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Keystone XL fight not over yet: Nebraska State Sen.

The fight over TransCanada's Keystone XL is far from over, argues a Nebraska State Senator who helped oppose it, even though President Barack Obama rejected the pipeline earlier this month.

"There's a political game going on in Washington," Democrat Ken Harr told InsideClimateNews.com in an interview. "We did what we needed to do for Nebraska, and we can't control what's going on in Washington. Now, other forces are going to have to go after it."

When Obama denied a Presidential Permit for Keystone XL, he left TransCanada the opportunity to reapply, assuming it could find a route not affecting Nebraska's sensitive sand-hills region.

Harr, who helped found the Save Our Sandhills coalition, and pushed for a pipeline reroute in the state legislature, said it's only a matter of time before the Keystone XL battle begins anew.

"There's money to be made," he said. "And there's no reason that [TransCanada] can't use much of the study they've already done. They're not going to have to start from scratch."

Harr added: "We talked at one point to the EPA person who sort of had some authority over this, working with the State Department, and she said changes in routes happen all the time, and you don't have to start way at the beginning at the Canadian border all the way down to Texas."

Click here to read award-winning journalist Andrew Nikiforuk's analysis on The Tyee about the larger issues revealed by Obama's recent Keystone XL rejection.

Geoff Dembicki reports on energy and climate issues for The Tyee.

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