LINCOLN - Speaker of the Legislature Mike Flood said Monday that TransCanada has agreed to move the Keystone XL pipeline out of the Nebraska Sand Hills.
Flood said late Monday afternoon that he had just gotten the word from TransCanada officials that they would voluntarily change their original route. The new route will steer clear from the ecologically sensitive Sand Hills, which overlie the Ogallala Aquifer.
Also Monday as the Legislature began debate on pipeline routing bills, Flood introduced an amendment to a bill that sets out the process for a state review of the new Keystone XL route.
Flood is proposing an amendment saying that Nebraska will do a supplemental environmental impact statement to go along with the Obama administration's decision to delay a federal permit for the pipeline until 2013 to further explore routes that bypass the Sand Hills and underlying Ogallala Aquifer.
Under Flood's plan, Gov. Dave Heineman would recommend approval or diapproval of any pipeline routes viewed by the state. Flood said the process would take six to nine months, which would mean that it could be completed before the extended federal review.
Flood said the review would be done by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality.
As part of his plan, he said he had gotten agreement from the Natural Resources Committee to advance Legislative Bill 1, the measure proposed by Sen. Annette Dubas of Fullerton. He said the bill would be amended to apply to all future pipelines.
"We should never have to live through this nightmare again," he said.
Flood said the process represents a "win-win."
Flood said he sent a letter last week to the U.S. Department of State asking whether the federal pipeline review process would allow for formal state participation. He said he sent the letter based on testimony at a public hearing last week.
The federal response arrived early Monday afternoon, clearing the way for the deal to go forward. In it, federal officials said they were open to state participation.
"I am confident that the Department and Nebraska authorities would be able to efficiently work together in preparing any documents necessary to examine alternative routes in the State of Nebraska that satisfy federal laws and any state law Nebraska may adopt," said Kerri-Ann Jones, assistant secretary of state.
Flood also got a letter from Mike Linder, head of the Department of Environmental Quality, affirming that the department could handle a review of the pipeline route.
Flood said he was proposing that the state, not TransCanada, would pay for the state review. But under Dubas' bill, future pipeline developers would have to pay fees to cover review costs.
Jane Kleeb, head of the anti-pipeline group Bold Nebraska, said she was excited that the Keystone XL pipeline would be moved and that Nebraska could get pipeline routing authority over future pipelines.
"It's not often that citizens win against big oil but they did today," she said.
Kleeb said she remains leery of TransCanada, however, and won't be ready to party until she sees the promise to reroute the Keystone pipeline in writing.
TransCanada President Alex Pourbaix, at a press conference in Lincoln, said that last week's decision by the State Department was spawned exclusively by concerns over the route passing through the Sand Hills, and provided “an opportunity” to pursue alternative routes.
Finding a new route around that area of shallow groundwater “removes by far the greatest obstacle to (federal) approval,” Pourbaix said, and should help calm oil refineries, which were expecting to get oil from the Keystone XL by 2014.
“With the outcome today, I think it gives a great deal of confidence to our shippers that we can get a pipeline through Nebraska built and built in a timely fashion,” he said.
One Sand Hills landowner at the press conference, Bruce Boettcher of Bassett, Neb., said that bypassing the Sand Hills and its sandy, pourous soil is the right thing to do. But he said he was worried about new landowners who might be on a new route for the Keystone XL.
“I feel for them,” Boettcher said.
But as long as the new route is through denser, clay soil, he said, he would be OK with it.
Meanwhile, the Nebraska Attorney General's Office won't weigh in on the legal issues surrounding pipeline routing proposals.
Monday, lawmakers were told that the Attorney General's Office was concerned that issuing a legal opinion now could complicate the office's job of defending the state against any lawsuits.
State Sen. Galen Hadley of Kearney had requested the opinion last week in hopes of clarifying the coflicting legal opinions. Hadley said he was awaiting a written explanation from the AG's office.
Contact the writer: 402-473-9584, paul.hammel@owh.com
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