In yesterday’s House markup meeting on Lee Terry’s pipeline bill, we noticed that Rep. Terry liked to mention how the NRDC and Sierra Club asked President Obama to stop Keystone XL. But Terry nevers mentions that thousands of Nebraskans and our own Governor Heineman also asked the President to deny the permit.
Terry’s selective memory times well with the unveiling of our new website HeinemanAgreesWithObama.com. We hope it serves as a healthy reminder that the Governor and the President have agreed about the risks Keystone XL poses to our land and the Ogallala Aquifer.
Of course, Governor Heineman’s recent support of the Keystone XL export pipeline flies in the face of the statements he made to President Obama. Now that President Obama has denied the pipeline permit, Heineman’s dashing to join Congressional Republicans in their political quest to get the dead pipeline built.
Why is Governor Heineman gung ho for a dead pipeline when none of his previous concerns about protecting the aquifer have been addressed? The only conclusion we’ve been able to draw is that he saw himself on the same side as President Obama and didn’t like the political consequences.
Every time Heineman tells citizens or the press that he now supports the pipeline, we’d remind him that there’s still no map that would alter the old route around the Ogallala Aquifer, and we all have is TransCanada word–no legally binding documents–that they’ll go around the Sandhills. There’s too much at risk. As Sandhills rancher Bruce Boettcher told press on a phone call yesterday, “The pipeline was denied, so politicians need to quit playing politics with our land and our water.”