Nebraska regulators approved an in-state route for TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline on Nov. 20, revoking the last major regulatory barrier for the controversial project.
In a 3-2 vote, the Nebraska Public Service Commission approved the 1,179-mile pipeline that would transport 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada’s oil sands to Nebraska.
The Commission was tasked with determining whether the project is in the state's interest, but was prohibited from evaluating environmental issues because the pipeline already has an environmental permit.
Though the Obama administration rejected the project in 2015 on environmental grounds, President Trump reversed the decision in March 2017, saying the construction of the pipeline would produce increased jobs and decreased fuel prices. The reversal of the decision has been met with staunch opposition by those fighting for environmenal justice and indigenous rights.
Environmentalists, including the almost 90 landowners whose farms lie along the proposed route, argue that spills could endanger local water supplies, and that tax revenue and jobs would be only short-term and temporary.
Indigenous groups have argued against the pipeline, saying it would cut across their sovereign land, and have denounced the severe lack of consulation and inclusion of the groups who would be directly affected by the proposed pipeline.
In reponse to the route approval, many indigenous leaders have spoken up, voicing their unwavering opposition against the pipeline. Chief Stanley C. Grier, the Chief of the Piikani Nation of the Blackfoot Confederacy, said:
The Tar Sands is just above the northern boundary of traditional Blackfoot Confederacy territory. I have seen it with my own eyes. It can only be described as an environmental holocaust. I remember thinking as I flew over it: ‘At what price a job? At what price corporate profits?’ We know that price now. Increased incidences of cancer among neighboring First Nations communities. Further cultural and social anguish from ‘man camps.’ For 35 permanent jobs in the US, Keystone-XL is not only the fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the planet, but also a devastating attack on our traditional cultural values that we continue to fight to retain.
Chief Grier is one of the signers of the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, which is backed by more than 150 first nations and tribes. Chairman Brandon Sazue, the Chairman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe of the Great Sioux Nation and co-signer of the treaty stated:
This isn’t a Native or non-Native issue. It isn’t a left or right issue. It’s potentially a life or death issue, not only for those in the path of Keystone XL, but the masses who rely upon America’s ‘breadbasket.’ 20% of the irrigated farmland in the US is sustained by the Ogallala Aquifer, and the populations of 8 states rely upon that aquifer for their water. It’s not just Tribal people that warn of the irreparable devastation that would be caused by a Keystone XL spill over the Ogallala Aquifer — that’s the conclusion of foremost scientists.
The decision comes in the wake of the Keystone Pipeline leaking about 5,000 barrels — 210,000 gallons — of oil in South Dakota just several days prior, which opponents of the pipeline said illustrated the environmental dangers of the XL expansion.
Reuters reporting contrinuted to this story.
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