For Immediate Release: October 20, 2014                    

Contact: Jane Kleeb, Jane@boldnebraska.org, 402-705-3622 

TransCanada Attacks Citizen Group, Lies About Clean Energy Barn

TransCanada issued a false statement in an attempt to discredit Jane Kleeb and the citizen-led Bold Nebraska, a group that has successfully stopped Keystone XL in its tracks. Jane Kleeb was in Alberta, Canada last week on a speaking tour entitled, “Panels Not Pipelines” that visited seven cities.

“TransCanada is a professional polluter that uses front groups and lies in order to distract from the fact they bullied landowners who stood up to them and stopped their risky export pipeline,” said Kleeb, Bold Nebraska Director.

TransCanada is using lies started by Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity and a front group called Nebraskans for Jobs and Energy Independence — which was founded by TransCanada staff, their lobbyist and the Laborers Union. TransCanada stated the barn “runs primarily on coal-fired electricity not solar panels.”

The Build Our Energy Barn, a solar and wind-powered project built by citizens in the proposed Keystone XL route, has produced 3,161 Kilowatt-hours of clean energy to Nebraska’s grid. The barn has used only 434 Kilowatt-hours of energy from the grid. Despite TransCanada’s flat out lie, the Build Our Energy Barn has produced clean energy for Nebraska, something they will never do in our state.

Since the barn went up a year ago, the clean energy produced is equivalent to planting 60 trees which would sequester over 2,880 pounds of carbon dioxide each year.

“Our barn is putting more energy onto Nebraska’s grid than TransCanada ever will since they want to build an export pipeline. We are proud to be a generator of clean energy in our community,” said Meghan Hammond, landowner and seventh-generation family farmer near York, Nebraska.

See a video of the barn, and Meghan telling her story of protecting the land and water: