But could some kind of deal be in the offing — a major climate policy announcement on, for example, power plant regulation or renewable energy incentives — to ease the sting of the pipeline approval?
White House and State Department officials insist a pipeline ruling will be made strictly on whether the 1,700-mile project is in the economic, environmental and security interests of the United States. They say the pipeline is not a fundamental piece of the nation’s climate policy nor is it a political bargaining chip to trade for other measures.
Administration officials have described the pipeline as a relatively simple permit application on an infrastructure project to transport oil from Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
But to many environmentalists, including some of the president’s most active campaign supporters, the issue has huge symbolic and political importance.
For that reason, the approaching decision — expected some time this summer or early fall — offers the president a rare opportunity to set the parameters of the energy debate for the rest of his term and cement his legacy as the first president to seriously address climate change.
“Presidents don’t get many opportunities to make big dramatic announcements,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former energy adviser in the Clinton White House and now a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. “If and when he announces approval of Keystone, he has a once-in-a-term teachable moment on climate.”
Mr. Bledsoe suggested that the president use the opportunity to announce a new regime of regulation for existing coal-fired power plants, which account for a third of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Others suggest Mr. Obama could tie the decision to a renewed push on a national clean energy standard, requiring that a set proportion of the nation’s electricity be produced from carbon-free sources by a given year. One former administration official even suggested an interesting formula — 18 percent by 2018. In 2011, renewable power — solar, wind and hydro — produced 13 percent of America’s electricity.
There are a number of problems with such proposals, however.
First, pipeline opponents say there is no possible deal that could compensate for the environmental damage created by the construction of the pipeline and expanded development of the Canadian oil sands. They have described the pipeline as a fuse to one of the biggest carbon bombs on the planet, and said that extracting and burning all the oil in the Alberta oil sands would mean the game was over for global climate.
“Approving the pipeline would be a deep self-inflicted wound on the Obama administration, greater than anything else he has done,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club and a leader of the antipipeline movement. “This was not inherited from the Bush administration and it can’t be passed off to his successor. It really is Obama’s alone. Whatever damage the decision would do to the environmental movement pales in comparison to the damage it would do to his own legacy.”
Mr. Brune and other environmental advocates say that Mr. Obama should veto the pipeline and pursue climate-friendly policies for their own sakes, not as part of some political deal. The danger to the climate of continuing on the current path demands strong steps like curbing coal-fired power and supporting renewable alternatives, he said.
“It’s hard to argue we should be developing new fossil fuel sources,” said Mr. Brune, who was arrested outside the White House at a Keystone protest earlier this year, “but particularly such a carbon-intensive source as the Canadian tar sands.”
There are other difficulties. Last year the Environmental Protection Agency proposed limiting carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants, effectively foreclosing construction of any new coal-burning facilities. But just last month the E.P.A. delayed the proposed rule, saying it needed to respond to public and industry concerns.
It is unlikely the administration will take on the far more contentious and costly project of curbing greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants until the new plant rule is completed, or at least much further along than it is now. This week, Gina McCarthy, who is awaiting confirmation as the new E.P.A. administrator, told Senate Republicans in a written submission that the agency “is not currently developing any existing-source G.H.G. regulations.” G.H.G. is shorthand for greenhouse gas.
A clean energy standard, also known as a renewable portfolio standard, also presents problems. About 30 states already have such rules in place, with different targets and timelines. To impose such a regimen nationally, however, requires Congressional action, which is unlikely. A clean energy proposal last year from former Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, went nowhere and there is even less enthusiasm in the current Congress.
“The president can’t do a clean energy standard on his own,” said Robert Dillon, spokesman for Senator Lisa Murkowski, the senior Republican from Alaska on the Energy and Natural Resources committee. “He can’t just order utilities to buy a certain amount of renewable energy.”
He asked, “Is the goal to make energy cleaner? Or just to subsidize certain favored sectors of the renewable energy industry like wind and solar?”
Another possibility could be for Mr. Obama to extract promises from Canada to make development and transport of the oil less harmful to the environment.
But Canadian officials bristle at such suggestions, saying Alberta has had a carbon tax in place since 2007 (although it is quite small) and that some of the proceeds are diverted to development of alternative energy. They also say overall carbon emissions from oil sands mining have dropped 26 percent a barrel since 1990 and will fall further. And Canada’s overall greenhouse gas reduction target — 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 — is the same as that of the United States.
“None of the environmental initiatives we have put in place were done to get the pipeline approved,” Alison Redford, the premier of Alberta, said in a recent visit to Washington to lobby for Keystone. “Anything we do has not and will not be done based on a quid pro quo.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/business/energy-environment/a-call-for-quid-pro-quo-on-keystone-pipeline-approval.html?partner=rss&emc=rss