TransCanada, the company that wants to build a pipeline through the Great Plains to deliver tar sands crude to refineries in Texas, has asked for a delay in a U.S. government decision on the route.
All the reporting — and all the critics of the environmentally disastrous idea — say the company is just buying time against expected Obama administration rejection of the route. They hope a Republican president will be more receptive.
But two things:
* Nebraska land owners really are fighting this dangerous line hard. They fear damage to their land and period to a vast aquifer on which the region depends.
* Does anybody see the slightest bit of hypocrisy in the incessant push for this pipe line through Nebraska over the objections of land owners by Republican politicians in Arkansas, some of them who oppose utility condemnation of land in Arkansas for a high-voltage power line to carry wind-generated (clean) energy across the state?
From a roundup of opponents’ statements on the development:
Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, said, “Clearly TransCanada has lost and they recognize that. It’s one of the great victories for this movement in decades. In defeat, TransCanada is asking for extra time from the referees, and clearly hoping they’ll get a new head official after the election. It’s time for the current umpire, President Obama, to reject this project once and for all, and go to Paris as the first world leader to stop a major project because of its effect on the climate. No matter what route TransCanada comes back with, the ultimate problem all along with Keystone XL has been that it’s a climate disaster — that it fails the President’s own climate test. It will be a sign of his solidarity with this remarkable movement when he comes right out and says that.”