pipelines and built new pipelines to connect the oil fields to Winni- peg, some 700 miles to the east, before The Promising heading due south to a pipeline junction in Predicament of the Steele City, . Phases Two and Three Keystone XL Pipeline installed a new 36-inch diameter steel pipe- line that linked the refineries of , , to the Steele City junction. The con- David Bond troversial Keystone XL seeks to extend this new pipeline from Steele City directly to oil terminals in Alberta, forming a sort of hypot- Politics makes visible that which had no reason to be seen. enuse on the existing Keystone pipeline sys- —Jacques Rancière tem. As designed, the Keystone XL is really just a shortcut. Whether ultimately approved or not, the It is worth noting that the Keystone XL is Keystone XL Pipeline offers a telling win- far from the first or even the only conduit dow into the contemporary politics of fossil bringing tar sands oil into the . fuels in North America. Although oil pipe- Trains carrying crude from the tar sands have lines have been around for a century, they become commonplace in many parts of the have long been neglected in scholarship country, and a handful of major pipelines and public debate. Today, that is beginning now carry bitumen diluted with chemical to change. Whether as a strategic vehicle for solvents, or “,” from Alberta to US re- or as an urgent front- fineries. In many cases, pipeline companies line in the fight against , oil retrofitted or simply reversed the flow of ex- pipelines are increasingly understood not as isting pipelines to avoid the public scrutiny inert things but as consequential projects in of a new project. The Keystone XL is unique our troubled present. During the Fall 2014 in that, as a new border-crossing pipeline, it semester I taught a seminar at Bennington requires the State Department to review its College that used the promises and protests impact and attest to the project being in the surrounding the Keystone XL as a prompt to national interest. reflect more broadly on questions of vital in- The thousand-mile route of the Keystone frastructure and social change today. XL cuts across the northern Great Plains, In preparation for the seminar, I rented a from windswept cattle ranches in car this past summer and drove the presumed to the lush farms of Nebraska. After crossing path of the Keystone XL through Nebraska, the Canadian border, the Keystone XL heads South Dakota and Montana. Owned by the down to Baker, Montana, where its Cana- TransCanada Corporation, the Keystone dian cargo will be joined by the current glut Pipeline System consists of four phases, the of domestic crude coming out of the Bakken first three of which are already built and in Formation in and Montana. operation. Phase One repurposed existing Mindful of potential points of resistance, the

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AN7-1_text.indd 20 2/18/15 4:26 PM towns. In contrast to what is so often reported from afar, in towns includ- ing McCool Junction, Nebraska (pop. 413), Midland, South Dakota (pop. 127), and Circle, Montana (pop. 617), I met folks who are neither adamantly for or against the pipeline. Beyond the green-clad pipelines being stockpiled in an empty field just outside Buffalo, South Dakota (pop. 380), the Key- stone XL had little visible presence in these towns. There were no yard signs expressing an opinion. There were no rosy company billboards, either, and the products of the sizable social in- vestments TransCanada is making lo- cally, such as digital scoreboards for high schools and upgrades for fire departments (now equipped to fight chemical fires), did not exactly ad- vertise their funding source. Trans- Map of Keystone Pipeline System (TransCanada) ’s television advertisements for the Keystone (entitled “Straight Talk”), pipeline then squiggles its way eastwards however, draped the company in the folksy through Montana and South Dakota in studi- authenticity of these small towns. When I ous avoidance of Native American reserva- asked directly, many residents around the tions. In Nebraska, the first draft of the Key- oil fields of Montana voiced their support stone XL drew a rather brash line across the for the project, while many residents in the Sand Hills and . This route Sand Hills of Nebraska voiced discontent. elicited such indignation from local farmers But overall, most people I talked with along that TransCanada quickly adjusted it, now the route were ambivalent about Keystone swinging the pipeline out along the edge XL, keen to have some decent local jobs but of the aquifer. These changes to the route wary of the gloss of big corporations, espe- were mired in the Nebraska courts for sev- cially foreign ones. eral years, as the law is unclear on who ac- Walking down neighborhood streets tually has authority to change the plan. The strewn with rusty equipment and empty lots, recently approved it was not hard to imagine where this hesita- the adjusted route on January 9, 2015. tion might originate. So many of these towns Although Keystone XL steers clear of ma- originally sprung up alongside the move- jor cities, it does pass by about 15 small ments of people and goods, trying to capi-

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AN7-1_text.indd 21 2/18/15 4:26 PM Stockpile of Keystone XL pipes near Buffalo, South Dakota

talize on whatever happened to be passing to being very much in the way—as they are by. They have stitched their history together ever more meticulously passed by. with the debris of military pacification cam- If the Keystone XL is approved, a near as- paigns, immigrant settler trails, transconti- tronomic amount of wealth will soon flow nental railways and most recently, the in- by these towns. And yet to an almost unri- terstate highway system. They are frontier valled degree, the wealth pouring through towns, with all the colonial overtones and the 36-inch diameter steel pipe will accrue social histories of catch as catch can such in concentration elsewhere (the risks, of description implies. They have seen boom course, will be widely distributed). The na- and bust before, both in the feverish future tion’s vital economic networks don’t seem such adjacent traffic promises and in the ru- to “leak” nearly as much as they used to, at ins so often left behind. Today, huge granaries least not of the stuff that might enable pe- fall into disuse along railways now crowded ripheral communities to prosper. with coal trains that don’t make any local Most of the local relations of obligation stops. What commerce remains has drifted engendered by this pipeline will be resolved from boarded-up main streets to single gas in a single transaction. About 2,000 property stations on outskirts nearer the highway. In owners will receive checks as compensation these ways and others, the towns along the for granting the Keystone XL a permanent Keystone XL route already bear the imprint easement. Most will do so under the express of shifting material histories of transporta- threat of a state authorized and Supreme tion. They are not so much out-of-the-way— Court-sanctioned form of “eminent domain” indeed, what success they have had is owed that holds up corporate interest as a legiti-

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AN7-1_text.indd 22 2/18/15 4:26 PM Former granary near Keystone XL route in Western, Nebraska

mate measure of the public good.1 Munici- 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day. And of palities might see an uptick in tax revenues that most lucrative flow, local communities to fund long-needed school improvements will see very little if anything at all. and perhaps less needed property tax breaks for residents. At least that’s what communi- *** ties have been promised, except those in . There a legislative arms race to see The Keystone XL is an apt example of what who could appear more pro-pipeline—a political theorist Timothy Mitchell calls “Car- one-upmanship that appears to have taken bon Democracy.”2 According to Mitchell, even TransCanada by surprise—exempted fossil fuels have played crucial if overlooked all new oil pipelines from paying taxes at roles in shaping the practice of democracy about the same time the state’s budget was today, in both its social aspirations and its slipping into serious financial turmoil. While technical limits. At the dawn of the 20th local communities might see a flurry of century, coal was at once essential to indus- workers who need housing, food and ame- try and quite labor-intensive in its extraction nities during the construction boom, once and distribution. The dawning awareness of built, the pipeline will be operated out of an this reality joined disparate workers and em- office in . Keystone will require, at powered them to seize control of key energy most, a handful of permanent workers in the chokepoints in order to make broad social United States. It is not until after the pipe- demands, an insurgence that compelled line is buried and out of sight that the real companies and governments to expand their wealth will start to flow, to the tune of about civic responsibilities. The extraction and

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AN7-1_text.indd 23 2/18/15 4:26 PM Oil storage tanks in Cushing, Oklahoma

distribution of crude oil in the post–World Keystone XL message proclaimed in post- War II period moved in a decidedly different ers and rallying calls, but other pipelines direction. Through imperial interventions, including the Alberta Clipper in Wisconsin, unmanned infrastructure and oceanic ship- the Exxon Pegasus in Arkansas and even the ping, the networks of crude oil worked to proposed Cove Point liquid natural gas ter- override earlier points of labored friction. minal in Maryland were the focus of notable In their design and operation, petro-systems scorn. One group of marchers wore baseball have become quite adept at dodging and jerseys identifying themselves as “Pipeline disabling robust forms of public account- Fighters.” Another group, in a lively per- ability. For Mitchell, oil pipelines are the formance, dressed as a black hydrocarbon premier example of this ongoing occlusion octopus whose sprawling tentacles became of workers and citizens. Driving through the pipelines that chased wildlife down Sixth small towns along the route of the Keystone Avenue. While the People’s Climate March XL this past summer, I could not help but re- lined up all variety of suspects for cathartic flect on how unremarkable this foreclosure castigation, I was still taken aback by how of political possibility has become. ubiquitous pipelines have become in cli- Two months later, I attended the Peo- mate activism. A decade ago, I don’t think ple’s Climate March in New York City. On any environmental activists in the United the streets of that spirited and truly im- States could have predicted that pipelines mense gathering, the Keystone XL had not would become such a rallying point. foreclosed political possibilities but caused I wondered if climate activism could be them to proliferate. Not only was an anti- cultivating a new kind of social change,

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AN7-1_text.indd 24 2/18/15 4:26 PM and if the growing presence of pipelines those distinctly American lifestyles built on might have something to do with this shift. the presumption of hydrocarbon abundance, By and large, the environmental movement infrastructure nonetheless offered a practical in the United States has been proscriptive, place to begin. In 2011, the pent-up frustra- not preventative. Environmentalism gained tion of those incensed by the lack of action moral and regulatory force in the outraged on climate change rather potently aligned response to specific industrial disasters. with the Keystone XL permitting process. It Whether it was the suffocating smog of was NASA Scientist who first Donora, the flammable Cuyahoga River in pointed out this convergence. In “Silence is Cleveland, the declaration that Lake Erie Deadly,” an open letter posted online, Han- was dead, the smothered California coast sen noted that the window for public com- during the Santa Barbara oil spill or the ment on the Keystone XL was about to close. domestic discovery of toxic waste in Love He encouraged all concerned citizens to Canal, again and again it was spectacular spread the word and log their discontent. “If events that catalyzed nascent environmental this project gains approval, it will become concerns and instigated change in policy to exceedingly difficult to control the tar sands prevent their reoccurrence. In contrast, cli- monster,” he wrote. Extracting and burning mate change demands public action not in all the hydrocarbons in the tar sands, Han- reaction to an acute disaster but in anticipa- sen argued, would push global warming tion of the diffuse disaster to come: a slow well past the point of no return. If the Key- unraveling of the planet’s climate. Although stone XL were built, Hansen concluded, “it residents of the Maldives, Philippines and is essentially game over.”4 coastal New Jersey might disagree, for many Bill McKibben, among many others, took people climate change does not yet have the note of Hansen’s letter and got to work. density of a deeply felt event. As the novelist McKibben and the organization he helped Zadie Smith points out in her essay, “Elegy found, 350.org, have labored tirelessly to for a Country’s Seasons,” climate change publicize the otherwise mundane process is a disaster for which there is a “scientific of permitting a new border-crossing pipeline and ideological language” but “hardly any in the United States. When that regulatory intimate words.”3 It is hard to imagine how process didn’t seem particularly newswor- one would mobilize around the turgid prose thy the organization found creative ways of of, say, the Fifth Assessment Report of the making it so, whether by writing vehement UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate op-eds, overwhelming the public input pro- Change? How do you protest the predicted cess or getting arrested at the event? Where do you even begin? on prime-time television. Other national A few years ago, a starting point in the environmental organizations have followed fight against climate change suddenly suit, and today the Keystone XL is regularly emerged: the material infrastructure of fossil described as the “lynchpin” to the tar sands fuels. Although neatly sidestepping the more or even as the “fuse” that will ignite climate consequential question of what to do with change.

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AN7-1_text.indd 25 2/18/15 4:26 PM In Nebraska, a parallel resistance to the article entitled “Protests slow pipeline proj- Keystone XL has taken shape, albeit one less ects across U.S, Canada.” Pushed onto the concerned with how fossil fuels contribute national stage, pipelines are a common fix- to climate change than with how the Key- ture in the unfolding present. stone XL might undermine regional agricul- While popular accounts of this sudden ture. The organization Bold Nebraska has interest in energy infrastructure often hang become particularly skilled at reframing the story on the Keystone XL, there might the Keystone XL as an intrusion on property actually be a much bigger change going on rights and thus a litmus test for state politi- here. Over the past decade and in ways often cians by posing the question: Do you support unnoticed in the United States, oil pipelines the pipeline or local farmers? Another orga- around the world have become unexpected nization, the Cowboy and Indian Alliance, battlegrounds in wider environmental dis- has capitalized on the iconic convergence putes. The OCP pipeline in Ecuador has of interests that opposition to the Keystone been a major flashpoint for campaigns to brought about. As Tony Horowitz reports in save the rainforest and protect the indige- his book Boom, at one Cowboy and Indian nous peoples living there. The BTC pipeline Alliance meeting a rancher lashed out at linking the crude reserves of the Caspian TransCanada’s strategy of eminent domain, Sea to Europe in a way that bypasses Rus- “They’re taking our land!” Realizing the dis- sia became a rallying point for local envi- quieted history of his statement, the rancher ronmental groups such as Green Alternative added, “I guess that’s what happened to you. in Georgia and international groups includ- Now it’s happening to us.”5 ing Platform UK in London, whose members Alongside this renewed activism, many published an incisive travelogue of the pipe- online news platforms including ProPublica line in 2012.6 Although its history is linked and Inside Climate News have directed to the Keystone XL, the proposed Northern their talented investigative reporting teams Gateway pipeline in has towards the Keystone XL. National news helped to reactivate distinct genealogies of outlets often followed their lead. This burst indigenous discontent in Canada, working of attention has revealed many embarrass- to catalyze the movement. ing lapses in planning and regulatory docu- Perhaps the controversy over the Keystone ments that never anticipated such scrutiny. XL is merely the US version of this wider re- In an era of shrinking journalistic resources, alization of petro-networks. this in-depth coverage of proposed oil pipe- Marching down Sixth Avenue during the lines is quite remarkable. My local NPR sta- People’s Climate March, it was striking how tion now regularly covers the Addison Natu- prominent oil pipelines have become, al- ral Gas Project in Vermont, whose proposed though in particular ways. In so much of the pipeline has inspired a new kind of civil spirited antipathy directed at the Keystone disobedience: the knit-in. On December 9, XL on that September day, the physical pipe- 2015, published an line and the communities it touches seemed

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AN7-1_text.indd 26 2/18/15 4:26 PM Tar sands monster at People’s Climate March in NYC

to matter less than the planetary crisis the People’s Climate March, protesters creatively Keystone XL has been asked to represent. entangled oil pipelines in narrow conduits While Nebraska offers an interesting excep- of profit, broad patterns of destruction and tion, global warming trumps local context in the looming possibility of a foreclosed fu- orienting outrage around the Keystone XL. ture. The emerging mantra might be: Don’t For many activists I spoke with at the protest, seize control, seize the implications. In all of the Keystone XL was not so much a 1,179- this, oil pipelines are being confronted more mile shortcut on an existing pipeline system as ecologies of harm than as buried metal as it was the frontline in the urgent battle tubes. While the relations of consequence against climate change. Several I spoke with being pinned on petro-infrastructure seem could not even identify the states through to exceed the communities immediately which the pipeline would pass. adjacent to them—as evidenced in both the It is notable that the express goal in this ambivalence of many towns along the Key- rising climate activism around pipelines is stone route and the absence of those com- not to hijack the physical infrastructure in munities in climate activism—such relations order to make outsized social demands, like have nonetheless given these material net- the coal strikers of old. The aim is not to oc- works a new scale of transparency. Oil pipe- cupy key energy chokepoints but to trip up lines have become, well, visible. And in that the tidy image of fossil fuel infrastructure as rising visibility, petro-networks are being “safe, silent, and unseen,” to borrow a popu- opened up to new forms of accountability lar industry description of pipelines. In the and refusal.

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AN7-1_text.indd 27 2/18/15 4:26 PM Notes 3. Zadie Smith, “Elegy for a Country’s Sea- sons,” New York Review of Books, April 3, 2014, Photos by David Bond p. 1. 4. James Hansen, “Silence Is Deadly” June 3, An earlier, abridged version of this paper ap- 2011 (accessed January 15, 2015) [http://www. peared in Bennington Magazine, a publication of columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110603_ Bennington College. SilenceIsDeadly.pdf] 5. Tony Horowitz, Boom: Oil, Money, Cow- 1. In one way or another, the state govern- boys, Strippers, and the Energy Rush that Could ments along the route all authorized TransCanada Change America Forever (Amazon Kindle Single, to use eminent domain to seize private property 2014), Kindle Location 1558-9. for the pipelines construction. Kelo vs. New Lon- 6. James Marriott and Mika Minio-Paluello, don (2005), the controversial Supreme Court case The Oil Road: Journeys from the Caspian Sea to that backs such seizure, ruled local governments the City of London (London: Verso, 2012). could confiscate homes and small businesses to make room for corporate investments. One inter- esting addendum to this case: five years after its David Bond teaches anthropology at Bennington Supreme Court victory, the corporation (Pfizer) College. From the BP Oil Spill to the tar sands of who promised to develop New London closed Alberta, his research describes how the afterlives down its office complex and moved the heralded of fossil fuels are opening up new political fields 1,400 jobs elsewhere. for rule and resistance around the conditions of 2. Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy: Po- life. litical Power in the Age of Oil (London: Verso, 2011).

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