Did TransCanada Lie?

A judge has halted construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas in result of the newest lawsuit that had come out of the Keystone XL debacle. A Texas resident is claiming that TransCanada, the company behind the pipe, lied to Texans when it said it would be using the Keystone XL pipeline to transport crude oil.

The pipeline will be designed to carry tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast through Texas. Although the pipe requires permission from Obama to cross country lines - which is denied last year, inter-country has begun.

As we reported earlier this month, an appeals court ruled that TransCanada could use eminent- domain law to seize land in Texas to build the Keystone XL pipeline. This left many Texans asking, "What is eminent domain?" They soon realized, however, that it meant the the state could physically take their property and hand it over to TransCanada.

One such resident, Michael Bishop, who had has land taken for the construction of the pipeline, wanted to check the validity of the taking. A Texas judge examined the plea, and ordered TransCanada to temporarily discontinue working on the private property where it has been building part of an oil pipeline for a two-week injunction.

The previous court case ruled that tar sands oil are a form of crude oil, which is a common carrier that pipelines are allowed to use eminent domain to carry. However, tar sands oil does not meet the definition as outlined in Texas and federal statutory codes which define crude oil as “liquid hydrocarbons extracted from the earth at atmospheric temperatures. When tar sands are extracted in Alberta, Canada, the material is almost a solid, and can only be in liquid form when heated and melted down.

TransCanada had not mentioned that the tar sands would be refined. This not only violates the orginal definition, but now environmentalists are concerned that if the pipeline leaks or spill occurs, the heavy tar sands will contaminate water and land - as tar sands are more difficult to clean than is regular crude oil. In addition, refining the product will further air pollution in the Gulf Coast.

Since the onset of the pipeline design, several landowners across the country - not just in Texas - have brought lawsuits to the courts to fight the company’s land condemnations. In the majority of the cases, construction has been allowed to resume despite injunctions held prior. In such cases, the landowner is awarded compensation for their land. Several times, such as for Bishop, the landowners can not afford to hire a comdemnation attorney and are forced to settle.

Texas judge rules Keystone pipeline has eminent domain

TransCanada, the Canadian energy company behind the Keystone XL pipeline can take over land owned by independent Texas farmers, a county judge has ruled. In a short ruling sent from his iPhone, Judge Bill Harris of Lamar County Court upheld TransCanada’s condemnation lawyer of a 50-foot strip of land across Julia Trigg Crawford’s ranch property. The pipeline is being built to carry oil from Canada to Texas refineries.

A defiant Crawford said plans to appeal the ruling. “We may have lost this one battle here in Paris, Texas, but we are far from done,” she said in a written statement. “I will continue to proudly stand up for my own personal rights, the property rights of my family, and those of other Texans fighting to protect their land.”

The ruling by Judge Bill Harris removes yet another potential obstacle for TransCanada, which already has permits from the Army Corps of Engineers for the southern leg of the pipeline, which starts in Cushing, Okla., and runs to Port Arthur, Texas. TransCanada has said it will start building as soon as possible.

In March, President Obama endorsed the construction of the southern leg of the pipeline. He said it would alleviate a supply bottleneck at Cushing, where the benchmark price of oil is set for the U.S. market.

The ruling is the latest legal victory for TransCanada, whose plan to transport heavy oil sands crude through a 1,600-kilometer pipeline across the United States to Texas Gulf Coast refineries has been mired in controversy nearly every step of the way.

But some landowners and environmental groups have been building a campaign to put a halt to construction because of the threat a petroleum leak might pose to rivers, wetlands and humans.

Crawford had asserted that the Keystone XL pipeline was not entitled to eminent domain attorney because the pipeline would not be a common carrier, open to a variety of oil companies. She said that as a private project, it needed to negotiate rights of way without compelling landowners to enter agreements.

The Keystone project took a political tone when Republicans in Congress forced a two-month deadline on President Barack Obama to sign off on the international pipeline. Mr. Obama rejected TransCanada’s proposed route earlier this year, suggesting it direct the pipeline around a sensitive aquifer in Nebraska’s Sandhills region. But he encouraged the company to pursue in the meantime a shorter project from Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast.