LINCOLN - Competing polls released Tuesday produced different results on the question of whether Nebraskans support or oppose the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
A poll commissioned by Trans-Canada, the Canadian company building the cross-country crude oil pipeline, indicated that 69 percent of Nebraskans surveyed either strongly support or somewhat support the project.
A poll by three environmental groups opposed to the project found that 48 percent of Nebraskans oppose the pipeline, with only 19 percent supporting it.
Officials with TransCanada's poll questioned whether the environmental groups' survey, done with automated equipment, was as valid as theirs, conducted with live interviewers.
The environmental groups BOLD Nebraska, the Sierra Club and Nebraska Wildlife Federation said TransCanada's pollsters spent 15 minutes with those surveyed in an apparent attempt to convince them to support the project.
A political scientist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha said poll results can be influenced greatly by how questions are worded and who is selected to participate.
Greg Petrow, an assistant professor, said it was hard to evaluate TransCanada's poll because its entire script was not released, but he thought the survey done for the environmental groups began with a “clearly” leading paragraph.
The introductory paragraph included comments that pipeline oil was not earmarked for the United States, that 90 percent of the construction jobs would go to non-Nebraskans and that ratepayers would be spending $49 million to provide electric lines to pipeline pumping stations.
Officials with the environmental groups said the introductory paragraph was provided because not everyone is fully informed about the pipeline project.
Jane Kleeb of BOLD Nebraska said it simply stated “the facts.”
“There's nothing in that statement that is not true,” Kleeb said.
The TransCanada poll question also was prefaced by two introductory sentences.
Nebraska is the only state in which TransCanada has conducted an opinion poll, a company spokesman said. It comes on the heels of a new advertising campaign launched by the company during last Saturday's Nebraska football game.
The advertisement stated that the project is not only good for the United States but good for Nebraska because it will bring a dependable supply of oil from a stable ally, Canada.
Opponents maintain that the pipeline will be poorly regulated and threatens to foul the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides drinking water to 80 percent of Nebraskans. They also say the source of the oil from Canada, mined from tar sand deposits, is environmentally dirty.
The U.S. State Department is still deciding whether to approve the pipeline, which has drawn comments of concern from U.S. Sens. Ben Nelson and Mike Johanns, U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry and State Sen. Tony Fulton of Lincoln.
TransCanada, which recently began operating another crude oil pipeline across Nebraska, has already made two concessions: It backed off plans to pump the oil at higher-than-normal pressures using thinner pipe, and it will not immediately use eminent domain to gain right-of-way agreements with Nebraska landowners.
Jeff Rauh, a spokesman for TransCanada, said polling was done in Nebraska because of the greater concern about the project expressed here, and to guide the company's public relations work.
“We're very interested in assuring that Nebraskans have the information they need to be comfortable with the project,” he said.
The company's survey, done by Hickman Analytics Inc. of Chevy Chase, Md., sampled 600 adults between Aug. 25 and 29.
It began with several questions about respondents' views on the overall “direction” of the country and state.
Besides asking if respondents supported or opposed the project, those surveyed also were given several reasons why people opposed or supported the project and then asked if that changed their opinions. Only slight changes in opinion were found.
The environmental groups' survey was done by Zata 3, a Washington, D.C., company, on Sept. 9. Five hundred people were sampled via computer, including 150 in the counties directly crossed by the pipeline. They were asked to respond by pushing their telephone keypad.
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