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La Seur: Politicizing Keystone XL Backfires on Big Green

Carrie La Seur of Plains Justice is mad. President Obama goes to oil country to fast-track the Keystone XL South. Oklahoma state troopers corral protestors in a Cushing, OK, park far from the President's invitation-only crowd. And who has egg on their face? "Big Green," says La Seur, the environmental activists who unnecessarily politicized Keystone XL away from a discussion of very substantive, non-partisan concerns:

Back in 2010, Keystone XL was undergoing serious scrutiny for pipeline steel quality, emergency response planning, routing issues, and other serious technical matters that had the potential to alter or even shelve the project. There were administrative challenges contemplated that wouldn't have involved the presidential permit but would have required re-evaluation of the full length of the project. Inadequate pipeline siting oversight by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, for example, was a major issue allowed to fall into the weeds by an international tar sands campaign fixated on drawing television cameras and column inches. There was a deliberate decision in late 2010 to back off of technical research and administrative challenges to fund billboards, big ads in major media, protests, etc. [Carrie La Seur, "Public Support for Keystone XL and How Big Green Played It All Wrong," Great Plains Tar Sands Pipeline, 2012.03.22]

La Seur poses an interesting conundrum. President Obama had plenty of good practical reasons to reject the original Keystone XL application. But in a political environment, we needed the very public protests led by Jane Kleeb, Bill McKibben, and others to get that TV time and column space and turn up the political heat that pushed the President to make his decisions last November and January.

Now, though, that political push has provoked the inevitable counterpush. La Seur says that counterpush has "weakened the standing of one of the bestenvironmental presidents since Nixon" to the point where we get Obama at Cushing saying Yay, more oil!

This didn't have to happen. It's neither good politics nor good policy, and the tar sands campaign drove him to it without accomplishing any of its own goals. Take a bow, folks [La Seur 2012.03.22].

Oof.

7 Comments

  1. larry kurtz 2012.03.23

    Permitting earth hater TransCanada to begin building the southern portion of the pipeline is a coup for the President: the bottleneck at Cushing is well-known. Oklahoma is already mostly destroyed and lawsuits will determine its eventual outcome while Mr. Obama basks in the bipartisanship.

    It's all good.

  2. Carrie La Seur 2012.03.23

    In a world where there are infinite resources to promote good energy and environmental choices, sure, play the DC political strategy and see how that works out. But the national campaign pulled resources out of less controversial strategies that had the potential to get the job done (they happened to be Plains Justice's, which is why I know the story) without coming up with something that actually works. And I'm supposed to keep quiet about that and say oh, too bad, guys? I thought I was showing admirable restraint up to this point, but I realized it was just reluctance to get bashed for calling it like it is. Well go ahead, bring it. My organization was nearly destroyed by getting involved in this campaign. I've at least earned the right to speak my mind.

  3. Douglas Wiken 2012.03.23

    Without knowing for sure, I suspect La Suer has found a usual suspect guilty when the problem may be elsewhere.

    Nebraska and Nebraska government went after XL in a way that makes sense. South Dakota has not. Unless the most recent XL route has changed significantly, it still runs through aquifers in South Dakota just thousand or thousands of feet from Winner, SD and Colome, SD and rural water sources. County commissioners are part of the problem. All they can see are the tax dollars they hope to get and seem incapable of comprehending the incredible costs consequent to a pipeline leak into our water sources.

    I do not understand how Obama could decide to allow the XL line to be built to the Texas coast. All that will do is drive up gasoline prices in the whole midwest.

    Opponents of the pipeline in South Dakota seemed to have "run out of gas" and faded back into the woodwork long before the "big green" environmentalists got their campaign going.

  4. Donald Pay 2012.03.23

    I think she makes some sense. My experience is that Big Green sometimes comes into an issue in a way that makes it more difficult to work within the local communities in the Midwest. It's often a mixed blessing when Big Green takes up your issues. They have lots of money to throw at an issue, and lots of DC clout. But sometimes the issue elevation is counterproductive to the grassroots work that should be done. When it comes to the oil industry, elevating the issue plays into their hands, since they have far more DC clout and can generate a whole lot of pr misinformation that drives polling, which ultimately influence the DC crowd. Keeping it more local for longer allows a more non-partisan approach. Eventually it was going to go national, however.

  5. larry kurtz 2012.03.23

    If KXL has done anything it is to show the importance of organized labor building the nation's infrastructure.

    It would be revolutionary to see unions encouraged in the oil patch and coal fields where membership would buy health care insurance and take it out of the hands of the employers who could impose religious restrictions on coverage.

    ND Gov. Jack Dalrymple looks like a prostitute courting wholesale earth hatred, defying workplace safety, and attracting the lowest common denominator to work the patch with reckless disregard for the environmental consequences of his gift from speculators.

  6. caheidelberger Post author | 2012.03.25

    Carrie, you've definitely earned the right to speak your mind. And I will go so far as to say that the Big Green arguments about climate change are not nearly as effective as your arguments about proper regulation and safeguards.

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