Bold Nebraska

Jane Kleeb founded Bold Nebraska in 2010 as a state political organization the year before the State Department released its first environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline. Over the twelve years that followed, Bold Nebraska built the Cowboy and Indian Alliance that tied white ranchers along the pipeline route to the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the Rosebud Sioux through treaty-rights arguments, Ogallala Aquifer concerns, and a shared refusal to let TC Energy cross their land. President Biden cancelled the federal permit on his first day in office in January 2021, and the Crandall Canadian Pacific Railway confirmed abandonment the same year.

The coalition the pipeline fight built is the coalition the data-center fight needs. Bold Nebraska’s volunteer network covers every Nebraska county, the group’s political-action arm has placed staff and volunteers inside the Nebraska Democratic Party, and Kleeb chairs the state party. The organization carries the institutional memory of what wins when the state legislature and the governor both favor the industry the community is trying to stop.

Bold Nebraska now tracks LB 1261, the Google-Tenaska-Tallgrass private-gas carve-out, and the Omaha Public Power District’s $2 billion grid expansion. The group’s 2026 work pairs with the Heartland Workers Center in South Omaha and with Senator Danielle Conrad in Lincoln. The Flatwater Free Press has relied on Bold Nebraska sourcing for the January 2026 reporting that broke the Google land-option story.