By Bill Kelly, Senior Producer/Reporter, NET News
What are the issues to be decided?
Four parties are appealing the decision by the Public Service Commission. Around 90 landowners make up one group. The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and South Dakota’s Yankton Sioux Tribe filed two separate objections. The environmental group Sierra Club filed a separate complaint. The landowners are seeking to throw out the PSC’s approval, in a close 3-2 vote, of the so-called “mainline alternative” route. Their attorneys make the case, in briefs filed in advance of the hearing, TransCanada didn’t formally seek approval for that route, and presented a majority of its evidence for a different “preferred” route.
Opponents argue because no substantive evidence was presented in its original application or during days of public hearings the process must start anew with fresh evidence defending the “mainline alternative.” There are also claims by the landowners that the process used by the state was flawed from the start and TransCanada did not advance its application to the PSC in an appropriate manner. Read more here.
NET Photo: Nebraska Supreme Court Chambers
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