Special Unicameral pipeline session post-mortem on the $2,000,000 cost to Nebraska taxpayers for new pipeline study for TransCanada

Honey Badger takes a break from a favorite activity: Digging
Screencap: National Geographic Wild

Sometimes the perceptiveness of Kyle Michaelis at New Nebraska Network is so acute that it frightens the AKSARBENT cat (and other times we wonder if he has a blind spot, that being his admission that he has been "agnostic" on the proposed tar sands pipeline. Really? After the leaks on Keystone 1 and the Stansbury Study? Seriously?)
     Anyway he has some sharp and much needed criticism of Speaker Mike Flood and the ever-despicable Chris Langemeier in respect of the recently concluded special Unicameral session. At AKSARBENT we considered the deal between TransCanada and its senatorial minions as something a lobbyist for TransCanada might make if such lobbyist were a cornered, rabid honey badger; i.e., "Pony up a couple million for a new study or we might have our consultants supervise the writing of another one ourselves."
     You'd really be cheating yourself not to read Kyle Michaelis' entire take on the last rites of $2,000,000 of your taxes. Here's as much as we dare to rip off.

...Yes, after years of playing a subservient role to TransCanada and the federal government in the pipeline debate, the state of Nebraska - in this instant - was now firmly in the driver's seat. The people had won.  TransCanada had to listen if it wanted a resolution... 

     And, how did our State Senators respond at this, the very peak of their influence?  The way I see it, Speaker Flood put aside the best interests of Nebraskans and instead invited TransCanada in to tell the Legislature what it could do to keep them happy...

     TransCanada's agreeing to reroute the pipeline away from the Sand Hills was no concession to the people of Nebraska.  It was pure expedience and common sense after the State Department made clear the previous route was a major problem standing in the way of the Keystone XL's approval.  Yet, the particulars of Flood's agreement presuppose that this rerouting was some great sacrifice rather than TransCanada's succumbing to reason and mitigating the risk of outright denial by the Department of State.  

     Flood and his fellow State Senators (with all but a few exceptions) insisted this public funding was the only way to protect the study's integrity because so many questions had been raised about TransCanada's relationship to the  contractor that conducted its federal Environmental Impact Statement.  But, this is a deeply disingenuous argument when complaints about the federal review had nothing at all to do with TransCanada's paying its costs.  Any state study that wouldn't be completed by a company TransCanada had hand-picked - with which it had long-standing business relationships - would have been just as free from conflicts of interest and should have only required sending TransCanada a bill.  After all, it's their company that stands to benefit in the billions of dollars from this pipeline's completion.

     It's ridiculous to think that the Nebraska Legislature would have so much concern about the enforcement of its regulations showing potential favoritism towards TransCanada yet have no such concern over the inherent conflict when that company's representatives were in the room for and had a direct hand in the drafting of those regulations...

     And — guess what — thanks to Mike Flood, Nebraska taxpayers will also be picking up the tab the next time a multi-billion dollar international oil company wants to run a pipeline through our state.

     ...This might be the way business is done in the Legislature, but that business is not the people's.  On past issues, I know that keeping controversies away from the floor has protected some very important progressive priorities.  But, this is more often an illusion, in which the appearance of compromise quiets dissent and masks a selling out of the public interest.  That's precisely what we saw in this Special Session on the issue of pipeline regulation.  

     Of course, Mike Flood won accolades for perpetuating this illusion.  State Senator Chris Langemeier even went so far as declaring the success of the Special Session showed "the Unicam should be a model to all politics around the world."  That's a pretty scary thought considering the political model he refers to is hardly recognizable as democracy.

     One more thing: what AKSARBENT would really like to know is why, if this is really settled, TransCanada continues to run television advertisements claiming that it is impossible for crude oil to penetrate and pollute the aquifer. If they have, in fact, resigned themselves to another route, why do they continue to try to convince Nebraskans that the old one would be just fine? We smell a rat.