Dear TransCanada,

I am writing as a Nebraska citizen representing other Nebraska citizens concerned with what seems to be inconsistencies in the information presented to the public by your company regarding tax revenues and job creation in our state.

Back in 2007, before the first Keystone Pipeline was built in Nebraska, your representatives told Nebraska citizens that the first Keystone pipeline would generate over $5.5 million dollars in property tax revenues in our state in the first year of operation. Now that the pipeline has been operating for more than a year, and the first year’s taxes have been billed, it appears that the numbers are significantly less than what your representatives were telling us: 

I obtained these numbers from the county clerks in each of the Nebraska counties listed above. I find it disappointing that these figures are less than half of what your company told Nebraskans before the pipeline was built, which is even more relevant to us now that you are still wanting to build the Keystone Export pipeline from Alberta to Texas.

Will your tax revenue numbers for the Keystone Export pipeline follow a similar pattern? Should we expect, based on past experience, that your company’s representatives predict exaggerated outcomes in order to garner favor for your proposed projects?

It seems that these exaggerated predictions apply not only to your tax revenue estimates, but also to employment statistics. Your company repeatedly claims that the Keystone Export pipeline will create over 20,000 jobs, but it has been repeatedly indicated by other sources (such as the U.S. State Department) that, at best, the pipeline would create less than 10,000 temporary construction jobs. Once again, it seems your representatives have taken a relatively accurate number arrived upon by sound research, doubled it, added a little more, and called that an “estimate.”

I would like to know how many jobs the Keystone Export pipeline would create in Nebraska, in terms of actual jobs, not “person-years of employment.” How many of those jobs will be permanent, and how many will be temporary? Furthermore, would you please stop airing your misleading advertisements that tout wildly optimistic and unrealistic jobs numbers in our television, radio, and newspaper outlets? We Nebraskans find these obvious attempts to mislead us as insulting. The people of this state are more intelligent than you apparently give us credit for. We remember how many (or how few) jobs the first Keystone pipeline created, and your company’s constant repetition of misleading information seriously damages your credibility as a viable business that we would want see operating in our state.

I would appreciate a timely response to these questions and concerns, as they have been questions and concerns that we have been voicing for quite a while now, at least since the first State Department hearings in Nebraska in May 2010. It would behoove your future success as a pipeline company to honestly and openly deal with the legitimate concerns of citizens whose lives would be affected greatly by your business practices. I will eagerly await your reply.

Sincerely,

Ben Gotschall
Energy Director
Bold Nebraska