Sen. Tim Kaine publicly opposes proposed Keystone XL pipeline in recent Washington Post editorial

Thank the stars, a Democratic senator in the U.S. Congress from Virginia gets it! That senator is, of course, Tim Kaine, who recently submitted an editorial to the Washington Post clearly stating his opposition to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Although Sen. Kaine’s argument wasn’t predicated on the most environmentally friendly basis (i.e., totally rejecting all super-dirty fossil fuel forms of energy), Virginia’s former governor spoke clearly and passionately about the need to resist the tar sands addiction.

In his own words, Kaine said the following: “I’m a pro-pipeline senator. As a former mayor of Richmond, a city with a gas utility, I think it makes no sense to be anti-pipeline. But I oppose the Keystone XL project. Although the president’s decision is technically over whether to allow a pipeline to deliver oil from Alberta to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the real issue isn’t the pipeline. It’s the wisdom of using tar sands oil.” Indeed, sir, indeed!

Given the fact of human-facilitated or induced global warming, approving the Keystone XL pipeline could quite literally be “game over” for the planet. Dr. James Hansen, former NASA head at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies believed this to be the case so unequivocally that he quit his job at NASA to become a full-time activist against the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. That’s some pretty serious business!

It’s so serious, in fact, that Senator Kaine has felt compelled to publicly urge his friend and political ally, President Obama, to dump the pipeline proposal for a different shot at the “all of the above” energy policy.

It isn’t clear, as yet, what President Obama will decide to do about the pipeline. The president has found himself in the unfortunate position of “really damned if I don’t” but “even more damned if do.” What is now clear is that with political pressure mounting from even long-time loyal supporters like Sen. Tim Kaine, the decision to fold in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline just became all that much more difficult.

A big thanks goes out to Sen. Kaine, to whom the decision to publicly oppose the pipeline could not have been the easiest in political terms. In human, moral, terms, of course, the decision to strike down the pipeline couldn’t be any easier.