Who remembers to coal slurry pipeline debate?

Pipelines, eminent domain, federal intervention. If you think all of these topics are newcomers to the Nebraska landscape in the wake of the Keystone XL debate, join me as we roll the legislative time machine back to March 1976. Yes, it was 39 years ago that lawmakers in several states seriously considered building a 1,302-mile pipeline from Wyoming to Arkansas to carry coal-slurry.

Chief proponents in the Nebraska Legislature were Senators Loran Schmit of Bellwood and John DeCamp of Neligh. Schmit, often called the father of gasohol and one of the leading early adapters of alternative energy such as ethanol, led countless hours of floor debate and maneuvering on the issue. DeCamp, a colorful Vietnam War veteran who just happened to sit behind Schmit in the legislative chamber, went along for the ride.

Coal slurry technology involves crushing coal at the mine, mixing the powder with water and pumping the resultant mixture -- slurry -- through underground pipelines to distant utilities. The coal would be filtered and dried at the utility and burned to generate electricity.

The Nebraska senators argued that it was not new technology. The first pipeline was a 108-mile stretch built in Ohio in 1957 by an electric utility seeking an alternative to coal trains that had become increasingly expensive. The Ohio pipeline undercut the railroad rates and forced development of new coal-hauling technology by the railroads. The railroads' answer was the unit train, a mile-long series of 100 hopper cars dedicated to running coal to power plants in a seemingly never-ending circuit. You've seen them, right?

President John F. Kennedy had suggested in early 1962 that coal slurry pipelines might represent a way of transporting coal more economically while improving the depressed condition of the coal mining industry. Two such pipelines were put into operation. One was closed after the introduction of the unit trains and approval by the Interstate Commerce Commission of a separate rate structure for the more efficient form of rail service.

Interestingly, the railroads were involved in the beginning of the Wyoming to Arkansas project. Burlington Northern Inc. (before it became BNSF), one of the major coal-haulers in the West, teamed up with giant construction firm Bechtel Corp. to consider the massive pipeline effort. After a two-year study, the railroad concluded that the idea was impractical. Burlington Northern Chairman Louis W. Menk told the U.S. House Interior Committee the railroad determined the economics wouldn't stand up.

Bechtel moved forward without the railroad and joined two other companies to form Energy Transportation Systems, Inc. for the sole purpose of developing the massive pipeline with plans for at least three others ranging in length from 180 to 800 miles. It turns out that the major trouble with building the pipeline came from eight railroads that owned property the pipeline would have to cross. Then came a series of rejections by state Legislatures. Nebraska and Kansas lawmakers voted "no" in March 1976.

In the Nebraska Legislature, eminent domain concerns took a backseat to concern over how much water the pipeline would require. That concern also reached the federal level when the Western Governors Regional Energy Policy Office passed a resolution of opposition. Pipeline opponents argued that the process would require as much water as coal and that the water would stay at the utilities to be used in the generating process. The policy office argued that western states could ill afford to have water sucked away from agricultural, industrial and recreational needs.

Proponents figured that federal legislation would facilitate coal slurry pipeline development by allowing them to bypass the railroads and reluctant landowners. They asked Congress to grant them eminent domain, the right to take private land in the public interest. Such federal preemption would eliminate the need for the pipeline to be built around states that didn't grant eminent domain and would also limit states' powers to influence the development of the pipeline.

The eminent domain legislation was at the center of a lobbying storm in the 94th Congress that was settled temporarily in favor of the railroads. After postponing a decision for months, the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee voted on June 30, 1976, to table a pending eminent domain bill (HR 1863), thus killing it for the year.

That rightfully ended the debate in Nebraska and other western states.