This is not looking good for those of us who actually have a little foresight, learn from past disasters, and care more about long term environmental issues and the health and well being of our fellow earth inhabitants than we do about profit.

The L.A. Times:

The on-again, off-again Keystone XL pipeline gained new traction in Nebraska on Wednesday.

State legislators authorized the state Department of Environmental Quality to begin evaluating options for a new route outside the sensitive Nebraska Sandhills, the marshy hills and grasslands that lie atop the nation’s most important agricultural aquifer.

Critics of the pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, say the legislation amounts to a rubber stamp for TransCanada.

Social media folks, you know what to do, and everyone needs to get on the phone and make a stink about this. It may not work, but then again, it just may.

The new measure instead allows the Department of Environmental Quality to study the route. It also allows the governor — who has already said he wants the pipeline to go forward, as long as it avoids the Sandhills — to decide whether to approve or deny it.

Gov. Dave Heineman is expected to sign the bill into law, though opponents already are considering the possibility of constitutional challenges.

Jane Kleeb of Bold Nebraska, a citizens group fighting the pipeline, said that the bill would allow TransCanada to use eminent domain to acquire rights of way even from ranchers who oppose the pipeline.

Grab a Tums or a bottle of anything alcoholic and read the rest here.