By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, New York Times, February 18, 2012
AS plans for the Keystone XL pipeline faltered over the last six months, its route through a pristine aquifer in Nebraska proved to be its fatal political flaw. Environmental groups had raised numerous other serious objections: Building the pipeline would lead to a rise in climate changing gases; its environmental review was tainted by conflicts of interest; extracting oil from Canadian oil sands was destroying precious ecosystems and boreal forest.
