The complaints about possible pollution of Nebraska’s aquifer is a red herring. Environmentalists just want to break America’s dependence on oil. Because they pipeline makes oil cheap and easy to use, they want to stop it, not because the pipeline itself will pollute. Environmentalists argue it would be easier and safer to build a pipeline to the Pacific and ship the oil to China. If the Chinese burn the oil, the world gets the same pollution, but America gets none of the benefits.
It’s fine to have a debate about the use of fossil fuels, but it should be a straightforward debate, not one obscured by fake, legalistic arguments about an environmental impact statement for an oil pipeline.