NEWS FLASH

Texan Tea Partiers Oppose Keystone XL Land-Grab | Tea Partiers like Debra Medina, who challenged Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the 2010 Republican primary and won 19 percent of the vote, “oppose TransCanada’s use of eminent domain to claim private land for pipeline use, and they say Texas laws don’t protect landowners and city councils in the event of a spill,” Roll Call reports on a new front against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Texas landowner David Daniel “agreed to lease land to TransCanada but said he was misled about the safety of oil-sands pipelines,” and has launched “a group called Stop Tarsands Oil Pipelines to highlight safety concerns arising from the high pressure and unknown chemicals used to extract energy from oil sands.” Julia Trigg Crawford “is pursuing legal action against TransCanada to stop the pipeline from going through her land in North Texas. Concerns about property and water contamination from spills raise alarms in rural Texas regardless of political leaning.”