The State Department said it “needs to undertake an in-depth assessment of potential alternative routes in Nebraska” to address the “environmental sensitivities” of the current route.
The president issued a statement that acknowledged the environmental concerns as well as questions that had been raised about the State Department’s vetting process.
But it may all just boil down to election-year politics. It would have been hard for Obama to avoid paying some political price.
A green light would have meant the president would likely become a convenient target of the protesters currently storming the nation’s major financial districts. They would say his decision was further evidence he is less interested in limiting greenhouse gas emissions and endorsing an energy policy that reduces the demand for fossil fuels than he is serving the interests of big oil companies.
However, Obama likely had more to lose if he stood in the project’s way. Campaign foes would say he was working against the national interest by harming energy security and preventing job creation, the same argument that worked against him when he declared a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after last year’s oil spill.
As it is, his decision to delay the process came under immediate fire from House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, who called the move “a thinly-veiled attempt to avoid upsetting the President’s political base before the election.”
“More than 20,000 new American jobs have just been sacrificed in the name of political expediency,” Mr. Boehner said. “By punting on this project, the president has made clear that campaign politics are driving US policy decisions – at the expense of American jobs.”
