Monday, February 10, 2014

My comment to Congress on the Keystone Pipeline. Where's yours?

Here's what I submitted. You can submit your own comment at http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=DOS-2014-0003-0001.

How many spills will it take before we realized this was a horrible idea? How many lives will have been ruined, farms swamped with tar sands that are harder to clean up than oil? Is that a worthy trade-off for the relatively few American jobs this will create? Would not that money be better spent investing  in clean, renewable technologies?

This is the kind of match that ignites a revolution. Congress's approval ratings are at an all-time low. The strong perception, shared by myself, a life-long Democrat, is that Congress only cares about its richest donors, not the rest of us. There is absolutely no good argument for authorizing this pipeline. But we all feel you will kow-tow to the very tiny percentage among us who will wildly profit from this.

Please prove us wrong. Please give us a reason to believe Congress serves ALL of us, that this is still a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Because if it has become a government of only the rich oil people, it's ripe for a fall, and one from which we may never recover. A new revolution might make things much worse, not better. Witness what happened in Egypt.

Don't underestimate the sentiment against this bill just because people are too jaded to speak up. The fires are simmering.

Don't light this match.


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Free speech. Use it or lose it. You can't complain government doesn't represent you if you don't make your voice heard.