Chemist asks for injunctions on permits

Pipeline

dian oil could be there, too. However, if President Barack Obama approves the Keystone XL pipeline — an 830,000-barrel-aday pipeline that would run from Alberta, Canada, to the Texas coast — then Cushing would get a lot Canadian-diluted bitumen, the heavy black viscous oil from the bituminous sands, or tar sands, Dodson said. That bitumen is crude oil, Dodson said.

Bishop is asking a Travis County district judge to issue both a temporary injunction and a permanent injunction to revoke an existing permit for the pipeline.

Bishop was joined Thursday by a dozen protesters who are fighting the TransCanada pipeline, particularly the southern portion, sometimes referred to as the Gulf Coast Project.

TransCanada’s Key- stone XL pipeline didn’t get needed presidential approval last year, though the Obama administration is expected to revisit the issue. But the portion of the proposed pipeline that runs from the Cushing to the Texas coast doesn’t cross an international border and didn’t require presidential approval before TransCanada began construction on it.

Bishop’s filing came on the same day the 9th Court of Appeals in Beaumont rejected an appeal filed by landowners who argued that TransCanada did not have the right to condemn their lands. The landowners’ attorney, Robert Wade, said his clients plan to appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.