A judge’s recent ruling in Texas is keeping alive a man’s lawsuit against TransCanada’s southern route of the Keystone XL pipeline, the one completed two years ago carrying oil from Cushing south to the Gulf Coast refineries.
Texas landowner Michael Bishop filed suit, accusing TransCanada for “fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, misrepresentation, perjury, theft, bribery, and violating plaint’s rights as delineated under the Constitution of the State of Texas,” according to a report by the environmental group, Desmog.
A judge in Nacogdoches County District Court recently heard motions by Bishop and TransCanada and ruled that the lawsuit can proceed. The judge granted a continuance to Bishop, giving him more time for discovery and also refused TransCanada’s request for summary judgment.
As Desmog reported, Bishop argues TransCanada lied in making an application with the Texas Railroad Commission. It checked off a box on a T-4 form that the pipeline would transport crude oil. Bishop says the pipeline is not carry crude by rather diluted bitumen or synthetic crude.
“You can’t move Canadian crude in a pipeline without diluting it, which means the product is a synthetic crude, not crude oil,” he told Desmog. Bishop also accuses TransCanada of failing to fulfill its contractual obligation to restore his property to pre-construction conditions.
