The Martin Luther King Jr. memorial dedication was canceled last August 22 because of Hurricane Irene, a storm that grazed D.C. on its way to causing devastation in parts of northern New England. While the dedication events down by the Lincoln Memorial were put on hold, another sort of celebration of Dr. King's legacy was taking place at the other end of the mall. That Monday morning, over 100 people walked across Pennsylvania Avenue and started the second week of sit-ins at the White House to push President Obama to deny the permit for Keystone XL, a 1,700 mile pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. By the end of August, exactly 1,253 people would be arrested during the protest.

At the time, Keystone XL was just gaining prominence as a national issue. Now, five months later, the pipeline has become the highest profile energy and environmental fight in the nation. Big Oil front groups like the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are spending millions of dollars on TV ads promoting the project. Republicans in Congress are using legislative tricks to pressure President Obama on the issue. And the mainstream[...]

[Published in GreenNews - Read the original article]