Pipeline companies have a way of turning ordinary people into activists. Yesterday, we learned about one of these with the news that a Texas judge halted construction on the Keystone XL pipeline. An ordinary citizen, Michael Bishop, taught himself a bit of law and went to court, producing a very clever argument. It worked (at least temporarily).
Bishop’s argument, challenging whether tar sands oil (or “dilbit) is in fact “crude oil” as defined by Texas and federal law, put us in mind of a not-dissimilar argument some clever folks advanced here in Michigan a few months back. We wrote about it at length here.
And our friend Anthony Swift of the National Resources Defense Council has a new post about the Texas decision. It reminds us of Anthony’s coverage a few months back of how the IRS handles the question of whether dilbit is different from ordinary crude. Check it out.
Three cheers for Michael Bishop!