TransCanada is suing the United States for not permitting construction of the northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline. Marty Jackley is helping them.
Our Attorney General signed on with the AGs of five other KXL route states (Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas) to an amicus brief submitted Monday in TransCanada v. Kerry et al. (4:16-cv-00036, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas). Jackley et al. contend that the President’s rejection of TransCanada’s application to cross the border with its pipeline infringes on Congress’s authority to regulate interstate and international trade. They recite TransCanada’s debunked lie that building Keystone XL would create 42,000 jobs. And even as TransCanada continues to clean up its 16,800-gallon tar sands oil spill and repair the leaky Keystone 1 pipeline in South Dakota, these friends of TransCanada assert that Keystone XL would be a net benefit for the environment.
This lawsuit is separate from the NAFTA claim that TransCanada has said it intends to file against the U.S. seeking $15 billion in damages for the Keystone XL rejection. But here’s our Attorney General, working on our dime, greasing the wheels of justice for a foreign company that used eminent domain to seize our land and that now wants to take $15 billion out of our hides for a pipeline they didn’t build.
This guy wants to be Governor, right? You other folks who want to be Governor are taking notes on Oil Can Marty, right?
TransCanada made the bad business decision of stockpiling pipe for the Keystone XL before they received all their permits. They had spent untold millions on media ads to bolster their case. They claim that they have spent $3.1 billion on the KXL up to now but will sue the US Government for $15 billion under a NAFTA clause. TransCanada has recently had a pipeline leak of 16,800gallons on the Keystone 1. TransCanada has used the threat of eminent domain to obtain their easements.
All of this and the Daugaard administration is still being a toady for TransCanada. What gives here? Gov. Daugaard’s administration is willing to support a foreign corporation that is threatening to sue the US Government. Wouldn’t that be considered un-American?
I don’t know anything about the legal merits of any of these claims. It is troubling if the Attorney Generals are using dishonest arguments about jobs to make their case. It’s also troubling that TransCanada wants to build this pipeline using substandard foreign pipe. If the company were willing to do things the right way instead of cutting corners it might have won approval.
They say something like “Enemies of my enemies are my friends.” In the case of Jackley, “A friend of our enemies is our enemy.” Jackley has forgotten who elected his sorry ass. I hope everybody will remember this if the line is built and our drinking water is polluted for generations to come.
You can always count on Jackley to do the wrong thing, especially when it will help wealthy people in his party with large fingers in whatever pie is about to be carved.
Jackley is amassing a huge war chest to be the next leader/senator/head crook and liar from the corrupted state of South Dakota. He knows that he does not even have to try very hard to get the Koch moolah. All in the plan. Check out the severe punishment that will be dished out to his kindred spirits, Joop/Short Rounds. Oh, the pain and agony of probable probation while he sits on that sack of seed money. We are a doomed state that is just swell if you are in the in crowd.
http://i.imgur.com/baM5UPG.jpeg
Does Jackley realize that Citizen’s United did not bestow corporate citizenship upon foreign corporations? Does he get to do that hisownself?
Obama should countersue and charge Transcan $1 billion dollars for every linear foot of soil that has one of their pipelines in it.
Jackley doesn’t file court papers w/o being tipped off first. I wonder who told him to get involved?
Ror, you get me thinking: the AG has based his brief in part on evidence from the State Department’s review of KXL’s environmental impact, yet he ignores the State Department’s own assessment that KXL would not produce anything like 42,000 jobs. Can the AG be held legally accountable for citing such demonstrably false information in a court filing?
Southern District Court of Texas is manned by 10 wingnut appointees(including the chief) and 8 Dem appointees. Most appeals are heard by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals out of NOLA- I’m thinking this is the most conservative court of appeals.
Paul, if I were TransCanada, I’d try selling all that pipe to Battelle and the DOE for use as casing in the Deep Borehole Field Test. However, the pipe is too wide (36 inches, and the two holes DOE wants to dig would be 8.5 inches and 17 inches across), and given how easily the steel on Keystone 1 is corroding, I don’t think DOE will want Keystone XL steel encasing any toxic waste.
Can he be held legally accountable? No. Job projection isn’t an exact science. Still there is ample and credible evidence that job creation won’t be anywhere near 42,000, so making that claim will cost the AGs credibility before the court. Will that be the deciding factor in the case? No. The court will shake its head at their tactics but still decide the case on the merits of the legal arguments.
It’s really just a matter of integrity. How can these AGs look themselves in the mirror after making specious arguments that nobody – including the AGs themselves – can possibly believe?
Texas AG is still under indictment,including by the feds, for securities fraud. This could get awkward for him and Texas.
Regarding the 42,000 jobs claim. Of the remaining 1179 miles of the Keystone XL only 875 miles are in the US. So you can reduced the number of American jobs by 25%.
The pipe is, as Corey Goulet has put it, “stacked, racked, and waiting”. So you can subtract these steel workers jobs from the 42,000. This basically leaves the construction workers jobs, 3900 for one year at most, and the jobs for local workers, holding a traffic flag or cleaning up after TransCanada. Almost forgot, maybe they were including the workers hired after a spill such as the one at Freeman.
Eminent domain is the taking of land for public use. What part of Transcanada, a foreign corporation, public? What benefits does the public get from a foreign corporation shipping their junk, untaxed, through America to be refined and shipped overseas to profit a foreign corporation?
I should mention that in the FSEIS that it mentions that the 42,000 jobs are figured in job years. That is it would provide 42,000 jobs if the Keystone XL were built in one year. If it were to take two years it would be 21,000 jobs. Remember that these are seasonal jobs, maybe construction would take place eight, nine months of the year. Construction jobs are figured at 3900 jobs if the pipeline were to be completed in one year.
The FSEIS also mentions that the 42,000 jobs would include spin off jobs. The groceries that were bought or the haircut that was given in Murdo SD would add to this count. They didn’t subtract the groceries not sold or the haircut that wasn’t given in the construction workers hometown. Also the FSEIS included jobs such as when the construction worker took his family to New York and bought tickets to a broadway show. You get the picture.