POLITICS Pipeline: How an Oil Sands Project Became the Key to Environmentalism by Bryan Walsh | @bryanrwalsh | December 19, 2011 | + Tweet J. Scott Applewhite / AP Speaker of the House John Boehner speaks after the passage of legislation to extend Social Security payroll tax cuts, which also included a measure to fast-track the highly controversial Keystone XL oil sands pipeline. Given that there are already more than 2.3 million miles of pipelines in the U.S. transporting petroleum products, chemicals and natural gas, it may seem strange that so much political energy has been spent on a 1,700 mile pipeline project. Yet the highly controversial Keystone XL pipeline — which was meant to cross the upper Midwest to bring crude oil from Canada’s oil sands down to U.S. refiners — became the one big environmental fight America had. Green groups pushed hard, led by activists like 350.org’s Bill McKibben, using the proposed pipeline as a decisive test for President Obama’s often questioned commitment to the environment. They argue that Keystone XL would pose a threat to precious aquifers in Nebraska, but more than that, they believe that allowing the pipeline to go forward would open the floodgates to increased development of high-carbon oil sands, keeping the U.S. addicted to fossil fuels, with disastrous consequences for climate change.
President Obama seemed to defuse the Keystone question back in November, when he decided to delay a decision on the pipeline project until 2013 — conveniently after next year’s elections. But Keystone XL isn’t just an environmental issue — it is now a political lightning rod, with ramifications for the American economy and for President Obama’s reelection hopes. That’s because congressional Republicans, almost all of whom support the pipeline, citing the potential for new jobs and more oil from a friendly ally in North America (and petrostate) — have moved to tie approval to an extension of the payroll tax cut. The House passed a measure last week that would continue this year’s payroll tax cut into next year, and the Senate passed a bill that would extend the tax cut for the next two months — important to keep a shaky recovery going. It’s not clear how the bills will be reconciled, but at some point, it will require President Obama to make a final decision on the pipeline within 60 days, as House Speaker John Boehner put it on Meet the Press Sunday:
“That’s the right thing to do for the American people.” “The president shouldn’t keep putting this off for his own electoral convenience… This was on the verge of being approved last summer, so waiting and waiting and waiting is not the answer here. It’s time to proceed with the pipeline.”
Meanwhile Republican presidential candidates are already using the Keystone XL pipeline as a hammer against President Obama, as Michele Bachmann said during last week’s debate in Iowa: “This pipeline is the one that would have brought at least 20,000 jobs, at least $6.5 billion dollars of economic activity.” Her calculation was based on all his re-election effort. Because frankly, radical environmentalists told President Obama, you pass Keystone www.mbtacheter.com, we’re not going to do your door-to-door work anymore.
Bachmann has a point, but not on the economic value of the oil pipeline, which independent studies support could create at most 6,500 temporary jobs, and perhaps as few as 50 permanent positions. (I think the word for what she did is "lying.") Environmentalists have been entirely clear that this Keystone XL decision is a life or death issue for them, and that if Obama allows the pipeline to go forward, he should prepare for far less green support in 2012. And they expect Obama — who had previously threatened to veto a bill forcing his hand on Keystone — to stand firm again, as Frances Beinecke of the Natural Resources Defense Council wrote in a Sunday blog post:
“The president recognizes this pipeline project must not be rushed. He wants to give Americans tax relief at this moment. He will sign the bill to offer those tax benefits. But the bill leaves him no choice but to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.”
That is what Americans across the nation have been demanding for months. Ranchers, farmers, religious leaders, business executives, major electoral funders, and more than 10,000 people who surrounded the White House on November 6 have all said the same thing: a tar sands oil pipeline is bad for America.
The first signs are that Barack Obama will reject the pipeline if a bill forces him to decide on the pipeline immediately, as National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling said Sunday: “State Department experts… clearly before this law was even voted on this subject, if they only got 60 days to look at alternative routes in Nebraska and make serious environmental and health comments, that would [not] be enough time and it would almost certainly be impossible to extend this permit.”
Politically, however, Republicans can win either way. If Obama flips and decides to let the Keystone XL pipeline go forward, they get what they want and paint the President as a bad figure in the eyes of his green base. But if Obama doesn't decide to block the pipeline before the election, they can hammer him for choosing the environment over the economy, which is not something a president wants for his reelection when unemployment is still above 8.5%.
Moreover, it's not clear that the average American cares as much about Keystone XL as it has become a touchstone for hardcore greens and Nebraskans from both parties who live along the proposed pipeline route. A poll conducted by Rasmussen on November 23, which tends to lean conservative, revealed that 60% of likely voters were at least somewhat in favor of the pipeline, with 24% of Republicans opposed.
If forcing Obama's hand and making him pronounce on the pipeline soon, I can't see him approving it—not when he can simply say he hasn't been given enough time to study it. (And given that, I find it a bit odd that TransCanada—the company that would be building the pipeline—hasn't told its Republican allies in Congress to ease up.) Environmentalists will rightly consider it a green win, but they must be cautious.
In a piece for the New York Times, Leslie Kaufman examines the politically bruised movement of environmentalists, noting that greens—after spending much of the last decades forging alliances with big corporations and fighting for major climate legislation—are recentring their efforts, fighting fossil fuel plant developments on a local level. (I've identified some of these changes in pieces earlier this year, including here and here.)
As Kaufman writes: On the strategy front, some of these groups are increasingly circumspect in their campaign against climate change, aware of the mixed public opinion. A three-pronged approach is emerging: combating climate change by focusing on immediate, local concerns; revitalizing grassroots efforts through social media and street protests, and renewing the emphasis on influencing elections.
That's smart, if only because climate legislation is dead, and corporate alliances like much of the Sierra Club's with Clorox—under the new presidency of Michael Brune—have diluted the brand. But there is a big challenge ahead for environmentalists. Thanks to shale oil and shale gas, the American continent could be on the cusp of a major fossil fuel production boom. It won't be far off from getting the U.S. off foreign oil alone, ignoring anyone stupid enough to say that, but it will be a boon for the economy and for jobs, even as it increases greenhouse gases. If you doubt that, just visit North Dakota, where unemployment is at 3% thanks to massive oil and gas production.
Over the last decade, the major environmental groups have done everything they can to combat the old perception that going green means being anti-business and anti-growth. But that will be much harder to do if the new strategy sees greens fighting domestic oil and gas projects, developments that—at least a little—might improve U.S. energy security and provide well-paying jobs. Young people in the base who care deeply about climate change will be put under strain, just as people in states like Pennsylvania and New York who are directly affected by drilling will be, but it will be average Americans who worry full-time about the economy who will think environmentalists don't want to win the battle and lose the Keystone war.
More: Greens vs. the Oil Sands Pipeline
Bryan Walsh is a senior writer at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @bryanrwalsh. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
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