Grassroots Resistance to the Keystone XL Pipeline in Nebraska

Abstract

While the Keystone XL Pipeline project became a major cultural and political symbol for the greater environmental movement’s effort to curb carbon dioxide emissions and begin shifting to a renewable energy economy, a vigorous and sustained grassroots movement, led by the social movement organization Bold Nebraska, emerged in rural Nebraska to fight the pipeline at the local level. Using the politics of contention perspective and framing analysis, this dissertation analyzes the Keystone XL debate in rural Nebraska at the structural, cultural and agency levels of analysis. At the structural and cultural levels, I use county demographic data to examine the sociopolitical factors shaping mobilization outcomes in Nebraskan communities. The main body of the analysis focuses on the narratives and discourses used by the various interests involved in the debate in Nebraska. Through the use of in-depth interviews and testimony from four public comment hearings held in Nebraska (N=528), I identify the major framing strategies employed by both pipeline supporters and pipeline opponents. Findings indicate that pipeline supporter frames were employed to maximize benefits of the pipeline and minimize potential risks, while pipeline opponents’ frames were designed to minimize benefits and maximize risks associated with the project. More specifically, pipeline supporter frames closely mirror the economic, national security, and safety frames used by political leaders and oil and gas industry advocates to promote the pipeline, while rural landowners and activists framed the pipeline debate in terms of protecting the Sandhills, the Ogallala Aquifer, and private property rights.