Keystone XL Pipeline Research Articles

Pipeline emergency preparedness in Nebraska: Identifying interagency preparedness gaps and proposing solutions.

In Nebraska, there are over 28,000 miles of pipelines that carry various materials, which could impact human health and the natural environment in the event of a leak or spill. Nebraska is heavily reliant on its expansive groundwater supply from the large High Plains aquifer system as well as smaller secondary aquifers. Eighty-eight percent of Nebraska's population utilizes groundwater for personal use, and the state's agricultural sector depends on it for irrigation and livestock care. The ongoing challenges facing the implementation of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline system inspired re-searchers to examine the current state of pipeline emergency preparedness in Nebraska. To do this, a pipeline emergency preparedness workshop was held in November 2021 in Norfolk, Nebraska. Conference participants in-cluded county- and regional-level leadership, local public health departments, tribal representatives, and other organizations. Pipeline emergency responders and other stakeholders were invited to listen to plenary presenta-tions about inland oil spill responses and the current state of Nebraska pipelines and to participate in a facilitated discussion identifying pipeline response challenges and potential solutions. Through a facilitated discussion process, participants identified six general response challenge categories and 24 potential solutions. From those 24 solutions, three were selected as easily implementable solutions-increased joint/coordinated planning, increased pipeline emergency exercising, and increased pipeline emergency train-ing/education. Implementing this work will assist in reducing health risks associated with potential spills.

We Are the Land: Reflections on KXL Resistance at Rootz Camp

This essay reflects on the efforts of a group of Lakota land and water protectors to resist the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, within the larger context of the Indigenous sovereignty, land-back, and climate-justice movements across North America. These protectors articulate their struggles by speaking to what Leanne Simpson and others have referred to as a politics of Indigenous “radical resurgence” and by fighting violent and ongoing dispossession through attempts to reject a politics of recognition or sanction from the U.S. settler-colonialist state, an approach that embodies possibility through radical Indigenous thought and practice. The essay documents this antecapitalist epistemology by describing acts of resistance at Rootz Camp over a several-month period. The essay illustrates how such efforts go beyond simply resisting or existing outside of capitalism but rather seek to vision and build an alternative.

The Evolution of Economic Relations Between the USA and Canada: The Interdependence of the Two Economies

The paper presents the results of the study of the evolution of economic relations between the United States and Canada, since 1989. The agreements regulating the economic relations of these countries among themselves and with other trading partners. An economic and statistical study of Canada’s exports to Latin America and the Caribbean and imports from them was carried out. Both Canada and the United States have become leaders in creating an open and free space based on the principles of multilateral trade. The main characteristics of the free trade zone are mutual concessions in terms of access to markets for services and goods; discipline in terms of trade restrictions; the use of dispute settlement mechanisms. Nevertheless, some researchers question the effectiveness of this trading system. US President Joe Biden promises to take measures to intensify bilateral cooperation, but Canadians are concerned about his decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline project. The commitment of the American president to the policy of “buying American” also causes some unrest. The above determines the relevance of considering the issue related to economic cooperation between the United States and Canada in modern conditions. The following research methods were used in the work: the normative method and the method of political analysis.

Explaining Contentious Energy Policy

The Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline is one of the most polarised examples of contemporary American energy politics. The pipeline policy process has not been stable, so it should be analysed over time via a holistic, historical view of interacting dimensions. Robert Cox’s theoretical notions of the “materials–ideas–institutions” balance are drawn upon to understand how actors’ motivations behind policy development were re-shaped through temporal processes over nearly two decades. A critical feature identified is how such interacting dimensions became significant according to specific US presidential administrations: each, in turn, shifting the direction of decision-making around KXL. The article’s originality lies in operationalising the theory to give an alternative, dynamic explanation for policy motivations around the KXL while also establishing a novel theoretical lens to generally view such policy development.

Indian Country Post McGirt: Implications for Traditional Energy Development and Beyond

The decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma is being heralded as the most important Indian law decision of the last 100 years, as it affirmed the reservation boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Reservation – an area long considered by many to be under Oklahoma’s jurisdiction. Yet, following release of the Court’s decision, the outcry from the oil and gas industry was almost instantaneous, as roughly twenty five percent of Oklahoma’s oil and gas well and sixty percent of its oil refineries are impacted by the Court’s decision. Additionally, the territory affected by the Court’s decision also includes pipelines crucial to the successful operation of the nationwide Keystone XL pipeline. While the Court was clear that its holding was limited to criminal jurisdiction under the Major Crimes Act, the decision nonetheless has broader implications for Indian country, including natural resource development and regulatory framework. Because the oil and gas industry will now have to work with tribes and the federal government instead of favorable state officials, industry officials decry the Court’s decision as being detrimental to the industry. But what exactly will be the impact of the Court’s McGirt decision on the oil and gas industry, and the natural resources development in Indian country more broadly? While the full impacts of the Court’s decision are only beginning to unfold, this Article seeks to answer the questions left hanging by the Court’s decision as they relate to traditional energy development. This Article explores the future impacts of the McGirt decision on traditional energy development. The second Part of the article summarizes the legal background that governs oil and gas development in Indian country. Part three provides an in-depth analysis of McGirt—first, describing its predecessor, Sharp v. Murphy, followed by an explanation of McGirt and its holding. The article concludes by discussing future implications of McGirt, including what it means for oil and gas development going forward as well as collateral effects. The article constitutes an important scholarly contribution as it answers important questions left open after the Court’s decision and explains how the Court’s decision has broader implications for Indian country and natural resource development generally.

Grassroots resistance to energy project encroachment: Analyzing environmental mobilization against the Keystone XL Pipeline

ABSTRACTThe rapid expansion of the oil and gas industry, driven by intentional energy policy decisions which unlock growth, represents a distinct threat to community safety. In response to this encroaching energy landscape, localized mobilizations have emerged. While the tactics of these social movements are important, this article focuses on their concern of protecting shared natural resources. Using the grassroots opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline in rural Nebraska as a case study, we highlight how neoliberal policies and environmentally risky energy projects have facilitated civil society coalition-building to protect natural resources and fight climate change. Historically, social movements have been driven by strong civic activism and progressive organizsing efforts. This article asks: are localized, goal-oriented movements more likely to form stronger civic ties than the greater environmental movement? Landowner concern about the risks associated with pipeline were not enough to mobilize farmers, ranchers, and concerned citizens; it took the organizing efforts of the grassroots civil society organization Bold Nebraska to unify landowners and communities along the pipeline’s route. Utilizing extensive fieldwork focused on the Keystone XL opposition movement in Nebraska, this study argues that environmental movements based on local coalitions have the potential to fortify future environmental protection.

Forks in the Road: Energy Policies in Canada and the US since the Shale Revolution

ABSTRACT This article examines policy responses in Canada and the US to the shale revolution and changing North American oil and gas markets. We outline the effect of the shale revolution on North American oil and gas markets, and how the subsequent energy policy choices in each country changed the relationship between Canada and the US. In the US, increasing production, combined with the policy imperative of maintaining energy security, led to less support for Canadian supply and the subsequent on-off-on saga of the Keystone XL pipeline. In Canada, growing concern about the balance between the environment and the economy led to stalled pipeline development and reform of regulatory systems, problems exacerbated by the new policy direction in the US.

It's Party Time

It's Party Time David Duhalde (bio) Over the past four years, I've had the privilege to work for two of the national organizations that took advantage of the political energy unleashed by Bernie Sanders's 2016 run for president. I first served as deputy director of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and then as political director of Our Revolution. The two groups take quite different approaches to the critical question of how, or whether, to work inside the Democratic Party to turn it into a principled, social democratic force. Our Revolution, which was created by the energy and core staff of the Sanders campaign, is dedicated to transforming the party. DSA, on the other hand, avoids engaging with internal party processes in any organized way. Our Revolution is following a more long-term and more promising approach: if you want to elect leftists to office across the nation, you have to take part in the internal workings of the mass organization that can make that possible. Strategically and realistically, if you do not engage in the Democratic Party, its apparatus will easily and continually be turned on you. To paraphrase Leon Trotsky: you may not be interested in the Democratic leadership, but they're interested in you. Our Revolution Bernie Sanders launched Our Revolution via a livestream from Burlington, Vermont, a month after the end of the 2016 Democratic National Convention. The nonprofit eventually grew to a handful of state committees, several hundred local affiliates, and over a quarter-million members. It focused on three arenas of struggle: passing transformative legislation such as Medicare for All, supporting progressive candidates up and down the ballot, and gaining a measure of power in the Democratic Party at all levels. After the contentious and sometimes nasty contest for the 2016 nomination had ended, convention delegates established a Unity Reform Commission (URC) to bring more transparency to party affairs and open the primaries to more voters. The URC was born out of a resolution that addressed the [End Page 119] Click for larger view View full resolution Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders in October 2019 (Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images) concerns of many Sanders delegates that closed primaries, superdelegates, and party financing, among other issues, had unfairly slanted the primary in favor of Hillary Clinton. One of my first duties at Our Revolution, under the leadership of our chair, Larry Cohen, was to facilitate grasstops support—often but not solely consisting of pro-Sanders organizations—for the reform effort to codify the URC recommendations into party rules. After a nearly two-year-long internal campaign led by Sanders supporters, the DNC voted to retain superdelegates but only allow them to vote if the nomination battle goes beyond the first ballot. In addition, state parties were encouraged to open their primaries to independents, and fiduciary oversight was increased. Beyond reforming the national party, Our Revolution began to compete for state and local party offices. Jane Kleeb, an Our Revolution board member, was one of the most successful cases. Raised a Republican, she began voting Democratic in the 1990s but became a dedicated environmentalist during the George W. Bush administration. This decade, she joined the movement against the Keystone XL pipeline that threatened the water table in her home state of Nebraska. Kleeb was impressed by Sanders's strong backing of this movement effort by green and Native American activists against corporate power. In the spring of 2016, Kleeb helped him win the state's caucuses by nearly fifteen points and then got elected chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party. [End Page 120] In December 2016, members of Our Revolution began a series of similar campaigns to take power in the infrastructure of local Democratic parties. The effort in New York state was one of the most extensive. After the 2016 convention, a group of Sanders delegates decided to form the New York Progressive Action Network (NYPAN). One of their primary goals was to reform the state's voter registration law that forced residents who had been independents to switch their registration half a year in advance to vote in the Democratic primary. Under pressure from NYPAN and other progressive groups...

Unruly Rhetorics: Protest, Persuasion, and Publics ed. by Jonathan Alexander, Susan Jarratt, and Nancy Welch

Reviewed by: Unruly Rhetorics: Protest, Persuasion, and Publics ed. by Jonathan Alexander, Susan Jarratt, and Nancy Welch Matt Whitaker Unruly Rhetorics: Protest, Persuasion, and Publics. Edited by Jonathan Alexander, Susan Jarratt, and Nancy Welch. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. ix + 316 pp. Contributors, index. $32.95, paper. Protest has become an increasingly salient part of public life in the Great Plains. The resistance at Standing Rock Reservation, the Keystone XL pipeline protests, the teacher walkouts in Oklahoma—these events warrant the attention of scholars, inviting us to take seriously the use of disruptiveness as a rhetorical tactic and catalyst for social change. Unruly Rhetorics: Protest, Persuasion, and Publics, edited by Johnathan Alexander, Susan Jarratt, and Nancy Welch, offers a timely meditation on these very issues, as it seeks to uncover the communicative possibilities of protest at a time when the most strident forms of activism are dismissed as "uncivil." In the introduction, Alexander and Jarratt establish a guiding framework for the book, writing that rhetorical unruliness "marks how speech, action, and bodies coalesce in time and space, enacting the work of politics" in ways that disrupt the flow of everyday life (13). Situating their study at the intersection of continental philosophy and queer rhetorics, the authors draw from the work of Jacques Rancier and Judith Butler, theorizing political action as an embodied rhetorical performance inherent to the order and function of democracy itself. Their approach foregrounds not only written and verbal expressions of dissent but also embodied forms like dancing, marching, singing, and even playing. In these fifteen carefully crafted chapters, readers will find plenty of philosophical wrangling about the nature of protest in a society that has become increasingly hostile toward it, and yet each chapter is grounded in a specific case study. The book, then, reads less like a theoretical treatise and more like a series of snapshots, each revealing a moment in time where activism, politics, and public assembly converge. Organized into three sections on embodiment, civility wars, and the limits and potentials of unruliness, the book surveys various sites of rhetoric-in-action, exploring instances of unrest like the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Arab Spring, and student sit-ins at Syracuse University. Authors of these chapters include notable figures from the field of rhetoric and composition such as John Trimbur, Kevin Mahoney, and Dana Cloud. Some of the book's contents deal directly with Plains-related protests. In chapter 2, "Walking with Relatives: Indigenous Bodies of Protest," Joyce Rain Anderson analyzes the resistance campaign Idle No More, a movement against infrastructural projects like the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines. She discusses how the rhetorical tactics of Idle No More bring Native bodies into public consciousness, thereby making visible their precarity in the face of cultural exploitation. Similarly, in chapter 5, "SlutWalk Is Not Enough: Notes Toward a Critical Feminist Rhetoric," Jacqueline Rhodes argues that while SlutWalk, as an act of protest, offers a stinging rebuke to sexism, victim-blaming, and entrenched patriarchal culture, it ultimately fails to bring about an inclusive feminism where intersectional differences are valued and contextualized. Themes of embodiment, civility, and public space extend across the book, animating its various chapters. While most authors take up protests outside the Great Plains, readers should have no trouble extending the book's [End Page 178] insights to those occurring within. Unruly Rhetorics is not only compelling reading, but also vital in understanding how the circulation of critical perspectives depends upon rhetorical disruptiveness. Discussions like these are particularly resonant in today's times when critical perspectives are often constrained by political power and economic privatization, to the detriment of our democracy. [End Page 179] Matt Whitaker English Department University of Nebraska–Lincoln Copyright © 2020 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Legal Options to Stop the Revival of Keystone XL Pipeline

The construction and operation of the international pipeline well-known as Keystone XL would potentially contribute to the “game over of climate”. With a focus on combating climate change, the Obama Administration denied the permit application for the Keystone XL. After Trump took presidency, Keystone XL was revived as a result of the administration’s energy dominance policies. Indigenous activists joined by environmental groups have been resisting the revival. This article explores legal options to stop the revival of Keystone XL, consisting of legislative, regulatory and judicial actions at both federal and state levels within the U.S., and legal responses at the international level.

Investigation of Combustion Properties and Soot Deposits of Various US Crude Oils

The oil boom in the North Dakota oilfields has resulted in improved energy security for the US. Recent estimates of oil production rates indicate that even completion of the Keystone XL pipeline will only fractionally reduce the need to ship this oil by rail. Current levels of oil shipment have already caused significant strain on rail infrastructure and led to crude oil train derailments, resulting in loss of life and property. Treating crude oil as a multicomponent liquid fuel, this work aims to understand crude oil droplet burning and thereby lead to methods to improve train fire safety. Sub-millimeter sized droplets of Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado, and Bakken crude were burned, and the process was recorded with charge-couple device (CCD) and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) high-speed cameras. The resulting images were post-processed to obtain various combustion parameters, such as burning rate, ignition delay, total combustion time, and microexplosion behavior. The soot left behind was analyzed using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). This data is expected be used for validation of combustion models for complex multicomponent liquid fuels, and subsequently in the modification of combustion properties of crude oil using various additives to make it safer to transport.

Nullify, Postpone, Suspend, Stay, and Replace: The Trump Administration and the Methane Waste Prevention Rule

The words nullify, postpone, suspend, stay, and replace encapsulate the actions taken during the first two years of the Trump Administration to reverse existing environment and energy policies. Although President Trump’s policy initiatives have touched on a variety of issues, such as coal, wetlands, air quality, and public lands, this article focuses on one particular rule promulgated during the Obama Administration: the 2016 methane waste prevention rule (MWPR). To provide context, Part I briefly reviews how the executive branch can act to change existing laws, regulations, and policies. Parts II and III describe the 2016 methane waste prevention rule and efforts of the Trump Administration to nullify, postpone, suspend, stay, and replace the rule. While efforts to suspend or delay “Obama rules” have achieved mixed results, in most instances the courts have not yet determined whether President Trump’s replacement regulations will be upheld under the “arbitrary and capricious” standard of review set forth in the Administrative Procedure Act. Part IV discusses whether the Bureau of Land Management’s 2018 rule, which replaces the 2016 MWPR, is a lawful agency action. Part IV also looks at Indigenous Environmental Network v. United States Department of State, a federal district court decision that held the State Department engaged in unlawful agency action when it disregarded prior factual findings and reversed course regarding the Keystone XL pipeline project. Indigenous Environmental Network could be a harbinger of future court decisions that will likewise strike down attempts by the Trump Administration to reverse and replace environmental and energy policies.

The metanarrative of rural environmentalism: Rhetorical activism in Bold Nebraska’s Harvest the Hope

The ongoing, decade-long fight against the Keystone XL Pipeline in the state of Nebraska has incorporated traditional levers of public relations such as media relations and lobbying but has also borrowed from the long-standing tradition of rhetorical activism within U.S. environmental history. Through Fisher’s narrative paradigm, a rhetorical analysis of Bold Nebraska’s Harvest the Hope music festival is provided to understand the role of symbolic appeals in building an environmental activism metanarrative or master frame. Such an analysis shows how the social movement organization communicates to its members and mass audiences through a non-traditional communication approach such as the benefit rock concert. As a site of public relations study, Bold Nebraska’s music festival activism draws from mainstream, alternative, and Indigenous cultural artifacts, symbols, and histories in contesting existing metanarratives. With its incorporation of historical ecological symbols and rhetorical tropes, Harvest the Hope helped attendees and audiences make sense of both the organization and the movement in which they found themselves a part of. By bringing rural and Indigenous communities together, it justified Bold Nebraska’s broader pipeline activism and helped audiences see the project through the lens of a broader, rural-based coalition.

US judge blocks construction of controversial Keystone XL pipeline

Court finds that the government ignored the project’s potential effects on climate change. Court finds that the government ignored the project’s potential effects on climate change.

Developing an Empirical Pipeline and Rail Crude Oil Mode Split and Route Assignment Model

In recent years, improvements in pipeline capacities and connectivity have been inhibited by environmental and political concerns (e.g., the Dakota and Keystone XL pipeline expansion projects). This has resulted in a greater dependency on rail transport, and this modal shift of crude oil from pipeline to rail is likely to become more pronounced in the future. Therefore, there is a need to assess the impacts of future changes in pipeline/rail network connectivity, modal attributes, and shipment protocols, on the expected pattern of crude oil shipments. This paper presents a rule-based mode split and route assignment model that reflects real-world allocation, assignment, and apportionment rules. The decision-making process underlying this model is the shipper, who is prioritized by the carrier when there is limited pipeline capacity available. The proposed algorithm allows for the inclusion of crude oil shipments and the pipeline network into conventional freight demand models by capturing the complex interactions of crude shippers, pipeline carriers, and regulatory bodies. This paper demonstrates how the model can be used to predict changes in Canadian crude oil flow patterns and mode shares subject to changes in specific transportation network attributes or crude oil demands.

Take Action Now: The Legitimacy of Celebrity Power in International Relations

Celebrities are able to mobilize a wide range of people on a global scale. In his Oscar acceptance speech, Leonardo DiCaprio urged his international audience to work collectively to combat climate change. Another example of celebrity activism is Daryl Hannah's support for biofuels and the campaign against the Keystone XL pipeline. In this article, I analyze the legitimacy of such celebrity power in international relations along three criteria (political impact, broad participation, and control and accountability). I argue that, as long as celebrities' claims are vague and do not go further than UN consensus, celebrity power can be considered legitimate through the political impact. In addition, DiCaprio and Hannah contribute civil society perspectives to the international agenda while, however, not necessarily voicing the most marginalized positions. Finally, by urging governments to comply to international agreements, as DiCaprio does, he holds governments accountable on behalf of the public. However, bo...

Public perceptions of energy policies: Predicting support, opposition, and nonsubstantive responses

Public policy preferences can impact policymaking, from influencing what policies are or are not implemented to legitimizing policy decisions. Researchers have examined public support/opposition to a wide variety of energy issues, as well as predictors of these preferences. However, researchers have typically excluded the views of those who say they “don’t know” or do not respond to questions about a particular policy, even when they make up a sizable portion of the population. As a result, we know little about those who provide nonsubstantive responses to energy policy questions, as compared to those who provide support/opposition responses. In this article, I examine the roles of issue awareness, risk perception, and socio-demographic characteristics in predicting support, opposition, and not sure responses to three different energy development issues: nuclear power, the Keystone XL pipeline, and hydraulic fracturing. One of the key findings is that the risk perception predictors of nonsubstantive responses more closely resemble the risk perception predictors of opposition rather than the predictors of support. By excluding the policy preferences of those who “don’t know” or do not answer, researchers are likely providing policymakers with estimates that underrepresent the views of those who are more concerned about environmental risk.

Es hora de actuar. La legitimidad del poder de las celebridades en el ámbito de las Relaciones Internacionales.

Las celebridades son capaces de movilizar un sinnúmero de personas por todo el mundo. En su discurso de aceptación del premio Oscar, Leonardo DiCaprio conminó a su público internacional a trabajar juntos para combatir el cambio climático. Otro ejemplo del activismo de las celebridades son las campañas de Daryl Hannah a favor de los biocombustibles, por una parte, y en contra del oleoducto Keystone xl, por otra. Este artículo analiza la legitimidad del poder de sendas celebridades en el ámbito de las Relaciones Internacionales a la luz de tres criterios, a saber: influencia política, amplia participación, control y rendición de cuentas. Aunque las demandas de las celebridades sigan siendo imprecisas y no prosperen en el Concierto de las Naciones, el poder de éstas puede legitimarse, sin duda, por medio de su influencia política.

Framing trans-border energy transportation: the case of Keystone XL

ABSTRACTIncreasing discussion over the safety of natural resource extraction and transportation to facilitate international energy needs has given rise to controversy over the prospect of large quantities of bitumen and crude oil flowing through trans-national pipelines. This debate, incorporating the voices of industry, government and advocacy groups, has gained traction in the news media, alternately framed as an environmental, economic, trade, human rights or public safety concern. It is possible, however, that such coverage may vary substantially with regional interests and perceptions of costs and benefits, locally or nationally. To uncover how the framing of energy transportation varies with proximity considerations, regional and national media coverage in Canada and the United States of the Keystone XL pipeline from 2010 to 2014 is analyzed. National and local papers frame the pipeline according to different considerations, as do cities near to and distant from the pipeline route.

Invited Essay We, the Heartland: Land(scapes), Community, and the Keystone XL Pipeline

Invited Essay We, the HeartlandLand(scapes), Community, and the Keystone XL Pipeline Kate Schneider (bio) Whether noble, picturesque, sublime or mundane, the landscape image bears the imprint of its cultural pedigree. — d. bright (1992) The air, earth, and water, which sustain us, have no voice. As stewards of the land, we are very aware of our surroundings and the footprints we leave behind. We must speak for the land. We ask you to protect our nation, the earth, air, and water. Reject the KXL pipeline. — bonny kilmurry to president obama (2014) Introduction Photographing in the prairies is both inspiring and mind-numbing. At first, the vastness of the space lulls and overwhelms, and then eventually becomes a canvas seemingly devoid of complexity. While photographing my photo-essay, We, the Heartland, on the communities protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, I felt overcome by both, multiple times a day. However, the more time I spent looking at the environment and culture, I began to comprehend the depth of its complexity. I saw the changing in the gradient of the grasses as the seasons morphed from early spring to late summer. I saw a fullness develop in the coats of the cattle as winter began its approach. I saw the changes in light from morning to late afternoon, and from winter to spring. I started to understand how the land morphed through the seasons, and how I interacted with it needed to reflect these changes. When I began photographing the Great Plains, I was interested in the Keystone XL pipeline protest movement and how two typically disconnected communities—Holt County, Nebraska, and the Rosebud Lakota (Sioux) Nation—are working together to stop the pipeline. I wanted to know why these particular communities are so vocal in their opposition, and if there is something about their environment and their relationship to their environment that reflects their opposition. As an artist, my work has always been about an individual's ties to the land. Whether the land is urban or rural, landlocked or coastal, my initial draw to make any photo-essay is to look at the places people occupy, and how we interact with our home environment. In Holt County and Rosebud, I saw this connection to the land. For many of the people I photographed and interviewed, their relationship to their land and water was their primary motivation for fighting the pipeline. They spoke of duty [End Page 1] to preserve a land that is voiceless, and to protect it not only for themselves but for those who came after them. We, the Heartland came out of a desire to consider the lands along the proposed pipeline route, and the resulting series is a window into the lifeworld of communities at the center of the protest movement. The final work consists of fifty images made in the Sandhills of Nebraska and on the Rosebud reservation, along with ten handwritten letters to President Obama by landowners and activists stating their opposition to the proposed pipeline. The work is a political document, documentary photo-essay, and collaboration between me and some of the leading members of each opposition community. Alliances What brought me to make this work in Nebraska and South Dakota came out of my love of eavesdropping. In the summer of 2012, my father and I went on a road trip in the Great Plains where we visited some of the small towns that dot rural Nebraska. In the NebraskInn, a restaurant in Gross, Nebraska (population two), we overheard a group of men discussing their dismay at the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and their worries for how the proposed project will affect the Ogallala aquifer and the Sandhills. This conversation confused me. Of all the farmers I had previously met, few were liberal, and all had a healthy disdain for "tree huggers." So, here I was, in the second smallest town in the reddest state in the Union, and I was listening to a group of farmers and ranchers discussing their anger and worries for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. At the time, I thought that Gross, Nebraska, was just where all closeted environmentalist convened. Quickly, I realized these men were not...