Will Republican high stakes gamble kill the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline?

In a huge overreach, Senate Republicans insisted yesterday that a provision that would require the President to make a decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline be included in the tax extension package.  The package is likely to be voted on in the Senate today and go to the House for approval early next week. 

NRDC responded by calling out the inclusion as nothing but a political ploy.  My colleague Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, issued the following statement:

"Special interest riders do not belong in legislation designed to help the American people. Republicans took the payroll tax-cut extension bill hostage and delivered a year-end bonus to Big Oil. The president went along in order to save hard-working Americans from a tax increase on January 1, 2012. We get that.

“But with the Republicans forcing the president’s hand, he will have no choice but to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline as not in the national interest.”

The President said last week that he would not accept the inclusion of the pipeline tacked on to the tax extension legislation.  

Yesterday evening, a senior Administration official made it clear the President intends to stand by his statement.  In a Reuters piece entitled, “Obama backs tax deal but pipeline now in doubt”, the senior official is quoted saying that Republican insistence means the pipeline ”almost certainly will not be built” because the President has made clear that he will not approve the pipeline without time for an adequate review of the health, safety and environmental risks.

This view was echoed by Senate Democrats.  Senator Schumer, commenting to Bloomberg News, said that the inclusion of the provision was a “Pyrric victory” for the Republicans because the President won’t be forced into a decision. 

And the former Chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee and now it’s ranking Democrat made similar comments earlier yesterday, saying, "I think it's shortsighted for the Republicans to force a decision without giving the president enough time to fully consider it…And if they force him to do that, it'd seem to me, the only logical thing for him to do is to say no to it." 

Democratic supporters of the President said that the Republicans had likely handed the President “the perfect opportunity” to reject the pipeline and made it clear that they  would be watching this closely.  Over 50 supporters sent a letter to the President earlier this week expressing their concern about the pipeline and asking the President to stand strong against it. 

Similar sentiments were expressed by Bill McKibben, the founder of Tar Sands Action and 350.org and lead organizer of the protests at the White House this summer and fall.  The protests brought together a wide range of opponents to the pipeline –Nebraska ranchers, veterens, scientists, clean energy advocates, transit unions, and college students, among many others.  And in early November, over 10,000 citizens circled the White House asking the President to reject the pipeline.

The President will undoubtedly be hearing from these constituencies in the days ahead.  And the broader American public will also be watching for leadership from the President.  After all, if the Republicans get their way and the pipeline is approved, it will only embolden them to hold future legislation hostage. 

The Republicans have argued this week that the pipeline would create hundreds of thousands of jobs.  They have claimed that it would provide critical energy security benefits to America. The fact is it will do neither.  Instead, the pipeline will take the dirtiest oil on the planet, push it through the heartland of America to the Gulf coast, and send it to the highest bidder around the world. Few permanent jobs will be created and the only independent study on the job impact found that the pipeline would kill more jobs than it creates by suppressing clean energy jobs and raising gas prices.

If you don’t believe me, watch these clips – they are of TransCanada admitting that the pipeline will create only hundreds of permanent jobs (even this figure is highly suspect), TransCanada admitting the pipeline will cause gas prices to increase in the Midwest, and TransCanada refusing to put a restriction on export of the oil outside of the U.S.

Couple this with enormous risks to the American heartland and to our climate, and it becomes pretty readily apparent that the only beneficiary of this pipeline is the oil industry and the politicians it bankrolls.    

If this provision survives the next week of Congressional debate, there will be a huge spotlight on TransCanada and the claims being made about the pipeline.  They may soon regret having escalated this issue.  What was a relatively obscure debate about the pipeline has now become a political catfight that is spinning out of control. 

The President should make clear that if he is strong-armed into making a decision on the pipeline in the next 60 days, that he will have no choice but to reject it. 

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