Court blocks Keystone XL route through Nebraska -- By Zack Colman, The Washington Examiner

A Nebraska court blocked construction of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline through its state Wednesday, as it ruled the Nebraska law that approved a new route pushed by builder TransCanada Corp. unconstitutional.

The Lancaster County District Court decision presents another obstacle for the proposed Canada-to-Texas project as it effectively halts, for the time being, the federal review process at the State Department.

“Under the court’s ruling, TransCanada has no approved route in Nebraska. TransCanada is not authorized to condemn the property against Nebraska landowners. The pipeline project is at standstill in this state," said Dave Domina, the attorney who represented the three Nebraska landowners who filed the lawsuit against Republican Gov. Dave Heineman. Domina is a Democratic Senate candidate for the open seat in Nebraska.


TransCanada now must secure approval for the pipeline route from the state's utility regulators — a step the 2012 Nebraska law sought to circumvent.

Judge Stephanie Stacy said Heineman's move to approve the revised pipeline plan, as the law allowed, was unconstitutional because it wrested control of oil pipeline decisions from the state regulatory body, the Nebraska Public Service Commission. As such, Stacy ruled the law null and void.

"[H]aving found LB 1161 [the Nebraska law] to be unconstitutional, governmental actions taken pursuant to that act, no matter how carefully performed, cannot stand," she wrote in the decision.

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