"Few landscapes anywhere evoke the majesty of our country and the can-do spirit of our people like the sweeping great plains that form the nation's broad girth.

Watered by some of our most storied rivers - the Missouri, Yellowstone, Arkansas and the Platte - millions of acres of rich black soils yield a bounty of wheat, corn and soy that has made this great region the breadbasket of America and granary to the world.

And yet today, these lands and all they support are threatened by Big Oil and its plan to run a pipeline straight through the vast plains of the American heartland.

The Keystone XL pipeline would transport the dirtiest oil on the planet from the Canadian province of Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries, wedding our nation's energy future to the destructive ways of the past.

It would promote one of the most damaging industrial practices ever deployed, the strip mining and drilling of Canada's boreal forest, to coax low-grade crude oil from tar sands."

Get the Story:
Robert Redford: Let's say no to the pipeline that threatens U.S. heartland (The Houston Chronicle 9/12)

Related Stories:
Native Sun News: Tribal rights at issue in Keystone XL pipeline (9/1)