Fox News consistently pushes fears of government “land grabs” surrounding environmental regulations. But the network celebrated the recent court decision allowing TransCanada to force construction of the Keystone XL pipeline on private land  -- with no mention of the threat to landowner rights.

The Nebraska Supreme Court recently overturned a lower court ruling that would have protected the property rights of landowners who do not want the Keystone XL pipeline built on their land  and fear that a spill could devastate region's drinking water and agriculture-based economy. As CBS reported, the ruling upheld a 2012 law allowing Canadian oil firm TransCanada to “seize property using eminent domain from any landowners who deny the developer access.” A majority of Nebraska's Supreme Court -- four of the seven judges -- actually voted that the statute authorizing TransCanada's use of eminent domain was unconstitutional, but that fell just short of the supermajority (of at least five judges) necessary to make such a ruling.

Rather than address the decision's impact on property rights, Fox News celebrated the ruling by repeating the GOP talking point that President Obama is now out of “excuses” for stalling on Keystone XL as the GOP attempts to pass legislation forcing its approval in Congress this week. On the January 9 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt reported that the ruling “basically removes... the last obstacle or excuse for the administration and President Obama saying that it was not ripe for a decision.” On the January 9 edition of Special Report, Correspondent Mike Emanuel stated that “New Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said now the President is out of excuses.” And on the January 12 edition of America's Newsroom, co-host Bill Hemmer posited that the White House may have “run out of excuses on Keystone,” and Republican strategist Tony Sayegh agreed:

Concerns about TransCanada's use of eminent domain finally made their way onto Fox News on January 13, when Bold Nebraska's Jane Kleeb appeared on Fox's Happening Now to explain why the issue should be of concern to Fox News viewers:

And for Republicans that I know watch Fox News, they really care about eminent domain for private gain. And that is what's happening here, is a foreign corporation TransCanada using eminent domain for private gain against American farmers and ranchers, and that's just plain wrong.

Fox's reporting on the Nebraska Supreme Court decision exposes the insincerity of the network's previous efforts to attack environmental regulations in the name of landowner rights. The network falsely claimed that a proposed EPA rule to protect drinking water would “give the agency unprecedented control over private property,” and portrayed it as “one of the biggest private property grabs in history.” The network also championed rancher Cliven Bundy's effort to wage a "range war" against the government for the right to graze cattle for free on public lands.

Nebraskan ranchers have ample cause for concern about TransCanada forcing Keystone XL's construction on their lands. If approved, the pipeline would transport heavy crude from the Canadian tar sands across the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the world's largest sources of clean water. Tar sands oil is particularly difficult to clean up, and the environmental track record of tar sands pipelines is concerning - an ExxonMobil pipeline spilled more than 200,000 gallons of tar sands crude into an Arkansas neighborhood in 2013. TransCanada has a poor safety record, and water resources professor Dr. John Stansbury predicted that the Keystone XL pipeline could result in up to 91 major spills over the pipeline's lifetime.

The Nebraskan ranchers plan to continue fighting against Keystone XL in court. Will Fox News continue to gloss over their battle for private property rights?