Keystone oil pipeline delay may boost Obama in 2012 reelection bid

The Obama administration’s decision to postpone a verdict on the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline might boost President Obama’s difficult reelection campaign.

The administration said Thursday that it would review alternative routes for the proposed pipeline, pushing a final decision on the project well past Election Day and into 2013.

The move buoyed environmentalists who mobilized against the pipeline with a series of headline-grabbing protests at the White House. They bluntly warned Obama that approval of the project would sap their appetite for working on his behalf in 2012.

{mosads}Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, said the delay helps neutralize the issue for the president.

“It helps in that postponing tough political decisions does dampen some of the heat the president must take going into Election Day,” Zelizer said. “The president can spin the issue any way he wants, leaving himself room by not clarifying what he will do.”

But the pipeline delay is not an across-the-board political winner for Obama. Several labor unions, a key part of the president’s political base, strongly support TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Alberta-to-Texas pipeline because it would create jobs for their members, and several are miffed about the delay.

Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House aide, said Obama navigated the political crosswinds deftly. He noted that Obama has consistently adopted “populist” stances on oil that favor more supply, better fuel economy and promoting alternative energy.

“Nothing is more populist than avoiding a decision that pits one important policy objective and constituency versus another,” said Bledsoe, an energy expert who is also a former Senate Finance Committee aide.

Obama’s Republican critics sought to cast the decision as anti-jobs ahead of an election campaign that will be dominated by the economy.

“More than 20,000 new American jobs have just been sacrificed in the name of political expediency. By punting on this project, the President has made clear that campaign politics are driving U.S. policy decisions — at the expense of American jobs,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday in a statement.

Zelizer noted that Obama’s GOP opponent in 2012 could seize on Keystone to “further the image of Obama as someone who avoids making tough decisions.”

In announcing the reevaluation of the pipeline Thursday afternoon, a senior State Department official was careful to note that politics was not a factor in the decision, and emphasized that the White House did not make the call.

“The White House did not have anything to do with this decision except we consulted with them as we were moving toward it,” State Department Assistant Secretary Kerri-Ann Jones told reporters on a conference call. “There was no effort to sort of influence our decision. It was our decision.”

Several environmentalists greeted the latest pipeline news with statements of support.

“We strongly applaud the Obama administration’s prudent delay of this dangerous pipeline, which would increase global warming pollution.  It is a big win for our environment, our democracy, and the health and safety of surrounding communities,” said League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski.

Environmental groups oppose the pipeline due to concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and spills along the pipeline route, among other reasons.

Advocates counter that the pipeline, which is slated to carry hundreds of thousands of barrels per day, is a vital way to boost U.S. energy security. TransCanada has emphasized that it would operate under strict safety standards.

The Nebraska-specific dynamics of the battle may provide Obama some
political cover against attacks over the delay. Nebraska’s GOP governor
and other officials there have attacked the proposed pipeline route
because they fear it threatens a major aquifer.

The consulting
firm Clearview Energy Partners, in a note to clients, says the delay
“may have been politically shielded by months of explicit opposition by
Nebraska Republicans.”

Indeed senior White House adviser David
Axelrod, to counter Boehner’s attack on the delay, pointed to Nebraska
Gov. Dave Heineman’s opposition to the proposed pipeline route.

“I
would suggest that the Speaker call his Republican colleague in
Nebraska, the governor of Nebraska, who strongly protested that route on
environmental grounds and concerns that it would threaten the
groundwater in the state of Nebraska and talk to him about it,” Axelrod
said Friday on MSNBC.

The pipeline decision should ease
tensions between the White House and the green movement, which was
demoralized two months ago by Obama’s decision to delay tougher EPA smog
standards. Frank O’Donnell, head of the environmental group Clean Air
Watch, denounced that decision as “political cowardice,” and many greens
wondered where the Obama of the 2008 campaign had gone.

The Keystone move could be a signal that the White House learned a tactical lesson from the aftermath of the early September decision on smog standards.

That retreat failed to halt or even slow frequent GOP and industry group claims that Obama is pursuing an overzealous regulatory agenda that stymies job growth.

Clearview Energy Partners, in their note, said the Keystone decision “suggests White House energy policy may also be boomeranging back towards its 2009 starting point, left of the political center.”

Mark Longabaugh, a political and media consultant who works with environmental groups, said approval of the pipeline would have “seriously hurt” Obama among environmental voters, but would not abate attacks from the right and from business.

“Politically, they are just not going to win a game by trying to satisfy the right,” Longabaugh said. “Siding with your opponent doesn’t neutralize them at all.”

This story was updated at 9:09 a.m.