Nebraska Justices Back Pipeline; Now Obama Must Decide

The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for the Keystone XL pipeline to be built through the state, removing President Obama’s chief reason for delaying a decision on the project. Gov. Dave Heineman had approved the Keystone project after the pipeline company, TransCanada, proposed a route that avoided Nebraska’s ecologically delicate Sandhills region. In making their decision, the Nebraska justices effectively overturned a lower court’s ruling that had blocked a state law giving the governor the right to approve the pipeline project. That law, passed in 2012, let oil pipeline companies take their projects directly to the governor, bypassing the Nebraska Public Service Commission. In February, however, a state district judge ruled that the law was unconstitutional. That ruling was appealed to the State Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in September...more