State Department Hearing on Keystone XL Pipeline

On September 28, the US State Department held a public hearing in Austin about the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline that would run through East Texas. For a background on the Keystone XL Pipeline, click here. Over 400 people showed up to the hearing, and over 200 people signed up to testify about the pipeline. Before the hearing, Texas Interfaith Power and Light held an interfaith service of public prayer and purpose to create a space for people to consider the issue in light of our faith teachings.

Amanda Yaira Robinson, Coordinator of Texas Interfaith Power and Light and a Texas Impact staff member, spoke at the hearing and prayer vigil along with other faith leaders. Amanda said that “Texas faith leaders of different religious traditions stand united in opposition to the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, on moral grounds. This pipeline would commit us—and the rest of the world—to a much warmer climate and a planet that is far less hospitable to human and all other life. Rather than continue our destructive dependence on oil, let us find a way forward that protects the health of all people and the planet that we share. The Keystone XL is not the way.”

Texas faith leaders testified at the hearing in opposition to the proposed pipeline. Sister Elizabeth Riebschlaeger, of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, called attention to the risk the pipeline presents to water resources in her testimony. “The path of this pipeline would cut through the Carrizo Aquifer in east Texas. A spill there would be devastating for the communities who depend on its water.”

Rev. Chuck Freeman, co-minister of Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church and a Texas Impact Board Member, called for new, innovative ideas for energy consumption in Texas. “The record-breaking heat wave and wildfires we have suffered here in Texas are not random anomalies. This is our future if we continue 20th-century solutions.”

Mary Ann Kaiser, third year Master of Divinity student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, said, “It is easy to look at the profits that will be made by investing in the Keystone pipeline, but the good that can come of it pales in comparison to the harm it will cause the earth, people, and many creatures.”

Judith Infante, a Texas Impact and Texas Interfaith Power and Light member, asked hearing attendees and US State Department representatives “Is it not a responsibility to have a thought-out position on a deal that could irrevocable change our country?” She ended with, “People, we can, we must be better than this!”

Members of the public have until October 9th to submit comments to the State Department concerning the Keystone XL pipeline. If you would like to submit your comments to the State Department, please click here.