After Keystone Rally, Environmentalists Equivocate on Campaigning for Obama

On Sunday, November 6, Americans and  TV audiences worldwide saw a familiar tableau, featuring many of the same faces — crowds numbering in the tens of thousands peacefully rallying near the White House and in other cities nationwide in support of “Change We Can Believe In.” But this time, the multitudes who were marching and waving placards were asking for a change in environmental policy — not in the incumbent president — or so Obama hopes.

In reaction to the rally, as reported in the Los Angeles Times on November 7, the Obama Administration is considering a move that could delay a decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline by requiring sponsors to reduce the project's environmental risks before it can be approved, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations. The step might put off a decision until after the 2012 election and be a way for the White House to at least temporarily avoid antagonizing either the unions that support the pipeline or the environmental activists who oppose it as President Obama gears up for his campaign.Until recently, the pipeline seemed to be a sure thing. Unions ballyhooed the jobs it would create and administration officials said it would improve the nation’s energy independence and security.  

But now the environmentalists, who were a key part of Obama’s original constituency, have stepped into the mix. Friends of the Earth — a federation of grassroots groups working in 76 countries on urgent environmental and social issues — is petitioning the President to put a stop to the project, saying, “The Canadian oil and gas company TransCanada hopes to begin building a new oil pipeline that would trek about 1,700 miles from Alberta, Canada, to Texas. If constructed, the pipeline, known as the Keystone XL, will carry one of the world’s dirtiest fuels: tar sands oil. Along its route from Alberta to Texas, this pipeline could devastate ecosystems and pollute water sources, and would jeopardize public health.” Aside from the risk of contaminating water along the route of the pipeline, activists also say that producing crude from oil sands would generate huge amounts of the gases believed to cause global warming.

The permit process for the $7-billion pipeline has already taken more than three years. Further delays could make the pipeline financially unfeasible for TransCanada and the companies that plan to ship crude through it. The oil industry has argued that, if Keystone XL does not get a permit, TransCanada and its clients would develop the oil sands anyway and ship the crude west in a pipeline to the Pacific Coast. But environmentalists contend that there is far too much local resistance in Canada for that to occur."My guess is, if there is a delay, it could very well kill the pipeline of its own weight," said John H. Adams, founding director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, at Sunday’s rally, as reported by the NRDC blog, Switchboard. Adams rallied the crowd with his rousing call to stop dirty fuels.

Bill McKibben, founder of the environmental group, 350.org, served as the impassioned master of ceremonies for the protesters. “Throughout this campaign,” NRDC stated,”Bill has reminded us of the power of personal action. He knows the groundswell of grassroots opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline is getting the White House’s attention. It has grown so strong President Obama can’t make a campaign stop without someone urging him to reject the pipeline.”

But that’s not the only environmental disappointment that Obama’s erstwhile followers have had to endure. While Keystone is now a marquee issue, Obama’s environmental policies have been questioned repeatedly. Since the failure of solar company Solyndra in September, Republicans have challenged the Department of Energy loan program. On the other side of the aisle, Obama infuriated liberals and environmentalists when his administration announced that it was walking away from stricter ozone pollution standards that it had been promising for three years and instead sticking with Bush-era standards.

John D. Walke, clean air director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, likened the ozone decision to a “bomb being dropped” — and accused the administration of selling out to business interests and the Republican Party.

Now even some members of the labor movement are coming out against the project. James C. Little, president of the Transport Workers Union, and Larry J. Hanley, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, leaders of transport workers unions representing over 300,000 U.S. workers, issued a joint statement on Friday opposing the approval of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. They wrote, “We share the Environmental Protection Agency’s concerns conveyed to the State Department on two occasions (most recently, on June 11, 2011). These concerns cover the potential impacts to groundwater resources from pipeline spills, the high levels of GHG emissions associated with the proposed project, and the inevitable damage to the health of communities affected by the increase in refinery emissions. Approval of this project at this time would therefore be reckless given the EPA’s own assessment of the environmental risks.”

“We need jobs,” they continued, “but not ones based on increasing our reliance on Tar Sands oil. There [are] no shortage of water and sewage pipelines that need to be fixed or replaced, bridges and tunnels that are in need of emergency repair, transportation infrastructure that needs to be renewed and developed. Many jobs could also be created in energy conservation, upgrading the grid, maintaining and expanding public transportation -- jobs that can help us reduce air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and improve energy efficiency.”

 Environmental activists have threatened to withhold campaign donations and stop volunteering for Obama's reelection effort. "The tar sands are awful and they need to stay in the ground," Courtney Hight, 32, a former Obama organizer and former staff member for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, told Bloomberg (News - Alert). "Building the pipeline is not the way to break free from oil."

She offered an explicit warning: “If the president decides not to permit the pipeline, he will reignite the enthusiasm many of my friends and I felt in 2008. But if he approves it, it is just human nature that the disappointment will sap the enthusiasm that drove us to work so hard last time.”

And Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org, a 5-million-member online progressive political group that played a substantial role in President Obama's election in 2008, said he was sure that his members would be deflated. "How are our members in Ohio and Florida who pounded the pavement in 2008 going to make the case for why this election matters?" Ruben said. "Stuff like this is devastating to the hope and passion that fuels the volunteers that made the president's 2008 campaign so unique and successful."

Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, who does extensive work on public perception and the environment, said the real threat to the president's reputation stemming from the ozone decision went far beyond environmentalists. "It could play into an emerging narrative in his own party that he is caving too quickly to Republican pressure," Leiserowitz said. "It is a dangerous narrative in your own base because it cuts down on enthusiasm and it is a narrative that his opponents will pick up on."

Will this motivate previous Obama supporters to find another candidate who will think their way? The Green Party has not announced a candidate for 2012 yet and, among Republicans, outspoken environmentalists are a rare breed.   The current front-runner, Herman Cain, says that “the EPA is out of control,” on his website, and it needs to be rebuilt. “Rather than try to fix it, eliminate all of the things that they have right now and then start rebuilding a responsible EPA.”

Cain also would not provide subsidies for renewal energy. “Alternative energy sources, such as wind, solar, nuclear and hydroelectric are certainly part of the solution long term, but private industry must take the lead for true innovation to be a bigger part of our future energy needs. If alternative energy sources are found to be inexpensive, safe and plentiful, then American consumers will choose to purchase them. Let the markets decide which forms of energy fuel our cars, heat our homes and which ones will keep America working.”

Mitt Romney, the perennial second-place candidate, has gotten the message only half right, according to environmentalists. “The nation will also need to develop and harness alternate sources of energy such as nuclear energy, biodiesel, ethanol along with exploiting more domestic sources of oil such as Outer Continental Shelf and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” Romney also is of the opinion that the solution to our environmental problem lies in adopting a market approach. “While solving the environmental challenges, we should also be supporting growth,’ he states.

And Newt Gingrich, the political comeback story waiting to happen, “supports lowering carbon emissions, but is skeptical of the climate change theories.” Indeed, young Democrats may be afraid to vote against Obama, out of fear of the alternative. Susie Tompkins Buell, a co-founder of the Esprit clothing company, told Bloomberg that she has raised and personally contributed at least $20 million to Democratic candidates and progressive causes over the last decade. .Although she’s disappointed in the president’s environmental record, she says she’ll still vote for him and donate to the reelection campaign “because it’s very important that the alternative is not successful.”