After Keystone Oil Spill, Nebraska Approves Pipeline Extension

Plans to extend the Keystone Pipeline running from Canada to Texas have been approved after a 3-2 vote by the Nebraska Public Service Commission five days after South Dakota’s Keystone pipeline leaked 210,000 gallons of oil.

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The decision allows TransCanada to transport as much as 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada’s natural tar sands to Houston, Texas.

"Today the Nebraska PSC chose to stand with Trump, climate denial, and Big Oil,” said Stephen Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, in a statement. “Good luck with that. Whatever happens now there is precisely zero chance that the global citizen, investor, and government momentum behind the Paris [climate agreement] goals and against the fossil fuel industry will be stopped.”

Andy Black, president and CEO of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines said in a statement, "Nebraska recognizes the Keystone XL pipeline is in the public interest bringing good paying jobs and more affordable energy for U.S. consumers," said

The proposed Keystone XL would break from the main pipeline which went into use in July, outside Steele City, Kansas and travel upwards through Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana and into Canada. The initiative has been a sore subject for years, with Native Americans, residents and environmentalists fighting TransCanada, citing land rights and potential natural hazards.

“Nothing has changed at all in our defense of land, air and water of the Oceti Sakowin Lands,” said Faith Spotted Eagle, a member of Yankton Sioux Nation. “If anything it has become more focused, stronger and more adamant after Standing Rock.”

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“It’s clear that the Trump administration, through its dirty energy policies, is intent on destroying our homelands with no regard to any group; we are all seen as dispensable, taxable, and voiceless,” Spotted Eagle said.

Environmental experts warn that the crude oil extracted from tar sand deposits produce 17 percent more greenhouse gases than standard crude oil. Activists also say that allowing the 2,000-km-long pipeline to cut across the Ogallala aquifer, the world’s largest underground freshwater deposit, also heightens the risk of pollution.

After years of low oil market incomes, it has yet to be determined whether or not the company will take advantage of the situation. TransCanada says it will announce its decision in either later November or early December.