Texas and Louisiana should not have built pipelines to the north and northeast.
Oil producing states should have sold their energy abroad and let the cold- climate states buy energy on the open market.

When relatives moved to Illinois, they were surprised to find their natural gas prices lower than in Texas. South Carolina should not have lower gasoline prices than Louisiana. Oil producing states are treated as colonies to be ripped off by the rest of the nation.

I doubt technology or leak potential is relevant to Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. The decision will be purely political.

“And it’s something we all want”. No it’s not . The Dems get boatloads of money and unwavering devotion from groups who believe oil is heroin and the only way to get us off of it is to destroy oil’s viability through high cost and low availability. They believe no matter how much pain it causes, the survival of the planet is at stake. Energy is political power to Obama & the fools who stand with him. Truth and common sense are not relevant to these bastards. The sooner we, all of us, understand we dealing with manifest evil the better. The good of the country may not even be on the list of what motivates these people. In fact, the reverse may be true.

bttt

Keystone is being held up mostly because soros and the arabs make more money without it, period.

The Dems get boatloads of money and unwavering devotion from groups who believe oil is heroin and the only way to get us off of it is to destroy oil’s viability through high cost and low availability.

Allow me, The rich people who control the Dems get boatloads of money from higher oil prices and by funding unwavering devotion from groups who believe oil is heroin and the only way to get us off of it is to destroy oil’s viability through high cost and low availability.

Not only that, but they get to write off the money they spend as "charity" and don't pay taxes on the extra income! It's a tax-exempt energy racketeering system that has gone on for decades.

More than that.

The ranchers in Nebraska have been burned by pipelines before. You don't want a massive spill on your land, and the FedGov coming in and say that the rancher has to deal with it. Or the pumping company pulling out after the leak.

This is right over the biggest aquifer in the US, and the ranchers have a history of getting burned. Honestly, I can't blame them for being paranoid.

Meanwhile, the Canadians will be piping their surplus oil to Vancouver and the waiting Chinese tankers. Hard to pipeline oil, when it’s already sold and gone.

Horse hockey.

By any measure, pipelines are the safest and least environmental damaging way to transport oil, gas or product.

As a Texas landowner who has pipelines across my property, most of the “situations” between rancher/landowners and pipelines are more to do with money.

The solution for the old pipelines ? build new ones next to the old ones.

The aquifer is irrelevant. Check with the Nebraska hydrogeologists. This is about political payoffs. If "Nebraska ranchers" got burned in the past, they needed better lawyers not green weenies and mindless obstructionists.

This is right over the biggest aquifer in the US, and the ranchers have a history of getting burned.

The aquifer is not at risk. Oil is, after all, lighter than water.

And throw in Warren Buffet and his railroads which ship that same oil in a more expensive, more dangerous and more polluting but more politically profitable method.

LOL!

Lets just say you are a bit ignorant of such things. A major oil spill in the aquifer area would cause massive issues. I used to do the risk assessments for a plant on the Ogalla aquifer, and oil containment was a huge concern.

If the leak is underground, it can leach into the soil and the water supply before it is detected. There are a lot of small towns in the area that have contaminated wells because of a leaking underground gas tank (why you can still put those in areas that frost is something I have always wondered about).

Depending on your state (and if you are in Oklahoma I will admit to being ignorant about the regs), next time you fill up walk around the pad and look for little iron or plastic well covers. Those are monitoring wells to find any leaks from the tank. They are checked to see if there is any gas getting into the soil, which can get into the soil water supply. Now, as you say, oil doesn’t have that much affinity to water. But there are things in gas that do.

X you are right. The bigger issue is money, and honestly some who do not want it on their land.

HB, they do have lawyers. I know one personally who is working on the case. They are (as X hinted) looking for a better deal and better assurances that if there is a leak, it doesn’t become the land owners problem.

If it had stayed at that, the deal would not have been political. The other issue is that there are some owners out there who are, lets just say Cali-fornicated. They don’t want the pipeline, or any development, that will bring more jobs into the area. Some like being big fish in a little pond, and come from families dating back to the bad old days when there were range wars (another source of income to the gentleman I know is setting disputes before they become range wars again).

Now, as you say, oil doesn’t have that much affinity to water. But there are things in gas that do.

And the Keystone-XL is a crude oil pipeline, not a products pipeline.

According to the national pipeline map, there is already a web of pipelines across the Sand Hills.

They must have settled the latest East Texas section “dispute”, just saw the crews back burying pipe.

Yes there is. Some have been very poorly maintained. So much so that leaks have happened. A few have been abandoned with oil still in. This leaves a night mare for the land owner to deal with, at the land owners expense.