According to a Bloomberg report, the attention surrounding the much-debated Keystone XL pipeline project has been shifted from the White House to a Lincoln, Nebraska court. The state Supreme Court is reportedly being asked to decide about the feasibility of the project's route, which will run across the prairie state. The pipeline's proposed route has been sought legal action by three landowners, who has challenged a state law that had given Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman the power to approve it.
Bloomberg noted that the legal wrangling about the project's pipeline route could take awhile, and that a lower court decision had made that state law upheld by the Nebraskan governor invalid. That decision now requires a special commission that was established in 1885 in order to make such decisions that are politics-free.
An anonymous senior State Department official spoke on conference call with reporters and said that the delay on approving the Keystone XL pipeline was necessary as there is a possibility that the proposed route could change. The official pointed out that the project already has the support of the Nebraskan governor and the majority of the state legislature.
In a statement, the State Department had said, "Agencies need additional time based on the uncertainty created by the ongoing litigation in the Nebraska Supreme Court which could ultimately affect the pipeline route."
Environmentalists and labor unions were reportedly split from the State Department's decision, and were so at a crucial time ahead of the congressional elections on November 4th this year.
General president Terry O'Sullivan of the Laborers' International Union of North America said, "Once again, the administration is making a political calculation instead of doing what is right for the country. It's clear the administration needs to grow a set of antlers, or perhaps take a lesson from Popeye and eat some spinach."
