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Reflections on Keystone XL hearings in Nebraska
By Graham Chistensen and Ken Winston
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
"It is hard to put into words how proud I am right now to be a Nebraskan & all the emotions that ran through me yesterday (& Tuesday).
My estimates of the Atkinson crowd was about 1,200. The anti-pipeline folks far outweighed the laborers in orange, who were almost all bused in. Of course you also had a small number of oil boys scattered in through the crowd. Folks from the local area, & from all over the state came to lead the charge. The pro-pipeline repititious arguments of jobs & energy indepence were once again far outdone by the facts, creativity & passion from our side. All age groups were represented & at least 12 Nebraska Farmers Union Members testified (9 more spoke in Lincoln, I am so proud of our members), several whom are landowners directly affected by the KXL Pipeline.
So many thanks to the leaders on this issue: Jane Kleeb (& of course her sidekick Malinda) & all the Bold Folks, Ken Winston & the Sierra Club, State Senator Ken Haar & his amazing leadership, Duane Hvorka of NE Wildlife, my counterparts in the Farmers Union Ben Gotschall & Lynda Buoy, NeFU’s fearless leader & my boss John K. Hansen, the Indiginious & Tribal Members, the national folks that have had faith in us & continued to back our efforts, and everyone else that has been with us through the thick & thin…you know who you are. But most importantly to the local folks that have been directly affected by the heavy-handed ways of TransCanada & all the emotions that they have fought through to do what is not only in their best interests, but in the best interests of all in this great state & country.
When I got home last night just before 3am I was so tired, & still found it hard to crash after the 22 hour marathon day. There was just too many great things that kept popping into my mind. All of the stories I had heard, the vibe, the unity…I even swore I sensed some humbleness in the U.S. State Dept Authorities as they heard one touching story after another.
But when I woke up this late morning I felt ready to keep going, to fight on for what is right, on behalf of all these great people in our State. I hope & pray we win this battle. The momentum is on our side & I don’t see any chance of us folding. I see victory in our future, but even in the chance things don’t go our way, someday I can look back & know for certain that I did what was morally right, & I will remember all of you that believed in this same vision."
- Graham P. Christensen
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"I was never so proud to be a Nebraskan as I was while attending and participating in the hearings in Lincoln and Atkinson this week. More than 1,000 of our people attended each of the hearings, compared with about 250 pro pipeline people in Lincoln and about 150 in Atkinson.
All of our people got there on their own power and the vast majority of the pro-pipeline people were bused in, and most of them were from other states.
Our folks wrote their own testimony and spoke with eloquence and power and authenticity. Local nurse Cindy Myers presented her in-depth research on water and toxins in the tar sands, landowners like Teri Taylor, Susan Luebbe, and Randy Thompson told their stories of harassment by TransCanada, and a young mother who is also an Iraq war vet spoke movingly of her hopes and dreams for her young children. We had Senators Haar and Dubas talking about the need for the State of Nebraska to take action to protect its resources. John Stansbury, the UNL scientist who wrote the worst case report, did a great job attacking the credibility of the FEIS. Ben Gotschall debunked a bunch of TransCanada's lies with his usual eloquence. One after another landowners and local residents showed that they know the land they live on and that they are the real experts on how to preserve and protect the Sandhills. The State Department should heed their message.
The pro-pipeline folks re-ran some of the same testimony they presented on Tuesday, as if they knew it wasn't credible and hoped that repeating it might improve it. Most of the union guys got up and read pre-prepared statements. The representatives from the Platte Institute and AFP and some of the union guys attacked the opponents as being radicals; particularly Bold Nebraska and the Sierra Club. I suggest they are the ones who are being radical, since our position (deny the permit) is the same as Republican Governor Heineman and Republican Senator Mike Johanns. They are also curiously silent about protecting landowners' property rights, while we are the primary advocates for landowners against foreign corporations. They also made snide comments about civil disobedience; I happen to know most of the people from Nebraska who got arrested and I will put their ethics and morals above any of these corporate shills any day of the week.
But all of this didn't just happen. A lot of us worked hard to develop relationships with landowners and local residents, to keep issues alive in the press, to let people know that their voices mattered and to give them a sense of empowerment. I want to give a big shout out to Jane for the amazing work that she is doing and for making Bold into a force to be reckoned with, to John Hansen and Graham Christensen at Farmers Union, to Duane Hovorka at Nebraska Wildlife Federation and Marian Langan at Audubon Nebraska. I also want to recognize people like Ben Gotschall, Malinda Frevert and the other folks with Bold, and Angel Romero and Brittany Crawford with NE Sierra Club for their work.
And we greatly appreciate the support of our national partners, particularly the fact that Nic Callero from NWF was here in Nebraska this week.
I know we have a lot of work to do. There is the DC hearing next week and comments to submitted. We are hard at work trying to get a special session in Nebraska. I am working with landowners to try to get their legal claims heard. We will have more events and more activities to bring our message to the people. We will keep working and fighting this atrocity, as my 14 year old daughter called it."
- Ken Winston of Sierra Club Nebraska
Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline, nebraska
