Wednesday afternoon the Nebraska state legislature approved a bill (LB1161) that will allow Nebraska to proceed with a $2 million study to find a route for TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline through the state. Gov. Dave Heineman is expected to sign the measure into law. It's a case of Big Red going for the black by jeopardizing the green. But what does this mean?
First, it means that the global "people power" movement against the Keystone XL pipeline beat back the energy and oil industry in January when President Obama and the State Department denied TransCanada's pipeline permit. Our "united we stand" organizing strategy was effective. It forced the TransCanada to switch tactics.
Now the oil industry is pushing a "divide and conquer" tactic. The plan is to break the pipeline up into state-sized parts and negotiate on each section. But defensive wars are won more often than offensive ones. And Americans against the pipeline are fighting a defensive war to protect our land against a self-serving foreign oil company. Our forces are more agile in fighting state-based regional battles than TransCanada's blunt money-shoving weapon. While proposed route changes away from the environmentally sensitive Sandhills are very laudable and should be supported, one doesn't want to spend too much time praising the alignment of the Titanic's deck chairs when the sirens are sounding.
Second, it means that Nebraska needs cash and the proud Cornhuskers in the lege will do what's necessary to get it. Since the oil industry lobbyists have convinced the Obama administration to allow new routes to be proposed, Nebraska is leaping into the new maneuvering space -- in part to keep filling the state's depleted coffers with funds from the TransCanada cash cow. The bill approved today will re-start the pipeline "review" process on the state level. And, the bill requires TransCanada to reimburse the state for the route study. Ka-ching!
Nebraska's Gov. Dave Heineman (Republican) has been walking a fine line between the pressure for "jobs" in his depressed Midwestern state and environmental concerns about running an oil pipeline through "America's well," the Oglala Aquifer. Earlier this year Heineman was strongly against the pipeline because of the effects of an oil spill could have in the Sandhills, where water tables -- including those of the massive Ogallala Aquifer -- are high. A spill would be devastating for drinking water and for agricultural water needed to keep Nebraska steers watered for producing those fine Omaha steaks. In 2011, TransCanada had 12 oil spills in the U.S. Fears are well-founded.
Third, it means it's time for Nebraskans to turn up the heat on their governor and legislators. The re-ignited Keystone review will likely fast-track eminent domain powers by the state. Anyone along the new proposed route will be offered pretty money up front by TransCanada to sell their inheritance for pottage. If that doesn't work, then the state will start exercising its right to take land and homes and pay bottom dollar for the property.
Finally, a reminder. It's misleading for news reports to call the Keystone XL a "crude-oil pipeline." It's not -- at least not in any common understanding of the phrase. It is a "synthetic oil and bitumen" or "tar sands oil" pipeline. This is a non-standard petroleum product that cannot be transported safely through traditional pipelines. It's even more toxic than traditional crude oil.
The political shenanigans around the Keystone XL pipeline will continue through the election season. President Obama is fearful of alienating his Big Oil funders. States desperately need money and will look to private industry to get it -- even if it means cutting off your nose to spite their face.
But let's keep the big picture in mind. The Canadian tar sands are the second largest carbon reserve in the world. Mining these reserves already involves clear-cutting boreal forests, breaking indigenous treaties, irreversibly damaging water quality, and introducing toxic waste into the food chain affecting human health, especially the health of pregnant women and their developing babies.
And it takes 8,800 pounds of earth and tar sands, plus an average of 155 gallons of fresh water, to produce one barrel of tar sands oil, which will fill half a tank of a Chevy Suburban. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency points out that Canadian tar sands carbon emissions are "82 percent greater than the average crude refined in the U.S., on a well-to-tank basis."
This pipeline is a climate killer -- no matter what route it takes.
Rose Marie Berger, a Sojourners magazine associate editor, was an organizer for the Tar Sands religious witness.
Follow Rose Marie Berger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RMBerger
Correct. Put aside the tar source of fuel, look just at the pipeline. There are dozens and dozens of pipelines that go around the Sandhills region. TC wanted a cheaper, untraditional route straight through the Sandhills. Obama approved until there was an uproar about the threat to the Sandhills. So, instead of doing the usual with an alternative route (surely TC has one on tap), the plan is to wait out the election when Obama said he will decide again. Since TC is very quiet about this, they probably "know" Obama will rubberstamp the cheaper pipeline through the Sandhills after the election. Of course Obama may promise this, but go back on his word. TC would be just another bride forgotten at the altar.
Thank you very much for writing a enviromental story without mention of CO2. So rare these days!
In the future I hope people realize our political leader ship does not speaks for all Nebraskan. We don’t have big money to buy our way, or powerful lobby groups. But were are blessed with common sense, and the willingness to work towards justice and protection for Nebraskan resources far more than our representatives did when they reversed the protection we need and deserve.
Someone should tell these anti-pipeline Americans that many of us have cars and need oil. It isn't all about the provider. The provider would be gone if not for the customer.
The proposed pipeline is also intended to carry the burgeoning production of oil coming out of the Bakken Shale in the Western Dakotas/Eastern Montana regions, so it's not correct to keep representing this pipeline as one that exclusively benefits Canadian producers and exclusively carries tar sands oil.
Have the intellectual honesty to state your position openly and let the American people disagree and move on. You don't like oil. You really don't like tar sands oil development. You don't like pipelines. You don't like foreign corporations, or, in actuality, corporations of any kind.
Meanwhile, Kinder Morgan just announced their plans to expand their existing Canadian pipeline to move tar sands oil to the West Coast at Vancouver, for export. This, and Nebraska, will turn up the heat on the Obama administration to approve the pipeline and it will be built.
Second, Gov. Heineman only started speaking the Sandhills language AFTER TransCanada voluntarily (and only verbally) agreed to reroute the pipeline. Up until that point, he was opposed (and quoted in many sources as saying so) to the pipeline crossing the Ogallala aquifer.
So now that he has to distance himself from Obama to stay in lock-step with Republicans in Washington, he's wanting to fast-track the pipeline process and give it rubber-stamp approval, even though the new route (which he's apparently seen but has been hidden from Nebraskans) might not be any better than the old one, and will likely still cross some very vulnerable areas of the Ogallala aquifer.
The KXL, at least the portion from Canada to Cushing, would have been a completely new pipeline. Only the part from Cushing to the Gulf would have been able to be considered an "expansion."
Yes, the Keystone I does cross a small portion of the Ogallala Aquifer, in Eastern Nebraska, where the distance to groundwater is much greater than in the central part of the state, and where the soils are predominantly less permeable substances such as clay.
One should also not overlook the increased resistance is credited to the bad track record of the first Trans Canada tar sands pipeline (14 spills) and the fact it was built with defective steel from a manufacture in India. Or all the bad environmental effects from the mining. All along the route many are already living with a huge risk and in Nebraska our aquifer especially from the first TC pipeline. The steel pipes have been found to have anomalies which can burst when under high presser because of the defective steel used to build it. Unless they dig up the first pipeline and inspect the whole line we will never be fully safe from the defective India manufactured steel. You would be wrong to think just because our aquifer has already been puts in danger that the people of Nebraska are willing to allow another threat to be added.