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On Thursday the US State Department ordered a new review of Keystone XL pipeline route, pushing back a final determination until after the first quarter of 2013.  The decision for additional review comes after questioned conflicts of interest in the previous environmental impact assessment and concerns about the proposed route’s impact in Nebraska.     

 

Is the decision a political move as we head into the 2012 elections? Or does this decision effectively kill the pipeline? Regardless, one thing is for certain: the White House is paying attention and responding to the 1254 people who got arrested out front of its gates and the thousands of others along the proposed route who have joined forces to protest the pipeline:

 

 

"The delay gives Barack Obama an escape clause from a decision that risked alienating key voting blocs – organized labour and environmental groups- on a project that had been framed as a choice between the environment and the economy." 

 

 

"The White House may deny it, but political calculations almost certainly played a role in the Keystone delay—for once, at least, in greens' favor. The first quarter of 2013—the time the State Department expects to be ready to issue a final ruling—is conveniently right after the 2012 Presidential election."

 

Nebraska’s concern about the pipeline’s route over the Ogallala Aquifer, which serves 1.5 million people, was acknowledged by the administration in the decision to review. Local issues often receive more attention and action by communities, as opposed to further-removed, more globally-focused issues.  While in this instance the action prevented fossil fuel development, the local concern around development still applies to renewable technologies. Again, Time Magazine’s Bryan Walsh quotes Michael Levi from the Council on Foreign Relations:

 

“As veterans of the environmental movement know, it's a lot easier to get people motivated to stop development than it is to organize them to push for something new. And sometimes that anti-development feeling can backfire as well—look at some of the resistance to new wind turbines, solar projects and power lines that could connect to renewable sources.”

 

 

Focus Coordinators Maria Rosales of University of Tennessee Knoxville and Amy Plovnick and Adam Hasz of Washington State University in St.Louis have been voicing their opinions about the Keystone XL issue in their home states and in Washington DC.  

 

It’s important for us to remember too that oil pipelines are hardly the only pieces of contentious energy infrastructure that will require government approval in coming years. This is particularly true if the United States wants to build a new clean-energy economy, as Michael Levi points out. The Keystone protests showed that unlikely groups of ranchers, democrats, indigenous groups, labor unions, environmentalists and republicans could get together to fight something. The real test will now be if these same unlikely groups of people can get together in every corner of America to actually build the infrastructure our new energy economy is demanding of us.