The controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline would cross 4,500 feet of Antelope County -- currently buried under a foot of snow -- that pioneer John Garland homesteaded in 1886.
And his great-great grandson, Robert Johnston, is cheering President Donald Trump’s promise to fast-track approval of the pipeline, which would link crude oil producers in Canada and North Dakota with refineries and export terminals along the Gulf Coast.
“My main reason all along for supporting (the Keystone XL) has been the Nebraska tax base,†said Johnston, who grows corn, soybeans and alfalfa. “We have to broaden our tax base. I don’t know how else we can do it other than to bring in any development we can into this state.â€
But even with the president’s blessing, pipeline builder TransCanada could face another protracted battle in Nebraska as it seeks route approval and the authority to use eminent domain to force easements from a group of landowners who have pledged to fight against the project.
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Legal battles and political wrangling in Nebraska helped delay the last attempt to build the Keystone XL, originally slated to begin moving oil in 2012, giving opposition groups time to galvanize and turn the project into a symbol of the fight over how the nation addresses climate change.
“We stopped it once, I think we can stop it again,†said Art Tanderup, a Neligh farmer.
Tanderup and his wife, Helen, hosted a fundraising concert in 2014 headlined by Neil Young for pipeline fighters, and the couple remains opposed to TransCanada’s plans to lay 1,179 miles of 36-inch diameter pipe.
Trump last week made good on campaign promises to revive the project by issuing memorandums inviting TransCanada to reapply for the cross-border construction permit that former President Barack Obama rejected as antithetical to the United States taking a leading role in curbing climate-warming emissions.
TransCanada filed a $15 billion arbitration claim through the North American Free Trade Agreement after Obama's decision, which the company continues to pursue.
Trump also ordered the Commerce Secretary to come up with a plan for requiring TransCanada to use American-made steel in building the pipeline. TransCanada says it will review the plan when details are released.
TransCanada, which has miles of mothballed pipe sitting in storage yards ready to go, previously has said for the Keystone XL would be milled by a Little Rock, Arkansas, company with the rest coming from Canada, Italy and India.
Trump’s presidential nudge also seeks to jumpstart construction of the 1,172-mile Dakota Access pipeline, which is nearly finished except for a segment that would cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe depends on the lake for water and has organized protests to stand in the way of construction.
Trump ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to quickly review and approve construction and easement requests that would bring the Dakota Access pipeline to completion.
TransCanada submitted paperwork to the U.S. State Department on Wednesday and plans in the coming weeks to submit a route for approval by the Nebraska Public Service Commission, according to company spokesman Terry Cunha.
Cunha said in an email that TransCanada looks “forward to continuing our dialogue with the Commission and State leaders, including Governor Ricketts.â€
TransCanada hopes to build the northern leg of its Keystone XL from Hardisty, Alberta, to Steele City, along the Nebraska/Kansas border, where it will meet up with an existing network of oil pipelines.
The proposed route essentially will be the same one TransCanda submitted for evaluation by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality in 2012 and which was approved by former Gov. Dave Heineman in 2013.
Heineman’s thumbs up became the basis of a lawsuit that ended in the Nebraska Supreme Court and delayed the project for months.
This will be the first time the state Public Service Commission, a five-member elected board, has dealt with the siting of a major oil pipeline, however it has overseen natural gas pipelines and other common carriers like taxi cabs, grain warehouses and telecommunications.
The Public Service Commission process is expected to take eight months to a year, and approval is needed before TransCanada can move forward with eminent domain.
The company already has more than 90 percent of the easements it needs to build the Keystone XL in Nebraska and all of the right of way it needs in South Dakota and Montana.
Jane Kleeb, chairwoman of the Nebraska Democrats and head of the activist group Bold Alliance, said pipeline fighters will forge a two-pronged strategy against the Keystone XL in Nebraska -- first encouraging people to file protests or interventions with the Public Service Commission and continuing the fight in the courts.
Kleeb said Bold plans to revive calls for creation of an energy corridor in Nebraska that would mirror the path of the original Keystone Pipeline, which went into production in June 2010. That plan would require a rerouting of the Keystone XL, possibly adding months or years to completion.
Omaha-based Domina Law plans to continue to represent the bulk of landowners refusing to sign easements, said Attorney Brian Jorde.
If TransCanada gets approval for its path and moves forward with eminent domain, Jorde said, landowners plan to sue to stop it by arguing that the Keystone XL is not for public use, which is a requirement of eminent domain.
Building the $8 billion pipeline would create thousands of construction jobs -- which has helped attract support from numerous labor unions -- as well as give a boost to local hotels and restaurants catering to construction crews. But it would yield only a few dozen permanent jobs.
Proponents also argue moving oil through a pipeline is much safer than shipping it via rail or truck.
Opponents argue the risk of a leak -- the pipeline would move up to 830,000 barrels of oil a day -- endangers wildlife, the environment and local water supplies, including the Niobrara River and Ogallala Aquifer, the source of drinking water for millions of people in several High Plains states as well as water for irrigation and livestock operations.
It also would encourage further extraction of Canada’s oil sands, a source of bitumen, a thick oil with a large carbon footprint that requires energy-intensive processing to get it ready for refining into products like gasoline and lubricants.
Nebraska landowners facing the prospect of eminent domain argue a private company based in Canada shouldn’t be able to trample on their property rights.