Students Urge Obama to Veto Keystone XL Pipeline During Campus Visit

In a climate of increased activism on campus, Fossil Free Stanford organized a protest during President Obama’s visit to campus in February, demanding that he veto the Keystone XL pipeline proposal. More than 50 students and campus community members gathered outside Memorial Auditorium, where Obama delivered an address before attending the White House Cyber Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection. Eleven days later, President Obama vetoed legislation to authorize construction of the 1,179-mile pipeline, which would carry 800,000 barrels of petroleum from Canada to the Gulf Coast each day.

This protest was part of a series of demonstrations organized by Stanford students to bring attention to the pipeline. Fifteen Stanford students had joined hundreds of other college students in Washington, D.C., for a national demonstration in front of the White House in spring 2014.