Critics Complain
Keystone’s critics have accelerated their efforts since the State Department’s March 1 draft assessment said the pipeline won’t heighten the risk of global warming. They dismiss that analysis and say Keystone is pivotal to showing whether Obama will fulfill an inaugural address vow to tackle global warming.
“President Obama has to pass this test,” said Susie Tompkins Buell, who founded clothing maker Esprit and is part of a group of some 100 donors, activists and clean-energy executives gearing up to pressure the White House. “But his plate is full; this isn’t a priority for the public, and it doesn’t seem to be with him, either.”
Buell donated more than $300,000 to Democratic candidates and groups supporting the party in the last election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Steyer, who hosted Obama at his California home on April 3 in a fundraiser for Democratic congressional candidates, declined to discuss his conversation with the president that night.
“The one thing he’s said publicly and privately is that he hasn’t made the decision,” said Steyer, whose net worth is at least $1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
White House press secretary Jay Carney has parried questions about Obama’s thinking in recent weeks by saying the review is being conducted by the State Department, because the pipeline crosses an international border.
Environmental activists say they expect Obama, not Secretary of State John Kerry, to have the final word. A group of Democratic lawmakers who oppose the pipeline met this month with Heather Zichal, the president’s climate-change adviser.
Longtime policymakers in Washington say the State Department’s analysis, public opinion and the importance to ally Canada make it likely Obama will back the project.
“I’ve always ultimately felt that Keystone would be approved, perhaps in some slightly altered form,” said Byron Dorgan, a Democrat and former North Dakota senator who supports the pipeline.