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TransCanada ends legal fight
TransCanada is changing its strategy in a bid to obtain approvals in Nebraska for its Keystone XL pipeline.
Bogged down for the past seven years in a regulatory, political and legal quagmire, TransCanada has decided to abandon its current court attempt to invoke “eminent domain” to overcome opposition from holdout landowners in Nebraska.
Describing the legal process as a “tool of last resort,” the company said it will reapply for state approval from the Nebraska Public Service Commission despite having received a go-ahead from former Republican Gov. Dave Heineman in 2013.
Claims that Heineman violated the state’s constitution by granting a route and eminent domain rights to TransCanada were scheduled face a trial on Oct. 19.
“After careful review, we believe that going through the PSC process is the clearest path to achieving route certainty” for the pipeline in Nebraska,” said TransCanada Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling.
“It ultimately saves time, reduces conflict with those who oppose the project and sets clear rules for approval of the route.”
Up to a year to complete Reviews by the PSC generally take seven months to a year to complete. Its rulings can be appealed in the state’s district court decision.
The right of way that was approved n 2013 is preferred by the majority of Nebraskans who participated in a comment period that included open house discussions and conversations with landowners along the pipeline corridor, 91 percent of whom have signed voluntary easements to allow construction of Keystone XL, TransCanada said.
The proposed US$8 billion 1,179-mile pipeline to deliver 830,000 barrels per day of crude from the Alberta oil sands and the North Dakota Bakken to Gulf Coast refineries has undergone five independent reviews of safety and potential environmental impacts, all of which concluded the project could be constructed and operated safely.
Route certainty “Our goal is to achieve route certainty in Nebraska in a timely manner,” Girling said, adding that seeking approval from the PSC is the “best opportunity to build a pipeline the majority of Americans and Nebraskans support.”
Pipeline opponents celebrated the announcement as a major victory and called on President Barack Obama to reject efforts to secure a Presidential Permit for the project.
“TransCanada is a desperate company in an ever-losing situation in Nebraska,” said Jane Kleeb, executive director of a landowner group called Bold Nebraska. “Farmers and ranchers continue to stand up to this reckless foreign corporation and we continue to win.”
Art Tanderup, a farmer and pipeline opponent whose land is on the proposed route, said he is confident the PSC will not allow the pipeline to cross the Sandhills, a sensitive region of grass-covered sand dunes, or the Ogallala Aquifer, a major groundwater supply that lies beneath Nebraska and portions of seven other states.
He said landowners have achieved a victory in their fight “to prevent a foreign corporation from taking their land for corporate greed through eminent domain.”
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a televised debate as part of the national election campaign that he will keep aggressively pushing the merits of Keystone XL after being scorned by his main opponents for previously describing approval of the project as a “no brainer” and insisting he would not “take no for an answer” from the Obama administration.
- Gary Park
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