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Environmentalists, like Obama, face political test on Keystone pipeline
Environmentalists battling the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline call the looming White House decision on the project a referendum on President Obama’s commitment to clean energy.
But the fate of TransCanada Corp.’s push to build the massive Alberta-to-Texas pipeline is also a crucial test of the green movement’s political clout.
Activists calling on Obama to scuttle the project expect thousands of people at a major demonstration outside the White House Sunday afternoon.
It’s a politically risky strategy.
“Whenever any political movement/organization/interest group challenges a president, and warns about the electoral implications of ignoring them, they are in the spotlight as well,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.
“If the president does ignore them and there is no political fallout, their clout will vastly diminish in the next fight that they have,” he said.
The pipeline is politically tricky terrain for Obama heading into 2012.
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, notes that a president facing a difficult campaign typically seeks to “broaden his coalition” by wooing independents and moderates.
“But Obama is so shaky because of a bad economy he may have to focus more on energizing his own base for a big turnout, and his base certainly includes environmental groups,” he said in an email.
“However, this is a complicated decision. Many labor unions, which are also part of Obama's base, back the pipeline because of the jobs created,” he added.
A slew of unions are backing the project, including the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the International Union of Operating Engineers, the Teamsters, the Laborers’ International Union, the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, and the United Association of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters for the United States and Canada.
(Labor, however, is not united on the matter – the Amalgamated Transit Union and the Transport Workers Union both oppose Keystone XL.)
Sabato doesn’t think it would be fair to judge environmentalists’ political influence based on one decision that Obama will make.
“But no doubt,” he adds, “they'll be very unhappy if Obama approves the pipeline, and it could have consequences for a close election in 2012.”
The State Department is heading the federal review of the proposed $7 billion pipeline, and hopes to make a decision by the end of the year. A department spokeswoman said last week, however, that the timeline may slip.
While State is running the process, Obama recently made clear that the final call rests with the White House.
To be sure, environmentalists won’t go running into the arms of the GOP nominee if the pipeline goes forward – all the Republicans’ major White House candidates are overtly hostile to green groups’ legislative and policy agendas.
But senior officials with the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) – which have the environmental movement’s largest political campaign operations – have warned in recent days that approval of the pipeline will have an effect on the 2012 campaign.
“This is not just about what LCV, which spent nearly $1 million to help elect Obama in 2008, or any other group that engages in electoral politics do in the upcoming election,” Tiernan Sittenfeld, LCV’s senior vice president for government affairs, said Friday.
“It’s about people out there who care deeply about the environment, how much they volunteer, how many doors they knock on, how much money they contribute directly,” Sittenfeld added. “We have LCV supporters who maxed out to the Obama campaign in 2008 who have told us they are not going to give this time around if the president approves this pipeline.”
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune recently said that approval of the pipeline would hurt the group’s ability to mobilize members on Obama’s behalf.
He also warned that it would have a “big impact” on his group’s allocation of campaign resources between congressional races and the White House contest.
The pipeline has shot to the top of many green advocates' agendas after three years that have fallen short of their expectations.
Environmentalists have cheered several of President Obama’s decisions, including major increases in auto mileage standards and funding for green energy projects in the 2009 stimulus law.
The administration has also pledged to proceed with upcoming EPA rules to cut power plant air toxics and greenhouse emissions, drawing heavy GOP fire over these and other Clean Air Act regulations.
But the environmental movement has also suffered bitter defeats. Climate legislation, their top priority, collapsed in Congress last year, and some activists say Obama didn’t put enough political muscle behind it.
Green groups were demoralized two months ago when Obama overruled EPA and scuttled new ozone regulations, punting the issue into the 2013-2014 timeframe.
One former Clinton Administration energy official said Obama could reap political rewards by granting TransCanada a permit for the pipeline.
“If the Administration approves Keystone, they will be excoriated by the GOP over the Clean Air Act rules and environmentalists over the pipeline. This could be a uniquely good position for the President to make the case to independents that he is the only thinking moderate on the environmental issue,” the former official said
But climate activist Bill McKibben on Friday called the Keystone decision crucial to Obama’s ability to motivate turnout, arguing he has the chance to inspire young voters by killing the project.
“You win elections . . . not because your hardest-core supporters turn out, but because they get excited about what you are doing and they bring all their friends with them,” said McKibben, speaking Friday at a press conference ahead of Sunday’s demonstration.
“You need some of that fire, fervor, in order to get elected, and in a sense, that’s what’s on offer here, that’s what will happen to one degree or another if the president manages to stand up to the very real pressures coming from big oil and do the right thing,” he said.
Business groups such as the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are lobbying in favor of the project, arguing it would create scores of jobs while improving energy security by expanding imports from a friendly neighbor. Canada is already the United States’ biggest oil supplier.
Environmentalists oppose the project due to greenhouse gas emissions from energy-intensive oil sands projects, damage to Alberta’s boreal forests, potential spills along the pipeline route and other concerns.
Polls generally show the economy, jobs, and other issues well above the environment on the list of voters’ concerns.
But the environmentalists battling Keystone XL say it’s a crucial issue for young ground troops that played a major role in propelling Obama to victory in 2008 – and could be inspired to do so again.
According to the Pew Research Center, Obama scored a whopping 66 percent of the vote among voters under 30 in 2008.
Maura Cowley, co-director of the youth-focused Energy Action Coalition, noted Friday that in 2008 young people also “hit the pavement, hit the phones in an unprecedented way.”
Now, she said, the pipeline decision will play a key role in shaping these young voters’ role in 2012. “If he makes the right decision young people will be there to support him moving a public agenda forward and creating a clean energy economy,” she said.
This story was updated at 3:01 p.m.
