ABSTRACT

James Ordner explores the potential for community-based coalitions formed to protect natural resources from risky energy projects as exemplified by landowner and concerned citizen opposition to the KXL pipeline in Nebraska. As Ordner points out, although the Trump Administration revived the KXL project, Bold Nebraska has vowed to keep fighting the pipeline, along with other communities fighting unwanted energy projects in other states. Bold Nebraska’s grassroots organizational model has expanded to form the Bold Alliance, a network of state-based organizations located in Louisiana, Iowa, Oklahoma and Nebraska, while many other communities, such as the Standing Rock mobilization in North Dakota, have organized broad alliances to fight oil and gas energy projects. Ordner argues that in a time of rising petro-politics and corporate authoritarianism based on an ideology of energy dominance, the Bold Nebraska model for connecting community resource protection and greater environmental concerns through citizen coalitions offers a hopeful way towards achieving social and environmental justice.