Last updated on 2011.09.19
The University of Nebraska&ndashLincoln pays more attention to citizens opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline than South Dakota's governing agencies. Cornhusker athletic director Tom Osborne announced Wednesday that his department is canceling a lucrative sponsorship deal with TransCanada:
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln athletic department ended the sponsorship agreement Wednesday after fans and others complained.
"I want to make it clear that the athletic department has no position, either pro or con, regarding the proposed TransCanada Pipeline," Athletic Director Tom Osborne said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
Osborne said the athletic department's marketing partner, IMG College, and the Husker Sports Network signed the sponsorship arrangement with TransCanada in April, before the proposed Keystone XL pipeline became so controversial.
"We have certain principles regarding advertising in the stadium such as no alcohol, tobacco or gambling advertisements. We also avoid ads of a political nature," he said. "Over the last two or three months, the pipeline issue has been increasingly politicized. Our athletic events are intended to entertain and unify our fan base by providing an experience that is not divisive" [Kevin Abourezk, "Huskers Cut off Deal with TransCanada," Lincoln Journal-Star, 2011.09.14].
TransCanada was running TV ads during Husker broadcasts. Husker fans booed a TransCanada video played on the stadium screens during their September 4 home game. The video tried to associate the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline with the Cornhuskers' offensive line.
TransCanada is propagandizing its own offensive line in numerous other ways. Bold Nebraska cites a robo-call from TransCanada making utterly bogus claims about Keystone XL's impact on jobs, gasoline supply and prices, and depedendence on foreign oil. To review the facts:
- The State Department finds TransCanada has inflated its jobs claims by more than triple.
- The business case for Keystone XL comes from reducing Midwest supply and increasing our gasoline prices by 15 cents a gallon.
- The oil in Keystone XL will start out and end up as foreign oil. It's headed to the global export market, not your gas tank, America.
But lies repeated often enough (at $100,000 a week) become the truth, right, TransCanada?
Related TransCanada notes:
- Since Keystone XL boosters are pretending that oil from Canada is domestic, let's count their jobs in the cost-benefit analysis as well. Former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed says the jobs Keystone XL claims it will create in the U.S. will come at the expense of Alberta. Repeat after me: zero-sum game.
- An Alberta economist disagrees with the premier. The oil industry isn't interested in expanding refining capacity in Alberta right now, so economist Derek Burleton says shipping the oil out will help Alberta... by raising prices for Alberta oil and diversifying away from Midwest refineries.
- Governor Dennis Daugaard may think we have enough government oversight of pipelines to ensure Keystone XL won't cause us any problems, but federal Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood acknowledges that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration lacks inspectors and resources to perform all necessary pipeline oversight. That means we're left trusting TransCanada to take care of problems. Yikes.
- Update 07:30 MDT: TransCanada posts letters from all sorts of people who support Keystone XL. The list includes two recent letters from Meade County and Pennington County. Meade County Commission chair Alan Aker and his Pennington counterparts mouth TransCanada's inflated job projections and make the same erroneous conclusions about the energy security that Keystone XL will not bring the U.S. Lawrence County, watch your step....