These lobbying expenditures over the years seem to have borne legislative fruit. The House of Representatives has voted no fewer than seven times to move the project forward, and the Senate followed suit in a 62-37 vote this March. In April 2012, Nebraska legislators approved a bill sponsored by Jim Smith—the state senator who would later that year take part in the “ALEC academy” trip—expediting the pipeline approval process at the state level.

The influence of lobbyists on Keystone has gone largely unremarked upon in Nebraska media, however, with the exception of some strong World-Herald pieces in 2011 and 2012. More recent coverage on lobbying in the state has fed off investigations by interested parties such as Common Cause and the Center for Media and Democracy rather than Nebraska reporters themselves. Of course, much of the arm-twisting on Keystone has happened outside the Cornhusker State, and Nebraskans are unused to being Ground Zero in a national political controversy. But readers in the state need to know whose interests are being served—and why.

Perhaps an even more interesting aspect of the Keystone story, however, is the unlikely coalition that has risen up to counter these well-funded Goliaths.

Emboldened opposition

In February, the Sierra Club broke from 120 years of tradition to engage in an act of civil disobedience. Executive Director Michael Brune was one of 48 protesters arrested for obstructing the sidewalk in front of the White House. “This particular project—Keystone XL pipeline—is so horrendous, it’s so wrong, and it’s being proposed at such an important time that we don’t want to leave any tool on the table,” Brune told BillMoyers.com.

The environmental movement seems to have elevated its activism and organization to an unprecedented level in fighting Keystone—and despite being dwarfed in the spending battle, their efforts may also have borne fruit. Back in November 2011, thousands of demonstrators formed a human ring around the White House, as environmentalist leaders threatened to withhold funding from Obama’s 2012 campaign if he OK’d the pipeline. Two months later, Obama denied TransCanada’s application; the company reapplied in May 2012, but the project remains in a state of limbo today.

The media, politicians, and the oil industry all seem to have been caught off guard by the intensity of the opposition. Of all the looming threats to the environment, why has this once-obscure project galvanized a movement? It’s a good question for journalists to address.

Gould, of Common Cause Nebraska, credits one local organization with igniting the movement—BOLD Nebraska, founded in 2009 by Democratic activist Jane Kleeb. “I think if it had not been for a grassroots uprising led by BOLD Nebraska, it would have just slipped right by,” Gould said of the pipeline. Kleeb’s team of prairie activists has helped to bridge the gap between lefty environmentalists concerned about climate change and conservative rural Nebraskans concerned with land values, infrastructure, and the water supply.

One member of the latter group is Greg Awtry, publisher of the York News-Times, who has been persistent and outspoken in opposition to the pipeline. “I’m a capitalist, conservative—really more of a libertarian—not an environmentalist,” said Awtry. “It’s just strange bedfellows. Jane Kleeb and I would very seldom be on same sides of an issue.”

The latest gambit by BOLD Nebraska and friends has been to take the fight to county boards on the pipeline route, encouraging them to pass resolutions against the project. As a result, Holt County passed an anti-pipeline resolution in April, and York and Antelope counties are considering doing the same. Awtry says this opposition is gaining strength, under the media radar: “The numbers, here at least, are growing in opposition to it,” he says.

Facts on (and under) the ground

TransCanada’s rerouting of the pipeline last year was a major turning point in official and editorial opinion on the issue. Gov. Heineman, who had expressed reservations about the original route because it threatened Nebraska’s Sandhills region and the Ogallala aquifer, was now on board, as were the previously skeptical World-Herald and Journal Star. A June 18 World-Herald editorial argued that “Nebraskans’ opposition to the initial proposal helped improve the pipeline’s route—moving it away from much of the Sand Hills and aquifer.”

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Deron Lee is CJR's correspondent for Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska. A writer and copy editor who has spent seven years with the National Journal Group, he has also contributed to The Hotline and the Lawrence Journal-World. He lives in the Kansas City area. Follow him on Twitter at @deron_lee.