It’s August Townhall season, and we knew it was only a matter of time before Lee “TransCanada” decided to show his mug around these parts.
Sure enough, at his townhall in Valley, Rep. TransCanada showed that he continues to be a stooge for TransCanada and their Big Oil pals. He continues to reiterate inaccurate talking points that any citizen with a decent internet connection could dispute.
For example, he insists that there are already pipelines running through Nebraska, so why worry?
(video courtesy of American Bridge 21st Century)
Absolutely, there are pipelines in Nebraska, almost 21,000 miles to be exact. But only 435 of those miles are oil pipelines. One is Kinder Morgan’s Platte Pipeline that runs close to Hastings and the other is the Keystone I. The Kinder transports traditional, American crude oil across our state (not tar sands), and the Keystone I has already had 12 leaks in less than 12 months.
The rest of the pipelines traversing our state carry natural gas or water. Call us crazy, but we don’t have too many qualms about a water pipeline leaking into the Ogallala Aquifer.
To clarify things further, there are NO hazaradous pipelines running through the counties covered by the Sandhills. So any argument that the Keystone XL is nothing new is downright preposterous.
Rep. TransCanada also seems to have no understanding of the importance of water to our state’s economic activity. When pressed by an attendee about the Keystone XL’s risk to the Ogallala Aquifer, he resorts to the age old economy vs. environment argument.
(video courtesy of American Bridge 21st Century)
Well good luck to Rep. TransCanada on building a robust economy without clean water which means no irrigation for Nebraska farmers and ranchers. We’re sure your kids will love living in a future where there’s nothing to eat or drink. But hey, they’ll have jobs. Doing what, God only knows because we’ve turned our state into a total wasteland for TransCanada’s profit.
You enjoy that future, Rep. TransCanada. We’ll keep working for one that slowly eases oil from our nation’s energy portfolio, provides stable jobs in the American-made energy sector (like the 8,000 Nebraska’s ethanol industry currently provides), and where there’s clean drinking water for our kids.
In the meantime, we’ll keep doing things like delivering 91 ears of corn to your office that represent the 91 spills Dr. Stansbury predicted the Keystone XL will have.
