OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Keystone pipeline backers keep pressure on Obama

November 15, 2011

The Hill

By Ben Geman and Andrew Restuccia

State of play: President Obama’s foes want him to pay a political price for delaying a decision on the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline until 2013 at the earliest.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) used a meeting with Alberta Premier Alison Redford to launch fresh public attacks on last week’s decision to delay action on TransCanada Corp.'s planned Alberta-to-Texas pipeline.

Boehner, using Twitter and email, also highlighted newspaper editorials attacking Obama’s decision.

Separately, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue appeared on Fox News Monday to bash the administration's decision to study alternative routes.

He and other pipeline advocates say the project would create thousands of jobs and want it approved quickly after years of review.

“If you wait until after the election you are going to delay 12 or 15 months before this thing is done, and a lot of people are not going to get a job, and our energy security is going to be further away,” Donohue said.

Environmental groups won a victory with the delay, but are pushing for outright rejection of the pipeline, citing greenhouse gas emissions and concerns about spills along the route, among other criticisms.

Delaying the decision has political benefits for Obama, who faces a split between environmentalists and some unions on the project.

But advocates of the project are signaling that they will continue to attack the delay in an effort to turn it into a liability.

“The game is now to connect the dots for independent voters who are already skeptical about the President's leadership on economic matters with decisions such as Keystone that work to the long-term detriment of domestic energy security,” said Stephen H. Brown, vice president for government affairs at Tesoro Corp., a major independent refiner.

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