Incoming President Joe Biden plans to end the Keystone XL Pipeline project within days of being sworn in on January 20, 2021.
The multibillion-dollar pipeline has spurred more than a decade of controversy and fierce opposition over its proposal to transport crude oil and diluted bitumen from the oil sands of Canada to refineries in the U.S. Gulf Coast. This includes legal challenges raised by courageous Nebraska landowners who feared the pipeline would have devastating effects on their land and the environment.
As noted in a recent article from The Washington Post, Attorney Brian Jorde and Domina Law have been representing landowners who refused to accept TC Energy’s attempts to invoke eminent domain laws and expropriate private property with compensation for owners. Over the course of 11 years, these brave landowners and our law firm have filed 144 lawsuits and 225 appeals in opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Those efforts have paid off, with the Biden Administration likely to end the Keystone XL project shortly after President-Elect Biden takes office.
The move to end the Keystone XL pipeline is a major victory, and was made possible thanks to the commitment of these landowners and ongoing legal battles that produced significant obstacles for TC Energy, challenged the legality of the approval process used by the Nebraska Public Service Commission to authorize the pipeline’s route, and created an opportunity for the issue to get in front of a new administration.
Though President Trump took action intended to permit the pipeline's completion just three days after taking office in 2017, these efforts caused the project to remain bogged down in courts and by the Nebraska Public Service Commission throughout his term. Nebraska was the only state where such legal battles were put outside of the federal cases.
After a decade of working hand-in-hand with Nebraska farmers and landowners who courageously stepped forward to protect their land, Domina Law is emboldened by reports of the Biden Administration’s plans to end the Keystone XL Pipeline project and views the decision as a long-awaited victory. We thank all those who placed their trust in our firm to represent them in this historic matter, and look forward to a formal announcement from the Biden administration in the coming days.
Read more about the Biden Administration’s plan to end the pipeline project and Domina Law’s representation of landowners from The Washington Post, or find information about our firm’s work in the Keystone XL Pipeline litigation on our website.