Photo: National Transportation Safety BoardCross-posted from Natural Resources Defense Council. Proponents of the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline are using a disingenuous argument to avoid further scrutiny of TransCanada's proposed pipeline. They argue that the concerns of landowners, farmers, and first responders regarding the safety of Keystone XL are unreasonable because TransCanada has agreed to 57 conditions suggested by pipeline safety regulators that will make it safer than other pipelines. There's a serious flaw with this argument -- most of the conditions TransCanada "voluntarily" agreed to are also the minimum standards that all pipeline operators must follow. Recently, Secretary of State …
Get Grist in Your Inbox
Anthony Swift is an attorney for the NRDC's International Program in Washington, D.C. After growing up in West Texas, he knows what people mean when they call the oil business a "sunset industry." At the NRDC, he works to ensure that we don’t invest our future in the destructive and unsafe energies of the past.
Most Viewed
Fourth-grade filmmaker sneaks a camera into the cafeteria to document his gross school lunch
Staggering time-lapse footage of the Oklahoma tornado
Antarctica’s “bleeding glacier” is kind of terrifying
This app helps you avoid supporting Monsanto and other terrible companies
Brooklyn police bust rooftop grow operation … of heirloom tomatoes

Junior yuck-raker: Fourth grader films his gross school lunch
Utilities for dummies, featuring quokkas
Staggering time-lapse footage of the Oklahoma tornado