than that.

We cannot afford to allow a foreign corporation to transport dirty tar sands oil across our nation so it can ship it to Asia, making massive profits while our planet burns.

President Obama must reject Keystone XL. And it's up to us to keep building pressure on him until he does. That's why we're letting the president know that tens of thousands of us will be risking arrest if his administration recommends approval of Keystone XL. Will you let him know that you'll be one of them?

Sign up to be a part of your local sit-in to show President Obama he must reject Keystone XL.

Or chip in to keep this massive organizing effort building.

Thanks for fighting Keystone XL.

Elijah Zarlin
CREDO Action


1. "More photos from the sit-in in Boston
2. "Activists Stage Sit-In During Keystone XL Pipeline Protest," Boston Magazine, 9/16/13
3. "Kerry Pledges To Confront Climate Change: ‘I Will Be A Passionate Advocate’ Of Action," Think Progress 1/24/13
4. "IPCC: 30 years to climate calamity if we carry on blowing the carbon budget," Guardian, 9/2713

Photo credit: Kayana Szymczak
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