Construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline may be poised to proceed following a Friday Nebraska Supreme Court ruling in favor of TC Energy, formerly known as TransCanada.
The ruling comes as a blow to Indigenous and environmental advocates who have been fighting the 1,179-mile pipeline for years.
The court upheld a November 2017 decision by the Nebraska Public Service Commission approving one of the “alternative” pipeline routes through the Cornhusker state, the last portion of the route holding up construction. Opponents had challenged the approval in court, arguing that TransCanada didn’t follow required procedures for the alternative route, and didn’t conduct proper review of cultural, environmental, or property-related impacts.
“This decision by the Nebraska Supreme Court to green light Keystone XL is outrageous,” Sara Shor, associate director of US Campaigns with climate group 350.org, said in a statement. “By ruling in favor of the Public Service Commission, the state Supreme Court has ruled against the community. The climate impacts of this route have not been thoroughly studied, nor were Tribes or landowners properly consulted. What we already know is that this pipeline will have long lasting and devastating huge impacts on the climate, water, and land, none of which have properly been assessed by a body with the capacity to understand the environmental impact.”
“The Ponca Tribe is extremely disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision,” Larry Wright, Jr., Chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, added in a statement. “Not only did the Court ignore the due process rights of landowners along the route that never got notice or an opportunity to be heard about a pipeline going through their land, but it disregarded the potential destruction of the Tribe’s cultural resources by TransCanada.”
The Keystone XL pipeline has been ensnared in a regulatory back-and-forth since it was first proposed in 2008. The pipeline would transport tar sands oil from Alberta through Montana and South Dakota en route to Nebraska. There, it would connect to the larger TC Energy infrastructure, which would move the oil on through Oklahoma and Texas to refineries and export terminals in the Gulf of Mexico. The route is estimated to transport about 800 million barrels of oil through the US every day if completed.
The project gained widespread attention in the summer of 2011 following the US State Department’s release of the final environmental assessment finding that the pipeline’s environmental impact would be minimal and a two-week-long protest against the pipeline in Washington, DC. Since then, it has been at the center of a regulatory back-and-forth including: President Obama’s 2015 veto of a Congressional bill approving the project based on the pipeline’s climate impact; President Trump’s January 2017 executive order paving the way for the pipeline to move forward; the November 2017 Nebraska Public Service Commissions vote; and Trump’s March 2019 decision to reissue the federal permit for the pipeline.
The Nebraska Supreme Court decision is seen by some as clearing one of the final hurdles for the project. But anti-pipeline advocates aren’t giving up yet.
Bold Nebraska, a network of allied groups fighting the Keystone XL pipeline, is asking Democratic presidential candidates to sign a pledge that if elected, on day one in office they will “revoke Trump’s issuance of pipeline permits-by-presidential-fiat for the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, and immediately restore a true “climate test” for further review by federal agencies.” The group also points to three ongoing federal lawsuits challenging the project. One of the suits, filed by Bold Alliance, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity and the Northern Plains Resource Council, challenges the Army Corp of Engineers approval of the pipeline without evaluating its environmental impacts as required under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act. The other two, led by Indigenous groups, challenge Trump’s unilateral permit for the project.
As Faith Spotted Eagle, member of the Yankton Sioux, chair of the Ihanktonwan Treaty Committee, and Brave Heart Society grandmother, says: “The fight is not over, the prayers are still traveling and we never will give up on protecting sacred lands and water. I am hoping that the investors will regain their humanity and realize that they are threatening the lives of our frontline communities, where they do not live and that they will move towards divestment. And we out here on the Northern Plains will fight harder as we have all of our lives.”
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