Pipeline politics reach GOP presidential stage

The criticism shows the extent to which the pipeline — which would bring oil from Alberta’s tar sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries — has come to symbolize wider battles on energy and climate change.

Ginrich called the Keystone project needed in light of instability in the Middle East, and cited warnings by Canadian officials that they’ll ship oil sands to Asia via a pipeline to Canada’s west coast if the United States rejects the pipeline.

“And the president of the United States cannot figure out that it is — I’m using mild words here — utterly irrational to say, ‘I’m now going to veto a middle-class tax cut to protect left-wing environmental extremists in San Francisco, so that we’re going to kill American jobs, weaken American energy, make us more vulnerable to the Iranians,’ and do so in a way that makes no sense to any normal, rational American,” former House Speaker Gingrich said at the last debate before next month’s Iowa caucus.

Bachmann called TransCanada Corp.’s proposed pipeline “extremely important.”

The Obama administration in November delayed a decision on the project until 2013 amid competing pressures from environmentalists who bitterly oppose the project and several unions, who have joined Republicans and business groups in support.

“[Obama’s] entire calculus was based upon his reelection effort,” Bachmann said. “Because quite frankly, the radical environmentalists said to President Obama, you pass Keystone, we’re not going to do your volunteer door-to-door work.

“That’s what Barack Obama has done to this country. He’s put his reelection over adding jobs and making the United States energy independent. I would have made the decision as president of the United States, we would put Keystone online immediately.”

Environmentalists oppose the pipeline due to greenhouse gas emissions and other potential ecological harms from Alberta’s massive oil sands projects, and attack the energy security argument by noting there is no guarantee that the oil won’t be exported from Gulf of Mexico ports.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman backs the pipeline, and at Thursday’s debate cited the need to end the nation’s “heroin-like” addiction to oil from unstable sources.

But he also used the GOP debate to call for a more rapid expansion of the use of natural gas tapped from abundant U.S. reserves.

“In order to get to where this country needs to be, we need a relationship with Canada from which we can draw raw materials,” Huntsman said. “But I also want to make sure that I’m able as president to disrupt the oil monopoly.

“There’s a one-product monopoly in terms of product distribution in this country. If we’re going to achieve real energy independence, we’re going to have to be able to draw from a multiplicity of products like natural gas,” he added, calling for greater use of natural gas for power generation and manufacturing, and as a transportation fuel.