Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to today's legislation to grant automatic approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, bypassing the legal review process. Today's bill grants immediate authority to Canadian company TransCanada to ``construct, connect, operate, and maintain'' the pipeline as described in their 2012 application to the State Department. However, as the bill itself acknowledges, there are still outstanding issues with that application. Notably, there is no legal route through Nebraska due to an ongoing court case over private property rights and eminent domain. This bill does nothing to resolve that case. It gives blanket approval without knowing what the pipeline route will look like in Nebraska. I am also deeply concerned that tar sands oil, which would be transported in the pipeline, is exempt from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund that is used to respond to leaks and accidents. If there is an accident along this pipeline, taxpayers will be on the hook for cleanup. We need to close that loophole and ensure that the American public is not bearing the risks for TransCanada's pipeline. The State Department continues to review the 2.5 million comments it has received on this project and is awaiting a final route from Nebraska to make its determination on whether this project is in the best interest of the American people. We should allow that process to continue.”