Nebraska regulators on Tuesday shot down a request from TransCanada to reconsider the proposed path of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, the latest in a series of setbacks for the $8 billion project and one that leaves its future very much in doubt.
Nebraska’s Public Service Commission (PSC) last month green-lighted a route through its state, but the approved path wasn’t the one TransCanada prefers.
The Canadian company, which has been trying to complete the Canada-to-Texas project for the past decade, said it would ask Nebraska officials to rethink their decision and amend the approval to include the original route.
On Tuesday, they got their answer, with the five-member PSC unanimously rejecting motions to reconsider. The decision effectively ends the process in the state and leaves TransCanada with a decision of whether to scrap the project or move forward with the less-than-favorable path.
The company said it remains committed to Keystone, but also said it will take time to examine its options in light of the decision.
“Following today’s decision, we will take the time to review the decision and determine the appropriate next steps for the project in Nebraska. More importantly, Keystone XL remains a viable project with strong commercial support,” said company spokesman Terry Cunha. “The project continues to have widespread support of the U.S. and Canadian federal governments as well as state and provincial governments in Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. President Trump and his administration continue to actively support Keystone XL and we expect to secure final federal permits in early 2018. We remain committed to the Keystone XL project.”
Environmentalists praised the decision and said it should lead TransCanada to kill Keystone once and for all.
“We are pleased the commission denied TransCanada’s motion to amend their application. This should send a message to TransCanada and their investors that Nebraskans don’t want their tar sands pipeline,” said Ken Winston, an attorney with the Sierra Club. “TransCanada should do the right thing for once and withdraw their application. If they choose to appeal, we will continue to fight the Keystone XL tar sands export pipeline until it is finally stopped.”
Keystone has become a major flashpoint between the energy industry and environmental groups. In 2015, then-President Obama cited concerns over climate change in denying presidential permits for the project, which would carry oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
President Trump made the project a campaign issue during his 2016 run, and shortly after taking office signed an executive order resurrecting it.
Read more at Washington Times
Big mistake naming it XL. Enviro’s go after the trophies.
Nanticoke GS was the biggest coal-fired station in the world. Its grave will be marked with solar panels .
I hope their winter is cold and snowy i hope they have to pay big high energy bills these Keep it in the Ground jerks need a little lession about the real enviroment and not the ones from a fake Al Bore film
“….Electric generating facilities expect to add more than 26 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale generating capacity to the power grid during 2016.
Most of these additions come from three resources:
solar (9.5 GW),
natural gas (8.0 GW), and
wind (6.8 GW), which together make up 93% of total additions.
…
These values reflect reported additions & retirements, not model projections….”
2016 Was the FIRST YEAR of NATIONAL ELECTRIC RATE Reductions of about 1%……
Texas was the BIGGEST WINNER in introducing REAL COMPETITION to the DIRTY, Killer COAL ELECTRIC Monopoly…..with double digit Electric Rate Reductions in all those competitive markets.
***
VERSUS
“….The United States gets almost half its electricity from coal; it’s the cheapest source. Coal comes from inside the United States and there’s a lot of it. Coal’s affordability comes at hidden costs, like environmental degradation from mountain top removal, mercury-polluted water, acid rain, coal mining deaths, and so forth. If those factors are considered, coal starts to look costlier, but today, coal plant owners mostly only pay for equipment to reduce acid rain.
They don’t have to pay
for past pollution, or
emitted airborne particulate matter,
a difficult-to-measure but real contributor of
lung cancer,
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and
asthma.
((Asthma in the USA alone, COAL CAUSES 1,000,000 new cases w/billions of dollars in treatment costs/year and still a death rate of 23 / 100,000 per year ! ))
Additionally,
it’s unclear how to add in the cost of climate change from carbon dioxide emissions, a substantial amount of which come from dirty coal power worldwide. In 2009…. coal prices increased, and environmental compliance is becoming more expensive for (dirty) coal plants.
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