A green line in the sand
Some major Obama donors have threatened to withhold campaign contributions unless the president kills the project; both environmental and labor activists have raised the issue with his campaign staff.
Wonkbook: Gingrich and Romney have the same problem
Both publicly and privately, however, Obama administration officials have told environmentalists they are better off with the president in office than without him.
“When Americans compare the president’s record promoting clean energy and America’s energy security to those of the leading Republican candidates, who don’t even believe that climate change is an issue that we need to address and would cede the clean-energy market to China, there will be no question about who will continue our progress,” campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt wrote in an e-mail.
Shell sent a note in late September to all of its roughly 20,000 U.S. employees urging them to write to the State Department in support of the project and providing them an address. “It’s a voluntary program,” said Shell spokesman Bill Tanner. “Our employees also understand the need to have this sort of infrastructure project available. We’re doing what we can to make sure our views are heard in the permitting process.”
On Oct. 5, in response to the growing outcry against the pipeline, the Canadian Embassy urged approximately 100 supportive lawmakers gathered at the offices of the law firm Nelson Mullins to lobby for the permit.
“The pitch was that this was a critical moment of decision and everyone should bring out all the political firepower they could in their congressional districts,” said Ebinger, who attended the meeting.
On Oct. 11, in an interview with the Associated Press, Clinton said she realized “this is a very emotional decision” for some but emphasized that she had not been involved in the process yet because “originally, two and a half years ago, this had been delegated to the deputy.”
State Department officials have said they will issue a final decision on the permit by the end of the year; on Nov. 6, McKibben and other activists plan to ring the White House with placards of Obama’s words from the 2008 campaign, including his pledge to free the United States from “the tyranny of oil.”
Credo Mobile chief executive Michael Kieschnick, who donated $4,600 to Obama’s 2008 campaign and was arrested during the last round of White House demonstrations, said the president’s fundraisers continue to press him to support the 2012 campaign.
“I always say the same thing, talk to me after the Keystone decision,” Kieschnick said. “I’d be delighted to talk to him when we surround the White House. We’ll be very nice to him.”
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