Nebraska cattle broker becomes unlikely face of opposition to Keystone XL pipeline

New York Times photo by Dave Weaver

Randy Thompson, right, has become the face of local resistance in Nebraska to the Keystone XL pipeline, much against his own expectations, reports Charles Pierce of Esquire magazine. Thompson is a cattle buyer who has testified before the state legislature, Congress and the State Department on behalf of the state's ranchers and rural residents, whose land and water would have been affected by TransCanada's pipeline path. Since he agreed to be the spokesman for Bold Nebraska, a group that's been fighting the pipeline for five years, his face has appeared on T-shirts and hats.

Thompson told Pierce he entered the fight because he believes "very strongly in our rights as American citizens to own property and not have other people taking it for their personal gain." Pierce reports "Thompson watched the government stand by, largely idle, while TransCanada bullied him and his neighbors with threatening letters, stonewalled about the effect of leaks on the fragile Sandhills region of Nebraska, and on the Ogallala Aquifer, the massive underground reservoir, already imperiled by drought in some places, that services most of the arable farmland in the country."

Pierce goes on to detail Thompson's beginnings as an "accidental activist," and his struggle to reconcile his political beliefs with the way he believes the government has handled the Keystone XL pipeline controversy. (Read more)