Nebraska Supreme Court Overturns Decision Blocking Keystone
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ssuaphoto/iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — The Nebraska Supreme Court removed a major hurdle to the Keystone XL Pipeline on Friday as the House of Representatives readied to make its 10th vote on legislation to approve the pipeline.
The court tossed out a lawsuit challenging the route of the pipeline through Nebraska, removing a major reason that President Obama has cited for stalling a final decision on the plan.
On Tuesday, the White House said the president would veto legislation approving the pipeline, not because he opposes the project, but because the legislation would get ahead of the review process, citing the outstanding Nebraska ruling.
“There continues to be an outstanding question about the route of the pipeline through one part of Nebraska, and that’s related to an ongoing legal matter in Nebraska. Once that is resolved, that should speed the completion of the evaluation of that project,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.
The White House has not officially weighed in on the merits of the pipeline overall and Friday’s decision by the Nebraska Supreme Court makes the administration’s rational for a veto more difficult to sustain.
While the president hasn’t said definitively that he opposes the project, he certainly has made clear his concerns about its impacts.
“I think that there’s been this tendency to really hype this thing as some magic formula to what ails the U.S. economy, and it’s hard to see on paper where exactly they’re getting that information from,” Obama told reporters last month.
“There is very little impact, nominal impact, on U.S. gas prices — what the average American consumer cares about — by having this pipeline come through,” he said. “Sometimes the way this gets sold is, let’s get this oil and it’s going to come here. And the implication is, is that’s going to lower gas prices here in the United States. It’s not. There’s a global oil market. It’s very good for Canadian oil companies and it’s good for the Canadian oil industry, but it’s not going to be a huge benefit to U.S. consumers.”
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