TransCanada is also in the process of withdrawing its current eminent domain actions and is taking steps to terminate constitutional court proceedings in Holt County, Nebraska.
“After careful review, we believe that going through the PSC process is the clearest path to achieving route certainty for the Keystone XL Project in Nebraska,” said Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive officer. “It ultimately saves time, reduces conflict with those who oppose the project and sets clear rules for approval of the route.”
The proposed route is the route that was evaluated by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality and approved by the Nebraska Governor in 2013.
This route is also the preferred route of the majority of Nebraskans who participated in a thorough comment period that included open house discussions and allowed for hundreds of additional comments.
The review also included conversations with landowners along the pipeline corridor, 91 percent who have now signed voluntary easements to construct Keystone XL.
The project has undergone five independent reviews of safety and potential environmental impacts by the U.S. State Department as well as one authored by the State of Nebraska after its year-long public process. All reviews concluded the project could be constructed and operated safely with minimal impact to the environment.
Despite having route authority to construct Keystone XL, uncertainty in the courts around the constitutionality of how the route was approved was very likely to carry on once again to the Nebraska Supreme Court.
“Our goal is to achieve route certainty in Nebraska in a timely manner,” said Girling. “We have concluded that seeking route approval from the PSC gives us the best opportunity to build a pipeline the majority of Americans and Nebraskans support.”
Keystone XL is a 1,179-mile pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska that will transport Canadian and U.S. Bakken oil to U.S. markets.
With more than 65 years’ experience, TransCanada is a leader in the responsible development and reliable operation of North American energy infrastructure including natural gas and liquids pipelines, power generation and gas storage facilities. TransCanada operates a network of natural gas pipelines that extends more than 68,000 kilometres (42,100 miles), tapping into virtually all major gas supply basins in North America. TransCanada is one of the continent’s largest providers of gas storage and related services with 368 billion cubic feet of storage capacity. A growing independent power producer, TransCanada owns or has interests in over 10,900 megawatts of power generation in Canada and the United States. TransCanada is developing one of North America’s largest liquids delivery systems. TransCanada’s common shares trade on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges under the symbol TRP.
Leave A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.