Will Hillary Clinton Let the World’s Dirtiest Oil Sneak Into the U.S.?

By Josh Ran

It’s no secret that the Canadian Tar Sands are one of the dirtiest projects in human history – all you have to do is look at it from space. But if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lets Tar Sands oil sneak into the U.S. through the back door – at the same time as Congress is considering (watered-down) climate change legislation – she’d probably rather it stay a secret.

Around July 4th, the State Department will decide whether to allow the Alberta Clipper pipeline to cross into the United States. The pipeline would be capable of pumping over 800,000 barrels of Tar Sands oil each day into the U.S. – and would lock incredibly environmentally destructive Tar Sands oil into the U.S. oil supply in for decades. This is a key test of the Obama administration’s commitment to green energy.

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For the past two weeks, RAN, Sierra Club, ForestEthics, Friends of the Earth, and many other allied groups have been pushing hard to tell U.S. officials – and especially Secretary Clinton – that this Tar Sands pipeline a bad deal for the climate, for the Canadian Boreal forest, and for the Indigenous peoples of Alberta. This week, concerned supporters of the groups in this coalition sent over 10,000 letters to Ms. Clinton, asking her to reject the pipeline’s permit. (If you haven’t sent her a letter yet, please click here.) On Wednesday, ForestEthics delivered a vial of Tar Sands sludge (and a rose) to Ms. Clinton. And last Friday, a RAN activist disrupted a high-profile Canadian-American business conference in DC, and told American and Canadian government officials that we don’t want Canada’s dirty oil.

Will Hillary Clinton make the right choice? Or will she cave to Big Oil, and open America’s back door to the dirtiest oil on Earth? Stay tuned.