Centrist Dem: Link Keystone pipeline to efficiency boost

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) wants President Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, but hopes the project’s construction can somehow be tethered to more aggressive energy efficiency policies.

“I still think it would be better if it could be dealt with in a compromise fashion,” Warner told The Hill in the Capitol on Tuesday, later noting, “How we get that linkage is what I am working on.”

Warner, who is facing reelection in 2014, said federal approval of the proposed Alberta-to-Texas pipeline should be linked to something akin to a sweeping energy efficiency bill sponsored by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio).

Warner also talked up a major report recently released by a group he co-chairs called the Alliance Commission on National Energy Efficiency Policy, which laid out plans to greatly expand U.S. efficiency by 2030.

“There are a lot of recommendations in there that could be linked with [Keystone],” Warner said.

But while Warner wants Keystone’s approval tethered to beefed-up energy efficiency, he also wants action soon on the pipeline that would bring Canadian oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries.

Warner is among several Democrats on a new bipartisan letter calling on the State Department, which is heading review of the proposed pipeline, to approve the project soon.

The letter does not call for linking the pipeline to other energy policies.