Excerpts from The Daily Call, by Mark Taylor

Madison Residents Take Part in

Keystone XL Protests at White House

By Pat Schneider

Capital Times (8/24/11)

Madison residents are deep in political protest again -- this time demonstrating outside the White House to stop a proposed oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast that environmentalists say threatens to end hopes of curbing global warming.

At least 10 Madisonians are joining more than 2,000 anticipated protesters from across the United States and Canada in what organizers are calling the biggest protest in the history of the climate movement. They are urging President Obama to deny a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Mining and transporting the tar sands 1,900 miles for processing poses catastrophic local and global environmental impacts, environmentalists say.

Because the pipeline permit does not require action by Congress, protesters are holding Obama personally responsible on the issue. Many of them supported Obama in his 2008 election bid, Anderson says, and now want him to deliver -- free of congressional interference -- on his campaign commitment to policies

that will counter global warming.

Peter Anderson of Madison spent two days in a Washington, D.C., jail cell after being arrested Saturday along with more than 60 other protesters, and told me from his Madison office Tuesday that being held for that long after an arrest for peaceful protest is "way out of the ordinary."

Protesters knew they risked arrest when they planned to disobey police orders to move away from the fence in front of the White House where they were rallying. They figured they'd be arrested, fined $100 and released. Instead, Anderson says, he and others arrested Saturday morning were held until Monday afternoon.

"It was really bad," Anderson, 64, a longtime environmentalist, says of his time in a jail cell. "But if it gets attention that otherwise would not have occurred, it's worth it."

Anderson is among protesters featured in videos produced by Tar Sands Action, the organization that signed up and organized volunteers online to protest in shifts for the demonstrations, which are scheduled to continue through Sept. 3…
Read the Rest: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/grassroots/article_63d353c6-ce62-11e0-996d-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1W6SKgzvF

• 10-Minute Video Report From the Picket Line - Tar Sands Action - Washington DC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u45sOa_G6GE

• 10-Minute Video – Here’s Why to Protest Tar Sands?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsErKNEUEhs&feature=related