Nebraska measure aids pipeline plans

The on-again, off-again Keystone XL pipeline gained new traction this week in Nebraska.

State legislators authorized the state Department of Environmental Quality to begin evaluating options for a new route outside the sensitive Nebraska Sandhills, the marshy hills and grasslands that lie atop the nation’s most important agricultural aquifer.

Critics of the pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, say the legislation amounts to a rubber stamp for Trans-Canada. The Canadian company is maneuvering to build the $7 billion pipeline.

The bill, passed on a 44-5 vote Wednesday, sidesteps an earlier law adopted in a special session of the Legislature only last fall. That measure requires most new oil pipelines to undergo a rigorous review process through the publicly elected Public Service Commission.

The new measure instead allows the Department of Environmental Quality to study the route. It also allows the governor – who has already said he wants the pipeline to go forward, as long as it avoids the Sandhills – to decide whether to approve or deny it.

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman is expected to sign the bill into law, though opponents already are considering the possibility of constitutional challenges.

“It’s crystal clear to us that the senators who voted for this wanted to rubber-stamp a route for TransCanada, and make it as quick and easy as possible for TransCanada to get their route approved, even before they have a federal permit,” said Jane Kleeb of Bold Nebraska, a citizens group fighting the pipeline.

Kleeb said the bill would allow TransCanada to acquire rights of way for the pipeline from reluctant ranchers through eminent domain once the governor approved the new route.