The Environmental Impact Statement released by the State Department on Friday does not take a stand on whether President Obama should approve the pipeline. That�s good and bad: on the one hand, it�s better than the previous reports, which gave much more support for the pipe — but on the other hand, it avoids the glaringly obvious fact that that a pipeline carrying 800,000 barrels per day of the world�s dirtiest oil would be a disaster for the climate, and the lives of Indigenous communities, farmers and homes along the route.
We�ve been in this place before. We may be here again. And what counts in moments like these is not the words in Washington�s reports, but rather the voices of people in the streets — that�s what changes the equation for the President.