Will U.S. President Barack Obama approve the Keystone XL pipeline? For a long time, the answer tilted towards “yes.”
First, it requires a determination by the U.S. State Department that the pipeline is in the “national interest” of the United States. Part of that determination was an environmental impact review. Environmentalists have been suspicious of the process for a long time. Especially after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested in 2010 that her department was “inclined” to sign off on it, essentially because the U.S. would rather have Canada’s dirty oil than somebody else’s dirty oil.
Predicting the outcome has become a cottage industry. There have been so many twists and turns, even in the past year.
The pipeline route has been shifted away from the sensitive Sand Hills region of Nebraska. That’s more reason to approve the pipeline.
A new boom in U.S. oil, natural gas and fracking technology have reduced the need for the new pipeline. That’s more reason to turn it down.
As for Obama, he’s no longer campaigning for re-election. That’s more reason both to approve and to turn it down. He now does not have to worry about votes, but he now does have to worry about his legacy.
Fast forward to this past Friday and the State Department’s preliminary review. The report is 2,000 pages, and there are findings to support either side of the pipeline argument.
What was telling, though, was that TransCanada, the industry and the Canadian government all sounded relatively pleased with the report, and environmentalists, on balance, were unhappy with it.
The report suggests the oilsands will be developed whether Keystone is built or not, and that the climate/carbon impact of Keystone and the oilsands will be much less than environmentalists have suggested.
That is a blow to pipeline critics who’ve mounted an unprecedented years-long campaign to pressure President Obama to turn down the project. Of the many “dirty” industries out there, environmentalists have poured almost all their public relations campaigning in recent years into stopping the oilsands and Keystone.
Now some of their strongest arguments have been undercut by the State Department’s findings.
Which is why the latest review may just signal the eventual outcome. While environmentalists insist it’s up to Obama to make the final decision, it seems highly unlikely that he would ignore the State Department’s exhaustive study and its conclusions (after all, while Obama has put new emphasis on climate change, he has never strayed from what he calls an all-of-the-above strategy, which is developing green policies for the long run, but also oil and gas development in the short run).
Environmental critics may be right that the State Department’s science is flawed, but it is the science that will likely be the basis for Obama to make his decision. If approval tilted toward “yes” two years ago, it probably still does. Only now that decision is getting very close.
Eric is Global National’s Washington Bureau Chief. Follow him on Twitter: @ericsorensendc.
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