Final EPA Review Makes It Clear: 'Keystone a Climate Disaster'
Agency analysis is further evidence that KXL is 'absolutely not in our national interest,' environmentalist says

In a letter to the State Department released Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the Keystone XL pipeline would "significantly increase" greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands—a declaration environmentalists hope will serve as a final nail in the project's coffin.

"The EPA's assessment is spot-on," said Danielle Droitsch, Canada project director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "There should be no more doubt that President Obama must reject the proposed pipeline once and for all. If built, it would transport Canadian tar sands oil—the dirtiest fuel on the planet—through America’s heartland, only to be refined and then shipped abroad. The pipeline would threaten our waters, our lands and turbo-charge climate pollution. It’s absolutely not in our national interest."

In the letter (pdf), EPA said the recent drop in oil prices means that building Keystone XL would promote further expansion of Canadian tar sands, unleashing more greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbating climate change.

"[A]t sustained oil prices within this range, construction of the pipeline is projected to change the economics of oil sands development and result in increased oil sands production, and the accompanying greenhouse gas emissions, over what would otherwise occur," reads the letter signed by EPA official Cynthia Giles.

“The truth is unspeakable”: A real American sniper unloads on “American Sniper”
"The truth is unspeakable," says real-life American sniper who wants nothing to do with a dangerous propaganda film

Hearing Garett Reppenhagen describe how he felt the first time he shot someone is like listening to an addict talk about his first time injecting heroin. “I leveled my M-4, put him in my iron sights, and took three shots. One of them hit him center mass and he went down in the middle of the road. I had this instant sense of satisfaction, overwhelming excitement and pride. It was really kind of an ecstatic feeling that I had.”

I had just seen the film “American Sniper,” the revisionist propaganda piece of myth-making and nationalistic war porn being sold to us by Bradley Cooper, Clint Eastwood and screenwriter Jason Hall as an apolitical character study. I wanted to talk with an actual American sniper, and Garett was generous enough to pick up the phone. (He’s also written for Salon.)

Garett has a lot in common with Chris Kyle. Both entered the military at an older age; both spent endless hours on rooftops, in windows or in trash piles in Iraq, “doing their job”; both were in Iraq in 2004 hunting al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; and both spent time after active duty trying to help veterans.

The similarities end there.

I’ll admit, listening to Garett talk about his first kill, taking place when he was ambushed and life presented him a clear choice — kill or be killed — I’m a touch envious. Life rarely offers us such moments of clarity. As haunted as Garett and others who struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder are because of events like this one, he was describing a moment so simple and so heightened because of that simplicity.