(DTN) -- TransCanada has filed a complaint against the United States, claiming the more than seven-year delay before rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline route through South Dakota and Nebraska was in violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The company is seeking through a NAFTA tribunal some $15 billion in damages as a result of lost revenues.
Environmental groups, farmers and ranchers fought TransCanada tooth and nail for years to stop the building of the pipeline through sensitive habitats across the Nebraska Sandhills, for fear that any pipeline breaches could harm the environment.
In a claim the company filed officially last weekend, TransCanada said it believes the Obama administration made the decision to reject the pipeline based on politics, breaking from the norm when it comes to other similar projects.
"At the time Keystone submitted its applications, the express policy of the United States was to expedite the development of energy production and transmission projects, including oil pipelines," the company said in its complaint.
"That remains the official policy of the United States even today, despite the denials of Keystone's applications...Claimants and Keystone legitimately expected that the state department would process Keystone's application for a presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline within these general parameters. For political reasons, however, the state department refused to expedite the processing of Keystone's applications, and ultimately took over seven years to make a decision..."
The company said the Keystone proposal was not "controversial" when it was first proposed back in 2008. That changed as a result of a number of oil-related accidents.
"Concocting an argument that denying the proposed pipeline would halt or slow development of the Canadian oil sands, environmental organizations seized on the Keystone XL pipeline as a rallying point to energize the activist community," the company said in the complaint.
Within hours after the NAFTA complaint became official, one of those environmental activist groups, BOLD Nebraska, began to rally followers to protest the company and to sign a pledge on the group's website, http://act.boldnebraska.org/….
The group took the occasion to call out NAFTA and ongoing negotiations in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
"Under our bad international trade deal (NAFTA), TransCanada is suing all U.S. taxpayers for 'lost revenue' due to President Obama's rightful rejection of the company's risky, export pipeline that used eminent domain to take farmers' and ranchers' land, and bought off politicians to try to garner support for an unnecessary, climate-wrecking, water-polluting project," BOLD Nebraska says on the pledge.
"Under the secret court systems set up under trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP, citizens do not even get to engage in the legal process," BOLD Nebraska stated on its website. "In this case, TransCanada gets to have their $15 billion claim heard behind closed doors, and even pick one of the three judges who will decide the case. Trade deals like NAFTA and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are bad for farmers, ranchers, Indigenous Nations, and religious communities -- and these trade deals are bad for all of our water and property rights."
Jane Kleeb, president of Bold Alliance and recently elected chairman of the Democratic Party in Nebraska, said the president's decision to reject the pipeline was his way of standing with agriculture interests.
"President Obama stood with farmers, ranchers and Tribal Nations when he rejected the risky KXL pipeline," she said in a statement.
"TransCanada has no right to sue the American people on the terms of us standing up for property rights and the impacts of climate change. Since NAFTA, just like TPP, are governed by secret courts, we will be in the streets standing up for the American values of property rights and clean water and standing up to the TransCanada bullies."
Michael Brune, Sierra Club executive director, said the TransCanada action is a reason why Congress should reject the TPP
"TransCanada's attempt to make American taxpayers hand over more than $15 billion because the company's dirty Keystone XL pipeline was rejected shows exactly why NAFTA was wrong and why the even more dangerous and far-reaching Trans-Pacific Partnership must be stopped in its tracks," he said in a statement.
TransCanada first submitted an application to build Keystone on Sept. 19, 2008, asking the U.S. State Department for a presidential permit. The administration sat on the application for more than three years and Congress passed legislation to force the agency to act on the application within 60 days.
On Jan. 18, 2012, the State Department denied the application claiming it needed more time beyond the 60 days to make a decision. The company was then free to submit another application for a permit and did so on May 4, 2012. The State Department denied that application more than three years later on Nov. 6, 2015.