TransCanada gets Keystone XL approval—but there’s a catch

Nebraska regulators rejected the pipeline builders preferred route, but ok’d an alternative, handing the company a complicated victory

Nebraska's Public Service Commission cleared a path for TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline on Monday when it granted final approval in a narrow 3-2 vote for the line to pass through the state, removing a major regulatory barrier for the project.  The approval, though, came with a hitch. The Commission rejected TransCanada's preferred route for the project, as well as the original one which would have passed through the ecologically sensitive Sandhills region, instead approving the "alternative mainline route". The alternative mainline route would send Keystone XL, which aims to ship 0.83m barrels a day of heavy oil from Canada's oil sands to the Gulf Coast, into counties further eas