LANDOWNER ORGANIZER

Tom is a landowner in Holt County Nebraska. One of the proposed KXL routes crossed family property and has since been vacated.

Tom has been a fixture at Bold Nebraska’s events since the founding of the organization in 2009. Tom serves as chairman of the Nebraska Easement Action Team, the collective of Nebraska farmers and ranchers who refused to sell their land to TransCanada (AKA T.C. Energy) for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

As a regional pipeline fighter, Tom has the opportunity to work with Tribal representatives and organizations along with allied groups. Tom continues to be a resource to help organize land owners and advocates to become engaged in stopping pipelines.

LANDOWNER ORGANIZER

Shelli Meyer is a landowner whose farm in Dixon County, Nebraska has been in her family for 99 years in 2023. Shelli’s family’s received notice in December 2021 that their property was on the route of the proposed Summit carbon pipeline, and were threatened by eminent domain if they did not sign a voluntary easement. A cousin also has both the Summit and Navigator proposed pipeline routes crossing their property.

Shelli and her family attended the earliest public meetings held in the area by the carbon pipeline companies, and identified other neighbors and landowners and county leaders who also had grave concerns about the proposed carbon pipelines. Shelli joined the Nebraska Easement Action Team (TEAM) as a Landowner Organizer in early 2022.

MANAGING ATTORNEY, DOMINA LAW GROUP

Brian Jorde has won and settled multi-million dollar cases and has won law changing appeals relating to constitutional and other legal challenges for clients.

Practicing in state and federal courts across the country Brian feels most at home in the courtroom. Often in the news and on television for protecting his clients rights and never afraid to take on the toughest cases. Work for the last many years has included representing landowners opposed to eminent domain for private gain and protecting their family interests related to the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline.

Jorde also brings extensive business experience in real estate development, land issues, and personal entrepreneurship, to Domina Law Group. Jorde was raised in Wayne and Omaha, NE. His undergraduate degree in Philosophy is from Vanderbilt University, and his law school education was at Western Michigan University, Cooley Law School in Lansing, MI.

Prior to joining Domina Law Group, he worked for several years in complex commercial real estate areas. His work included notable projects, including negotiations for sale of property now used for the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, AR. Other major projects included property acquisitions complimentary to the Ambassador Bridge, providing the official NAFTA connection between the U.S. and Canada.

He was also involved in environmental issues affecting real estate, and successfully completed a rare orphan oil well cleanup project in Michigan without costs to his clients.

ATTORNEY & PIPELINE EXPERT

Paul Blackburn provides legal services on pipeline and renewable energy matters. He has worked on crude oil pipeline issues since 2008, and also has experience in renewable energy policy and development. Paul represented nonprofit clients in the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission hearing on the Keystone XL Pipeline, and in the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission hearing on expansion of Line 67, another Enbridge pipeline. He has provided policy analysis and strategic advice on a variety of pipeline matters and authored reports on pipeline safety and oil spill response.

Paul started his legal career in Washington, DC, at the law firm of Van Ness Feldman, where he assisted clients in renewable energy and coal-fired power plant development, a variety of regulatory, legislative, and litigation matters, and Native American commercial law. After leaving private practice, he began a career in the nonprofit sector, including employment by the Sierra Club, the National Environmental Trust, and Oceana in organizing and media. He also has experience in community wind and solar energy development. Paul holds a B.A. in Biology from Macalester College and a J.D. from Boston College Law School.

ORGANIZING DIRECTOR

Emma works across multiple states to coordinate and support organizers fighting the proposed buildout of CO2 pipelines with our Pipeline Fighters Hub and Easement Action Teams projects. Emma is a lifelong rural Iowan based in Calhoun County. After graduating from Iowa State University in 2018, Emma went to work for Food & Water Watch where she organized activists, impacted community members, and elected officials around meaningful policy solutions to address consolidation within our food and farm system. In 2021, Emma leaned on her experience fighting the Dakota Access pipeline to help build a broad opposition movement to a series of hazardous carbon pipelines proposed for the Midwest.tion goes here