THANK YOU to the two Nebraska Public Service Commissioners who voted #NoKXL!

Write a personal thank-you to:

Mailing address: 
Nebraska Public Service Commission
1200 N Street, Suite 300 
Lincoln, NE 68508

LISTEN: Interview with Commissioner Rhoades on Canadian TV from Nov. 20, 2017.

“Nebraska regulator who voted against new Keystone XL route says residents aren’t getting ‘a fair shake’,” CBC, 11/20/17.

“Crystal Rhoades says there is “very little information available” about a pipeline route approved Monday to link Canadian oilsands to U.S. refineries…

I was very concerned that approving this mainline alternative route was going to violate the due process of the landowners. If they don’t know what’s happening or what might happen to them, there’s no way for them to exercise their due process rights and join the other landowners and have their case heard in front of the commission.

And I was also very concerned about the fact that the route that the commission elected to approve, we didn’t have any substantial evidence to support that it was in the public interest.

Q: One of the biggest [concerns with the original route] was that the pipeline would go across the sandhills, as they’re called, and parts of where the Ogallala Aquifer is. This is the area that people were very concerned about. Does this alterative route also cross that same area?

It does. And, in fact, it’s five miles longer, so it crosses even more of it. And it also crosses more streams, and so I don’t believe that it mitigates the concern related to the fragile soil and the aquifer…

I’m really disappointed. I don’t feel like the people of Nebraska got a fair shake. I really feel that we ought not have approved a pipeline route unless we were absolutely certain that all the landowners had been notified and that those landowners had had an opportunity to participate in this proceeding.