(Bloomberg) — Nebraska landowners opposed to TransCanada Corp.’s plan to run the Keystone XL oil pipeline through the state asked two judges to block the Canadian company from seizing property.
The requests, made Wednesday at state courthouses in the Nebraska cities of O’Neill and York, followed by a day a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report that production of crude to be transported from Canada’s oil sands will significantly increase greenhouse gases tied to global warming. President Barack Obama, citing environmental concerns and litigation, has yet to decide whether to approve the pipeline, which crosses an international boundary.
About 90 Nebraska property owners have now joined in two lawsuits to block TransCanada’s bid to acquire easements across privately owned land through which the proposed pipeline will pass. It will extend to a junction in the southeast corner of the state, from where oil will be shunted to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The filing follows the state Supreme Court’s Jan. 9 ruling that landowners couldn’t challenge a state law allowing TransCanada to seize land because it was unclear that their property was in the pipeline’s route. Four of seven judges ruled in favor the landowners, one vote shy of what they needed to prevail under Nebraska’s constitution.
New Request
In the latest request to block TransCanada, the landowners argue that they’ll prevail in a renewed bid to strike down the law because they now know for certain that they’re in the path.
“There is a substantial likelihood” the landowners “will prevail,” their lawyers, David Domina and Brian Jorde, said in court papers.
The company has acquired almost 90 percent of the land it needs in Nebraska and all the property rights sought in Montana and South Dakota, Shawn Howard, a spokesman for Calgary-based TransCanada, said.
“We have received the paperwork that has been filed and we are currently reviewing it,” he said in an e-mail about the new court filings.
Arguments will be heard in court later this month.
The cases are Steskal v. TransCanada Keystone Pipeline LP, CI 15-6, Holt County District Court (O’Neill) and Dunavan v. TransCanada Keystone Pipeline LP, CI 15-12, York County District Court (York).
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in federal court in Chicago at aharris16@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net David Glovin, Charles Carter
