Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman on Tuesday approved a new route for the Keystone pipeline, been held up for more than a year by environmentalists’ objections to the original route.

That route crossed the ecologically-sensitive Sandhills region in Nebraska.  The new route sidesteps the Sandhills to the east.

In 2011, the Nebraska General Assembly enacted two laws to hold on to siting authority.  Governor Heineman at the time said the federal government delayed approval of the pipeline due to pressure from Nebraskans.

One measure subjected the new route to a state environmental review to supplement the EPA’s impact statement.  The other required state regulators to review future projects and give them siting authority.

Earlier this year, Nebraska’s Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ) indicated that the new route would have “minimal” ecological effects in the state.  Governer Dave Heineman reviewed the two-thousand page report and on Tuesday gave his final okay.

The approval by the Republican governor is one of the last remaining hurdles the pipeline has to clear before getting a final permit from the Obama administration. The other major development will come from the U.S. State Department, which is working on a separate analysis of the pipeline’s new route. The department is expected to release a draft of those findings in coming days.

In a news release, the company welcomed the news.  “Over the past year, we have been listening to Nebraskans as we worked to identify a new route for the Keystone XL Pipeline that avoided the Sandhills, protected sensitive areas and addressed as many concerns as possible,” said Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive officer.

“The NDEQ process has clearly taken into account the input from Nebraskans and today’s approval of the Nebraska re-route by Governor Heineman moves us one step closer to Americans receiving the benefits of Keystone XL – the enhanced energy security it will provide and the thousands of jobs it will create. “