Katie Reilly
All eyes are on Nebraska this week as the state Public Service Commission holds its intervenor hearings on the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The 5-member PSC is the elected body tasked with determining if a route for this project should be approved in the state.
TransCanada's witnesses were the first to take the stand yesterday and were questioned by attorneys representing landowners, environmental groups, and native Tribes, as well as by the PSC. Questions focused on the company's liability in the case of an issue with their tar sands pipeline and how the company plans to avoid permanent damage to the land, water, and other natural and cultural resources if their project is permitted, as well as what the company would do once their pipeline is no longer usable.
The day was filled with a few heated exchanges between lawyers representing landowners and community groups opposing Keystone XL and TransCanada’s “experts” on the stand. We put “experts” in quotes because of several key interactions that took place on Monday. From Reuters:
Later, Domina (a lawyer for opponents of Keystone XL) had a tense exchange with Ernie Goss, an economist who was paid by TransCanada to look at the economic impact of the pipeline, after Goss said he did not have a source for some economic data he cited during the hearing.
Is TransCanada making things up? Their witnesses can’t even back up their claims! Meanwhile, another TransCanada economist admitted a problem, and two TransCanada environmental witnesses knew little about their areas of expertise. From Esquire:
Among the witnesses the company did produce, there was an economics professor who had to admit that a report he presented to the commission regarding the vast economic benefits of the project was merely an update of a report he'd written for a Texas-based energy business group. There was an environmental consultant who had to admit that she didn't know much about the land under which the pipeline is proposed to run, and there was a company expert on reclaiming land who used an outdated wildlife protection map to show that the pipeline would travel through less of the environmentally delicate sandhills region of Nebraska than was shown on the map TransCanada originally had presented to the State Department months ago.
When attorneys for the Tribal nations questioned a TransCanada witness on the affected sacred sites, they had to inform the witness that sacred sites cannot just be moved.
"If we have sacred sites you can't move those sacred sites." tribes' attorney questioning TransCanada #KeystoneXL #NoKXL
— Sierra Club Live (@SierraClubLive) August 7, 2017
According to to the same Esquire article, the company isn’t even planning on having a witness who can answer questions about how Keystone XL will affect Tribal sacred sites.
What’s more, key factors that the PSC should be assessing — like whether market demand still exists for the project, likelihood and impacts of spills and leaks, and issues of pipeline safety — have been disqualified from the process due to a ruling last week. From Inside Climate:
In answering objections from TransCanada about testimony planned during the hearing, the retired judge wrote that testimony could not discuss safety issues, such as risks from potential oil leaks, or discuss whether there is any actual need for the pipeline….She also prohibited testimony, at TransCanada's request, about how landowners have been treated by the pipeline company in recent months.
While the hearing continues for several more days, this testimony just proves what Keystone XL’s opponents already know: the pipeline is a bad idea that will have a major negative environmental effect on the state.