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" I believe that last night I made a point that, if the president were sincere in the perfectly justified contempt he showed in his inaugural address toward politicians who traffic in climate-change denial, one way he could prove it would be to put the final kibosh on the Keystone XL pipeline, the Republican fetish-object meant to bring the world&amp;#039;s dirtiest fossil fuel down the spine of the continent and within leaking range of the Oglalla aquifer, the most important source of freshwater in this part of the hemisphere. On Tuesday, thanks to a whopping flip-flop by Nebraska governor Dave Heineman, the ball&amp;#039;s firmly in the president&amp;#039;s court. Heineman approved a new route for the pipeline through Nebraska that, he says, avoids the environmentally delicate Sandhills region. The problem is that even the new route still passes through part of the aquifer, which is a masterpiece of bait-and-switch by Heineman, and by TransCanada, the Canadian firm to create the hellspout highway. Last August, Heineman asked the president to deny the original route because it passed through the aquifer. Now, it&amp;#039;s about bypassing the Sandhills and declaring that you have become environmentally sensitive in the interim. Heineman said previously that he would oppose any pipeline route through the Sandhills region. In his letter to Obama, he said the new 195-mile route through Nebraska avoids the Sandhills but would still cross part of the aquifer. Heineman said any spills would be localized, and the clean-up responsibilities would fall to TransCanada. I have an enormous amount of faith in any massive energy company as regards to the latter points, don&amp;#039;t you? Whatever, Heineman has handed the whole issue to the White House and if, as has been said, the president tossed his cap over the wall on Monday, then he&amp;#039;s already got a climb ahead of him. This is a put-up-or-shut-up deal and, I suspect, the first of many. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a17234/the-president-and-the-pipeline/>