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Thu Sep 29, 2011 at 02:06 PM CDT
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Hundreds gathered at the University of Texas's LBJ Auditorium yesterday to voice their opinions for, and against, Transcanada's Keystone XL pipeline which would carry diluted bitumen, an unconventional form of oil, from the oil sands of northeastern Alberta to southeast Texas. I was there to check out the proceedings, and a few things struck me that I'd like to share.
- The Pro-Pipeline Activists Are Very Well Organized Several dozen members of the Laborers' International Union of North America were in attendance wearing matching shirts to support the pipeline they believe will give them multiple construction contracts in the coming years. They arrived first to the Austin hearing, and outnumbered pipeline opponents at other hearings in Montana and Port Arthur, TX.
- Pipeline Could Fail in Texas due to Eminent Domain Abuse Much like the Trans Texas Corridor before it, the Keystone XL pipeline would require unprecedented abuse of eminent domain laws, according to the executive director of We Texans, Debra Medina. She said that a "recent decision by the Texas Supreme Court in the Denbury Green Pipeline case, which was sent back to a lower court after the company failed to prove it was confiscating land for the public good, shows that a higher bar has been set for oil companies to cite eminent domain in condemning people's property."
- Nebraska Contains the Strongest Opposition to the Pipeline Unlike other states, Nebraska's anti-pipeline coalition includes high level figures from across the political spectrum. The state's Republican governor, Dave Heineman, and both its US senators, Ben Nelson (D) and Mike Johans (R), lined up with thousands of others recently to express their outrage at the proposed route of the pipeline across the state's sensitive Ogallala Aquifer.
- There Is Still Time To Fight This Outrageous Pipeline! The State Department is accepting public comment until October 9th, here. Let them know that this pipeline is a grave threat to Texans' land, air, and water. This pipeline might be a boon to one Canadian company, but it will be a disaster for our state and country.
Again, please contact the State Department and tell them Texans want nothing to do with the toxic tar sands pipeline. A few thousand temporary jobs are not worth the grave economic and environmental threats posed by this terrible plan. |
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