In 2011, after opposition for laying the pipeline in this area, TransCanada agreed to change the route and skip the Sandhills, even though pipeline industry spokesmen had maintained that existing pipelines carrying crude oil and refined liquid hydrocarbons have crossed over the Ogallala Aquifer for years in southeast Wyoming, eastern Colorado and New Mexico, western Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The Pioneer crude oil pipeline crosses east–west across Nebraska, and the Pony Express pipeline, which crosses the Ogallala Aquifer in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas, was being converted as of 2013 from natural gas to crude oil, under a permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.