The Blue Dog Coalition of Democrats already lost the U.S. Senate after an election cycle where they ran from their own president and party leader. Their latest attempt to appeal to Big Oil, to show what a bunch of bootlickers they are; back losing Blue Dog Senator from Louisiana Mary Landrieu to bring the Keystone XL to a vote in the senate.
This is the most backward thinking way to turn the vote out in 2016, and reveals a deep betrayal yet again by the corporate wing of the party. Our senator Jon Tester has already told the Huffington Post he will back the Landrieu sponsored bill to approve the KXL. The issue of pipeline approvals are not only political fodder in the USA but Canada as well.
The leading contender for the post as the next Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau is leading in polls while NDP Tom Mulcair is close behind nipping at his heels. Trudeau supports KXL, while Mulcair is in opposition. The aboriginal vote in Canada is much more influential than the tribal vote in the United States, comprising up to 15% of the population.
Most tribes in Montana oppose the KXL for an array of reasons. The pipelines will carry tar sands oil, already the dirtiest and inefficient method of oil extraction. The pipelines pose environmental threats to lands some of which transects tribal lands. The pipelines will remain in the ground after their useful lives; leaving billions of gallons in the pipe to pose environmental threats for generations to come.
The Senator from Montana in attempting to support Landrieu reflects a blue dog coalition shows a party off task in the six years they controlled the US Senate and instead were busy with wealthy, big oil and Wall Street interests. Senator Tester appears tone deaf to the concerns expressed by multiple tribes in the great plains region who express their disapproval of the pipeline. In the interim he has done next to nothing to address climate change and bringing clean energy to the state of Montana.
No comments:
Post a Comment