On Wednesday the Obama administration denied a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline project. TransCanada, the company behind the proposal, hopes to build a 1,700 mile pipeline that will carry oil from the tar sands of Canada to the refineries lining the Gulf Coast along Texas. Although it will cost $ 7 billion to build, TransCanada claims the project will create ten of thousands of jobs. Environmentalist are most concerned about the water supply in ecologically sensitive in Nebraska’s Sand Hills region, which TransCanada claims it has addressed by creating a new proposal that circumvents the Sand Hills. Dr. M. Ray Perryman, an economist and financial analyst, is the author of “The Impact of Developing the Keystone XL Pipeline Project on Business Activity in the U.S.”
Randy Thompson is a landowner in Nebraska whose land will be directly affected by the Keystone project and who is the face of the anti-pipeline campaign, “Stand with Randy.”