WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – A Nebraska court yesterday voided the governor’s decision to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to pass through the Midwestern state, creating another snag for the controversial project to link Canada’s oil sands with refineries in Texas.
Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman last year supported legislation that cleared the way for TransCanada Corp’s $5.4 billion pipeline to cross parts of his state.
But some landowners objected to the legislation, saying it disregarded their property rights.
Yesterday, the District Court of Lancaster County sided with landowners, a move that makes inevitable additional months of delay to the project, already more than five years in the planning.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission, or PSC, is the proper state agency to decide pipeline matters, Judge Stephanie Stacy wrote in a lengthy ruling, declaring the governor’s decision “unconstitutional and void.”
State officials and a lawyer for landowners agreed a new permit application for the pipeline could require at least six months of work – and probably much longer.
Heineman filed a notice later yesterday appealing the decision to a state appeals court. An appeal could also take months.
“The legislature will either have to fix (the law) or the attorney general will have to decide to take his chances in the state Supreme Court, one of the two, or both,” said David Domina, who represented several landowners in the case.
Supporters say Keystone XL would create thousands of jobs and cut U.S. fuel costs by reducing the nation’s reliance on oil imports from countries less friendly than Canada. They also cite U.S. government reports about the dangers of moving crude oil by rail as an alternative to the pipeline.
Critics say it would harm the environment and hasten climate change by promoting oil-extraction methods in Alberta that produce high levels of carbon dioxide emissions.
