Pipeline Training for County Commissioners,
County Zoning Board & Attorneys

Focus on Zoning, Haul Agreements, Local Oil Spill Response Plans

August 23, 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | York City Auditorium, York, Nebraska

PRESENTERS:

Carl Weimer, Pipeline Safety Trust
Carl Weimer is the Executive Director ofthe national Pipeline Safety Trust. He also serves on the Governor appointed Washington State Citizens Committee on Pipeline Safety, as a member ofthe U.S. Department of Transportation’s Technical Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Safety Standards Committee, and the steering committee for the Pipelines and Informed Planning Alliance. Mr. Weimer hastestified to both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate on pipeline safety issues, organized four national pipeline safety conferences, pushed for stronger pipeline safety legislation on the national and state level, runsthe national Safe Pipelines and LNG Safety listservesthat include over 700 people from around the country, and regularly serves as an independent source of pipeline safety information for news media, local government, and citizens around the country. Mr. Weimer wasre-elected in 2009 to his second four-year term on the Whatcom County Council. He has a degree in Natural Resources and Environmental Education from the University of Michigan, as well a degree in Industrial Electronics Technology from Peninsula College.

Paul Blackburn, pipeline consultant
Paul Blackburn has worked in energy and environmental law and policy for twenty-five years. Currently, he is based in Minneapolis and provides legal and consulting services on electric utility, pipeline, and mining matters. He is the only attorney to represent landowner clients through a complete formal evidentiary hearing on the Keystone XL Pipeline. He also has authored a number of detailed technical and policy reports on pipeline safety and spill cleanup preparedness. Paul started his legal career in Washington, DC, where he worked for the law firm of Van Ness Feldman, which specialized in energy law in such areas as:

• clean coal project development, financing, and contracting;
• financing and regulatory work related to solar and small hydro project;
• development of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990; and
• a variety of litigation matters related to offshore oil exploration in the arctic ocean, federal constitutional takings, and Native American self-determination and business litigation.

After leaving private practice, Paul worked for a number of national and state-based non-profit organizations. He also has experience working in community wind energy development, both as a senior policy analyst for Windustry and as the Executive Director of the Community-Based Energy Development Initiative. Paul’s broad legal, policy, technical and campaign experience in both the nonprofit and for profit sectors provide him with a unique perspective on energy and environmental matters.

Brian Jorde, attorney, Domina Law Group
Brian E. Jorde brings extensive business experience in real estate development, and personal entrepreneurship, to Domina Law Group. Mr. Jorde is active in the firm’s Michigan and Nebraska practices. Mr. Jorde was raised in Wayne and Omaha, NE. His undergraduate degree in Philosophy is from Vanderbilt University, and his law school education was at the Thomas M Cooley College of Law, Lansing, MI. He worked for several years in complex commercial real estate areas. His work included notable projects, including negotiations for sale of property now used at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock AR. Other major projects included acquisitions complimentary to the Ambassador Bridge, providing the official NAFTA connection between the U S and Canada. He is also involved in environmental issues affecting real estate, and successfully completed a rare orphan oil well clean up project in Michigan without costs to his clients. Mr. Jorde also worked for nearly two (2) years in logistics and transportation with a major trucking firm. He negotiated contracts, and arranged transport for truckload, and less than truckload (LTL) cargo movements from Canada to Mexico and all across the United States. He spent a year in the real estate business in Western Australia, too. Mr. Jorde’s pre-law school work also included time with Domina Law Group pc llo as a paraprofessional working in the trial practice section. He provided courtroom support for a jury case lasting more than three (3) months in Oakland County, MI, and several other cases of significant complexity. Jorde was present in Court when David Domina presented closing argument to a federal jury that returned a $1.3 billion verdict for the firm’s clients.

AGENDA
9:00 – 9:15 a.m. / Jane Kleeb, Bold Nebraska
Welcome and overview of tarsands concerns

• Map of pipeline crossing Sandhills and Aquifer
• Overview of concerns including rural roads, lack of training and equipment, large amounts of workers in a “work/man camp”, lack of study done on risk to land and water, lack of regulations
• Coalition of citizens and landowners non-violent
• List of TransCanada incidents that cause mistrust
• List of regulations and resolutions passed and being proposed

• Quick review of different types of pipelines and causes of failures
• Review of “alphabet soup” of federal and state agencies that regulate the routing and safety of pipelines
• Review of federal versus state versus local authority
• The need for local zoning and permitting ordinances
  • What authority does local government have?
  • National resources to help
  • Examples of ordinances other communities have passed

• Review of requirements for pipeline companies to share their emergency response plans with local government
  • Requirements
  • How local government can improve this process
• The need for greater transparency and where Nebraska currently falls in the Trust transparency rating

10:15 – 11:15 a.m. / Paul Blackburn, Pipeline Consultant
Overview of TransCanada’s current spill response plan and what counties can do

• Review of TransCanada’s current Emergency Response Plan for Keystone XL and Keystone 1
• Review what a chain of command looks like from a federal level once a spill/fire takes place (clear up what constitutes a small spill vs. large spill that EPA/PHMSA get involved in)
• Describe what counties can legally do to put stronger local oil spill response plans in place
• Review a sample local oil spill response plan

11:15 a.m. – Noon / Brian Jorde, Domina Law Group
Overview of Sample Zoning and Haul Agreements

• Review a sample zoning ordinance
• Review a sample Haul Agreement

Noon – 12:30 p.m.
Question and Answer Session

County Training on Oil and Tarsands Pipelines