For Nebraska Landowners, the Fight Against Keystone XL Hasn’t Come Cheap
Willie Nelson (seated left) and Neil Young honored by the Rosebud, Oglala, Ponca, and Omaha Nations for their dedication to family farmers, ranchers, and native families, on Sept. 27, 2014.
Photographer: Michael Friberg/Bold NebraskaNovember is the end of harvesting season in northeast Nebraska, so on the morning of Nov. 6, 2015, Art Tanderup was out combining. Early that day, President Barack Obama rejected TransCanada Corp.’s application to build the Keystone XL pipeline, an extension of the existing Keystone system that carries heavy crude from the Alberta tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Tanderup is one of about 90 landowners in Nebraska who’ve refused to sign easements allowing the pipeline to be built on their property. The announcement hadn’t even made it to the radio before he got a call from a New York media outlet. “I shut that combine off so fast,” he says. “I don’t know whether I let out any expletives or not, but it was a good day. At that time, I really felt, this should be the end of this.”
It wasn’t. In March, President Donald Trump’s State Department reversed its predecessor’s decision and approved Keystone XL, which left only one regulatory hurdle: approval by the State of Nebraska Public Service Commission (PSC). On Nov. 20, the five-member panel declined to approve TransCanada’s preferred route for the XL line, instead giving the company a go-ahead to build along an alternative route, a mixed decision that may set up more years of legal and regulatory challenges.