HEARTLAND STANDS UP TO KEYSTONE
“The fight against the Keystone pipeline is focused this week on a bunch of farmers in Nebraska whose lawsuit thus far has won a round in state court, delayed a decision by President Barack Obama on allowing the line to cross the US-Canada border, and apparently has TransCanada, the company that owns the pipeline, worried.
In the past four years, landowners, indigenous people, climate-change scientists, and environmentalists from Canada to South Texas have battled the tar sands expansion. Despite those protests, the southern leg of the pipeline was completed and is now in operation.
But in Nebraska, the landowners’ suit against TransCanada’s use of eminent domain could cause a rerouting of the northern section of the line, forcing a delay and giving opponents in both Canada and this country more time to make their case that tar sands mining and transportation could spell environmental disaster with no major economic benefit.
In late February a district court in Lincoln, Neb., declared unconstitutional a 2012 state law allowing TransCanada to use eminent domain to seize private land. The company immediately appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.”
Gorman, Peter. World War 4 Report 2 May 2014.