10 Thoughts About the Keystone XL Ruling.

1. The Nebraska Supreme Court let a Nebraska law stand, allowing for the governor to dictate the path of the Keystone XL pipeline. But it was done so, through a crazy technicality. See #2.
2. Technically speaking, the court ruled 4-3 that the suing landowners subject to eminent domain under this controversial Nebraska law, had standing in court to sue the government. Good ruling, I think. But there was a second part to this -- see #3.
3. Technically speaking, not a single member of the Nebraska Supreme Court voted that the Nebraska law was constitutional. Three of them failed to register a vote on that particular issue, while the other four of the seven-member body voted that the law was unconstitutional. Nebraska requires a super-majority of 5 votes to overturn constitutional issues. If all three who did not vote, voted, they still would have won since the other side did not establish a super-majority of 5 votes to overturn.  This implies that at least one of the three who did not vote, would have voted to overturn the law, but that because they did not vote on the issue, the law could not be overturned. Weird, right?
4. But here's the kicker about the law itself. Presumably, the people pushing the XL in the first place are conservatives. Conservatives are the angriest folks when it comes to observing private land owner rights. But here they -- conservatives  -- were, pushing to use eminent domain to seize private land!
5. But wait, it's worse than that! Not only did conservatives decide to use the power of government to seize private land, but they did so at the interests of a foreign corporation! That's a double-wow, right? Just imagine if President Obama demanded that a law be passed at the behest of a foreign investor, to seize private lands.
6. This pipeline extension, amazingly, will go right through an aquifer. But that's not the scary part about it -- see #7.
7. The really scary part about this pipeline, is that the tar sands from Canada are already flowing in the Keystone I pipeline. In just over a year from when it started flowing in 2011, there were 14 spills! But wait, it's worse than that -- see #8.
8. Tar sand oil pipelines are 3.6x more likely to spill oil from a leak. You betcha, an environmental catastrophe is waiting to happen.
9. Were Keystone XL to be built, the price margin between Brent and WTI will disappear and midwesterners used to lower gasoline and oil heating prices (compared to the US average) will be in for a shock. The oil is going to the Gulf Coast for a reason, and it's not to refine for local consumption!
10. But the lawsuits aren't over, yet, by a long shot. Because of the wide-ranging issue of the use of eminent domain for what is a marginally beneficial project for locals in Nebraska, and because the vast majority of the benefits will go to a foreign corporation, you can damn well expect this to move upwards, eventually, to SCOTUS. Unless the conservative members of SCOTUS are willing to do backflips on their prior positions on the loose use of eminent domain, I'd expect the Nebraska law to be overturned.