Keystone XL Opponents Fear Approval Of Nebraska Pipeline Bill

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline proposal say a Nebraska bill on the verge of final lawmaker approval would effectively rubber-stamp the project.

Lawmakers are scheduled for a final vote Wednesday on a bill that would allow the state Department of Environmental Quality to resume its review of the proposed crude-oil pipeline. A federal permit was denied in January.

Opponents say they're concerned because the department is part of Gov. Dave Heineman's administration. Heineman supports the project.

The bill also requires an evaluation of the social, environmental and economic impact of any proposed route. But Ken Winston of the Nebraska Sierra Club says that wording lacks teeth, because the bill doesn't define any of those impacts or specify whether they should factor into the final decision.

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Comments

[dbrett480]

10:10 PM on 04/25/2012

It's relatively popular in the state, so most of the opponents must be from out-of-state trying to tell the Nebraska residents what they can and can't do.

[D W Smith]

11:24 AM on 04/19/2012

They've made enough of a change that it will go through

I'd say, "sign it" and police the hell out of it for spills
every one of these consortium members are known "spillers"

[yeti7]

11:14 AM on 04/13/2012

Big wind and their windmills (turbines) make bad neighbors.
They are killing our raptors by the hundreds and songbirds by the millions.

[EnGarde]

01:33 AM on 04/19/2012

Many emit a high pitched sound that many around my parts say has prevented a good sleep in years.

[yeti7]

09:03 AM on 04/19/2012

Big Wind and its supporters don't care about you and your health problems.

[artleads]

05:16 PM on 04/12/2012

Lots of negative comments below. KXL opposition garnered an unusual (unprecedented?) level of support. If sustained and able to stave off the project, it would be the first time in my experience that the people were able to push back against big oil. This would likely lead to increasing pressure to rethink our energy use. One way or another the party will end. How long? Not long.

[yeti7]

11:15 AM on 04/13/2012

this is about hating Canada. Some Americans just hate Canada and its' success.

[artleads]

01:06 PM on 04/13/2012

Big oil is everywhere. Why single out Canada?

[D W Smith]

11:25 AM on 04/19/2012

bullcrap

[christellar]

03:43 PM on 04/12/2012

I knew they were going to wait until the "easter break" diversion was over, then they'd shoo it through. Ba5tard5!

[George Hanshaw]

02:27 AM on 04/12/2012

The only real issue is whether Obama listens to the unions and approves this NOW, or waits to approve it until after the election to keep the environmentalist on his side through the election.

This pipeline is a done-deal.

[realityCheckInTheMail]

01:23 PM on 04/12/2012

Some portion of KXL will be approved before the election. Work will begin within the year, and either begin, or be imminent, by the election.

Obama is one smart politician. He knows the voters as a whole are "drill baby drill". The enviros are like children - placate them when they scream, wait until they are distracted by something else, and then proceed.

[christellar]

03:44 PM on 04/12/2012

"The enviros are like children - placate them when they scream, wait until they are distracted by something else, and then proceed. "
=========
while I see your point, you could only pass such judgement if you knew all of the "enviros"... which you do not. therefore, I cannot agree

[yeti7]

11:18 AM on 04/13/2012

"some" portion of the pipeline don't need obamas "permission" . The guy isn't the King as much he and some others might want him to be.
If Texas wants to let companies build a pipeline from SE Texas to Oklahoma there isn't much obama could really do about the project.

[realityCheckInTheMail]

12:33 AM on 04/12/2012

Hilarious!

You guys all went to the White House, marched around, won your "victory"....

and then, 6 months later, we're building the pipeline anyway.

The environmental movement in this country is truly impotent. They've sold their credibility down the river so many times with their "Chicken Little" rantings that no-one really takes them seriously anymore.

We've gone from almost electing Al Gore as president, to having a Democratic President bragging about how much he supports drilling and fracking.

ROFL!!

I love it!

[Linus521]

02:48 AM on 04/12/2012

I agree. Elderly, I witnessed the environmental movement march in like a lion. The bible of the movement was seeded with Aldo Leopold's, "A Sand County Almanac", the father of ecology. After 30 or so years, is when the movement slowly fell apart. Today, it's all about this energy and that, and climate change. If we review the lessons taught in the beginning or the only green that is the salvation and protection of Earth's natural and wild ecosystems, and their plant and animal biodiversity, perhaps, we could re-claim the future and save mankind from imminent extinction.

Tragically, our societal voices and policy-makers are ecologically illiterate in the science of ecology, which delineates how Earth functions and cycles to create and sustain all life, including yours and mine. Man exists and breathes, only because of natural, wild ecosystems, and ecosystems exist and give and support all life, only because of their wild, natural plant and animal biodiversity. Simple, kindergarten ecology, 101 or all the reasons mankind exists, right.

We must educate the world in the ecology of our ecosystem-dependent Earth, before it's too late as many scientists have reported, it's already too late!

[christellar]

03:45 PM on 04/12/2012

yeah... real funny. what a d1nk thing to say. a55

[realityCheckInTheMail]

04:05 PM on 04/12/2012

Sour grapes tasting bad?

[Vegasyankee]

04:15 PM on 04/11/2012

LOL!!!

As I've been saying for a long time, this was a done deal a long time ago and the public got to watch a lot of political grandstanding that amounted to nothing.

While the country focused on KXL two other pipelines were approved and a third one is going through the approval process now.

When are you people going to learn watch what Washington is doing behind the scenes when they've got everyone focused on something else?

[Walter Shockley]

08:37 PM on 04/11/2012

Please share these other pipelines you speak of with us.

[George Hanshaw]

02:31 AM on 04/12/2012

You are KIDDING, right?

We have hundreds of thousands of miles of gas and oil pipelines.

Take a look.

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_10.html

[sanforce-]

04:12 PM on 04/11/2012

Ohhhh no! Canada wants to sell large amounts of available energy to their neighbor, who also happens to be the biggest consumer in the world. What’s so wrong with that?

[grappler1987]

12:20 AM on 04/12/2012

We like Saudi oil better. Who doesn't? :)

[john649]

12:47 PM on 04/12/2012

their neighbor being everyone OUTSIDE of the US. This is a Canadian ruse to us the US as a shipping port to sell their eco-disaster to China while the US pays for it and the KOCH Brothers continue to rake the nation.

[EnGarde]

03:45 PM on 04/19/2012

There would be a lot of jobs created, and that oil would be turned around should the U.S. need it. It's no ruse. Canada sending those refining jobs to China instead would probably be about the same margin for them. Of course they would offer it to the U.S. first, along with the fact that U.S. refineries are in place and that's what they do.

[D W Smith]

06:23 PM on 04/19/2012

Canada should refine it their own country, but they don't want the refineries
AND they have trouble loading big tankers from their coast (think Alaska)

It's okay with me, if they come to the US with it, but it pisses me off to no end, that Big Oil is so willing to play us for fools