Key state court ruling clears path for final Keystone approval

WASHINGTON (ICIS)–The Nebraska state Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the routing plan for the Keystone XL pipeline through the state is legal, a judgement that eliminates a key obstacle to final federal approval of the $8bn project.

The Nebraska Supreme Court had been asked to review a lower state court ruling that had held that the pipeline route through the state to be in violation of the state’s constitution.

In its Friday ruling, the state high court overturned and vacated that lower court decision, meaning that the planned pipeline route is valid and may be built.

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruling eliminates the sole remaining obstacle to final federal approval of the pipeline project.

In issuing two threats to veto pending pipeline authorisation bills in Congress earlier this week, the White House had said that President Barack Obama could not reasonably accept any congressional bills designed to advance the Keystone project because Nebraska courts had not reached a final decision on the route.

House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (Republican-Michigan) on Friday hailed the Nebraska ruling, saying that the court decision opens the way forward for final federal authorisation.

“The president has been hiding behind the Nebraska court case to block this critical jobs project,” Upton said. “With that contrived roadblock cleared, the White House is now out of excuses and out of time,” he added.

Upton said that the full House likely would vote today for final approval of HR-3, the “Keystone XL Pipeline Act”, which gives pipeline project operator TransCanada authorisation to proceed.

Obama said on Wednesday this week that he would veto that bill if it comes to his desk, citing the then-pending Nebraska court case.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (Republican-Alaska) also cited the Nebraska court decision in urging Obama to accept the will of Congress and add his signature to the bipartisan Keystone bills.

“Today’s court decision wipes out President Obama’s last excuse,” Murkowski said.

“He’s had six years to approve a project that will increase US energy supplies and create closer ties with our nearest ally and neighbour, and he’s refused to act,” she said.

Murkowski’s committee on Thursday approved S-1, a bipartisan Senate bill that, like the House HR-3 measure, would give TransCanada the go-ahead for immediate construction.

Obama had threatened to veto that measure as well.

Although the long-delayed pipeline is opposed by one of Obama’s key constituencies, environmentalists, the project has broad support among US petrochemical producers, the general manufacturing sector, other businesses and, another Obama constituent group, labour unions.

If both the House and Senate bills receive strong bipartisan support in their final votes, observers say that Obama may be less willing to veto the bills.

The Keystone XL pipeline would bring Canadian oil sands down to US refiners. The long-delayed 1,179-mile (1,897km) northern leg of the project has yet to be approved by the US government. The project’s southern leg from Cushing, Oklahoma, to the US Gulf coast is in operation.

Paul Hodges studies key influences shaping the chemical industry in Chemicals and the Economy