Keystone oilpipe extension OK’d
LINCOLN, Neb. — A Nebraska commission approved an alternative route for the Keystone XL oil pipeline through the state Monday, removing the last major regulatory obstacle to building the long-delayed $8 billion project.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission’s vote on the long-delayed project could still be challenged in court. Opponents also said another federal review may be needed because the approved route would run farther north than the preferred route proposed by TransCanada Corp., which wants to build a 1,179-mile pipeline from Canada across several U.S. states.
“This decision opens up a whole new bag of issues that we can raise,” said Ken Winston, an attorney representing environmental groups that have long opposed the project.
Still, the commission’s 3-2 vote likely clears theway for the company to gain access to the property of holdout landowners in Nebraska who vehemently oppose the pipeline, using the state’s eminent domain laws. More than 90 percent of Nebraska
landowners along the route have agreed to let TransCanada bury the pipeline beneath their property, but those who oppose it have managed to thwart the project for years.
The pipeline also faces intense opposition from Native American tribes, but business groups and some unions support the project as a way to create jobs and reduce the risk of shipping the oil by trains that can derail.
President Donald Trump issued a federal permit allowing for the project inMarch, reversing President Barack Obama’s rejection of it.
TransCanada had said that it would announce in lateNovember or early December whether it planned to proceed with building the pipeline, taking into account the Nebraska decision and whether it has lined up enough long-term contracts to ship oil.
Jane Kleeb, director of the pipeline opposition group the Bold Alliance, said her group believes TransCanada will have to seek another federal review of the route, a process that would add even more years to the timetable. The mainline alternative approved Monday includes 63 miles of new pipeline that hasn’t been reviewed by the federal government.
Opponents are expected to appeal the Nebraska commission’s decision in a state district court, and the case is likely to end up before theNebraskaSupreme Court. The commission was forbidden by law from considering a recent oil spill in SouthDakotaonthe existing Keystone pipeline in its decision.
The proposed Keystone XL would expand the existing Keystone pipeline, which went into service in July 2010. The current pipeline network runs south through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma andTexas and extends east into Missouri and Illinois.
The new pipelinewould carry an estimated 830,000 barrels of oil a day fromthe oil sands areas of Canada.