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Tell the Department of Transportation: No More Tar Sands Oil
  1. Signatures
    214 out of 300
    Petitioning
    1. The Governor of ID (+ 9 others)
      Petitioning
      close
      • The Governor of ID
      • IDOT Board Member (Jan Vassar)
      • IDOT Board Member (Jim Coleman)
      • IDOT Board Member (Neil Miller)
      • IDOT Board Member (Lee Gagner)
      • IDOT Board Member (Jerry Whitehead)
      • IDOT Executive Team Director (Brian Ness)
      • IDOT Executive Team Deputy Director (Scott Stokes)
      • IDOT Chairman (Darrell Manning)
      • IDOT Vice Chairman (Gary Blick)
  2. Created By
    Austin Billings
    Boise, ID
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates

Oil giants ConocoPhillips and Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil are requesting permits to turn narrow highways and curvy back roads into a new industrial corridor through the pristine National Forests of Idaho and Montana, along the route once taken by Lewis and Clark. ExxonMobil's goal? Deliver 207 loads of machinery, weighing 250,000 pounds each, to the Alberta Tar Sands for production of one of the world's dirtiest fossil fuels.

The truck loads are so big that they would move only at night, pulling over every 15 minutes to let traffic pass. But locals are up in arms, and have joined National Forest supervisors and environmental groups in opposition. Many fear that the new activity will be permanent, creating lasting environmental damage. As one resident explained: "The black ice on Highway 200 is legendary… If these things tip over and spill into the river, there’s no crane, no machinery, around here that could take it out. You’d have to go all the way to Portland or Seattle to find one. Will it dam the river? What will it do to the banks?"

Stand up for the west, and against fossil fuels. Ask the Idaho Department of Transportation to deny the permits the oil giants need to create this new, permanent industrial corridor.

Photo credit: Highway 12 through Idaho and Montana's Lolo Pass, courtesy Flickr user saborcesar.

Recent Signatures

Don't Let ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobile Harm Idaho

Greetings,

Thank you for holding hearings on the ConocoPhillips request to transport large coke drums and other equipment across the state of Idaho to their Montana refinery. As you are aware, ExxonMobile will also be watching your decision with great interest, as it will impact their even larger transportation project.

I am sure that you will give all sides of this issue the due diligence they deserve, and I hope you reach the conclusion that granting these permits would be an ill-advised move for the state of Idaho and the greater northwest. The damage these 250,000 pound loads could cause in the event of an accident - whether to the environment or the surrounding communities - would be enormous. I admit that the chances of an accident are low if this project lasts only a year, but the hundreds of permanent turnouts and utility renovations across Idaho and Montana, the comments of the South Korean executives who made the relevant machinery, and the ongoing needs of the Billings and Alberta plants in question all suggest that this project will be permanent - a cause of great concern to many local residents. Residents are also concerned that clogging the roads with slow-moving megaloads late at night would harm rapid response in the event of an emergency.

Climate change is also an important issue to be considered here. If the science of global warming is true - and NASA, the University of Idaho, and every major scientific association in the country all say it is - than we should be very wary of associating Idaho with oil from the Alberta tar sands. This fossil fuel creates three times the greenhouse gas emissions of a typical barrel of oil - we would be better off, both environmentally and economically, to create American jobs from renewable energy than Canadian jobs from antiquated fossil fuels.

Please, take the voices of citizen groups like All Against the Haul, Fighting Goliath, Advocates for the West, and the Idaho Conservation League into account. Think long-term, not short-term, and deny the requests from ConocoPhillips and Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil.

[Your name]

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