TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline project, which would carry crude oil 1,661 miles from Hardisty, Alberta down to refineries in Nederland, Texas and could bring 20,000 jobs to Americans in 2012 if construction begins, is facing delays from both the Nebraska state legislature and the Obama Administration.
According to a report by Reuters, Nebraska’s state legislature entered a special session on Tuesday, November 1, to consider the proposed $7 billion Keystone pipeline and what to do about its route through that state. The proposed route would traverse the Nebraska Sand Hills, which sit on the Ogallala aquifer, the article states.
Nebraska State Senator Annette Dubas, faced with concerns of environmental organizations over the project, has proposed drafting a law that would call for the pipeline’s route to be moved away from the aquifer. According to TransCanada, though, such legislation would be unconstitutional in their view as well as the view of two law firms: the international Sidley Austin LLP and the Omaha firm, McGrath North Mullin & Kratz, PC LLO.
“Under the U.S. Constitution and controlling federal law, it is the role of federal agencies – not individual states – to determine whether the route and construction of an interstate pipeline raise a risk of environmental damage and to weigh any risk against the economic and other benefits of the proposed pipeline,” stated a press release offered by TransCanada on Monday, October 31.
Further, the corporation argues, “Federal pipeline safety regulation already specifically protects areas that are unusually sensitive to environmental damage if there is a pipeline accident, such as areas like the Ogallala aquifer. Based on the federal Pipeline Safety Act and the federal government’s comprehensive regulation, state legislation that intrudes into this area is unconstitutional.”
According to TransCanada, the only route Keystone XL can follow is the route approved through the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the project, which was released on August 26, 2011. In order to follow a different route, the entire federal review would have to be nullified and the rules that TransCanada was required to follow when making its application for a Presidential Permit would have to be ignored, the corporation stated.
News source, UPI, reported on Wednesday, November 2, that President Barack Obama has stated that Nebraska’s concerns will be taken into consideration in the federal review of the project. UPI reported that the President told KETV NewsWatch 7 “that his administration was taking the “long view” on the pipeline.”
A decision on the Presidential permit of the project was expected by year’s end, Reuters reported, and TransCanada’s chief executive has stated that any extended delay to the timeline of the approval could cause shippers and refiners to abandon their support for the line.
TransCanada hopes to complete construction of the line in 2012 and have it operational by 2013.