REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Demonstrators carrying a giant mock pipeline during a rally in front of the White House last November.

WASHINGTON — When Congress extended the payroll tax credit in December, it included a provision requiring a sped-up review process for the Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,700-mile oil pipeline running from the tar sands of Canada to the Gulf Coast.

Since then, Republicans have fired up a countdown clock and the party’s presidential candidates have used the issue to attack President Obama, who can delay the project before the Feb. 21 deadline for its approval. Pipeline backers say Keystone is a jobs machine, while many environmental groups have warned the pipeline instead brings high environmental risk and little economic reward. While the state’s congressional delegation is done dealing with the project (for now), many Minnesotans are trying to inject themselves into the political battle surrounding it.

Update: White House officials have told the New York Times that the State Department is expected to announce this afternoon that it cannot recommend going forward with the pipeline within the deadline set by Congress, putting the project on hold indefinitely. "The action for now means the permit for the pipeline is rejected although the pipeline company will be allowed to submit a new proposal with an altered route," the Times reported. The Washington Post has similar details, writing that "the administration will allow TransCanada to reapply after it develops an alternate route around the sensitive habitat of Nebraska’s Sandhills. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns will make the announcement." The Post story also said, "The effect of the administration’s move will probably be to delay the politically sensitive pipeline decision until after the presidential election ...."

Republicans have made the pipeline a jobs issue first and foremost saying it could create up to 20,000 new jobs. They’ve used the pipeline to harass Obama, releasing daily updates warning that there are, as of this morning, only “34 days left as Obama continues to block Keystone jobs.” They see it as the one winning argument to come out of December’s payroll tax cut fight, when Democrats painted the Republicans as obstructionists unwilling to extend a popular middle-class tax cut while protecting those for the wealthy.

The Democratic Party, meanwhile, is largely quiet on the matter, even as some of the constituencies that usually fall under its banner bicker over the pipeline. Environmental groups are pushing back, insisting Obama reject the pipeline as a needlessly risky environmental project that threatens natural resources along the line. They’re also hitting the so-called benefits of the plan, arguing it won’t create as many jobs as proponents say.

But any new job is needed, according to some labor unions that have publically backed the plan, including the Teamsters and several AFL-CIO affiliates (though the AFL-CIO itself hasn't taken a position, either nationally or in Minnesota).

“It will create an abundance of jobs in the pipeline industry,” said Ed Reynoso, the political director for the Teamsters Joint Council 32, which represents Minnesota. “It will create jobs and spur our economy a little bit. Any addition of new jobs to our economy is fantastic.”

Lawmakers have been caught in the political crossfire, especially when Congress was deliberating the issue late last year. In December, the National Republican Congressional Committee released an ad and phone call campaign against Reps. Collin Peterson and Tim Walz, the two Minnesota Democrats they consider vulnerable in 2012, urging them to support the project (both do, to certain extents). Environmental groups, meanwhile, protested against the project outside Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s district office in December and are planning a second wave of protests next week.

Faye, the coordinator of the climate advocacy group Minnesota 350, said the issue transcends the typical bounds of environmental activism. Anti-Keystone protesters are also taking aim at the power of the big oil lobby and the influence of money in politics.

“Environmentalists and farmers and businesspeople and communities, we can all come together and find a reason why we should be passionate about this issue,” said Kate Faye, an environmental activist opposed to the project. “It’s the little people fighting against the big guns of big oil.”

Other Minnesota groups have gotten in on the game, as well: the Minnesota and Minneapolis Regional Chambers of Commerce signed on to a letter urging Obama to approve the project, and the unions have met with Minnesota’s congressional delegation urging support for it, Reynoso said.

Republicans rally around pipeline
Congress hasn't taken an up-or-down vote on the Keystone project alone, but it was a cog in the two-month payroll tax cut compromise passed in December. That bill included a provision requiring the State Department to rule on the project before Feb. 21 and gave Obama the authority to quash the project single-handedly.

The move was a strategic one by Republicans, forcing Democrats to accept a quick review of the Keystone project in exchange for the popular payroll tax cut. Giving Obama veto authority also puts significant political pressure on him in an election year: If he put the kibosh on the pipeline, Republicans could say he rejected a major jobs program during a time of weak economic recovery, but if he allowed it to go forward, they could declare victory.

Naturally, Republicans at all levels have been taking advantage of the message whenever they can. For the cast of Republicans looking to win their party’s presidential nomination, Keystone is red meat frequently thrown to a hungry electorate.

“President Obama is guided by his hardened ideology, and he’s repelled any prospect for economic recovery as he routinely places his own political fortunes and his own re-election plans above the interests of the American people,” Rep. Michele Bachmann said the night before she dropped out of the presidential race. “Look no further than his denial of building the Keystone pipeline. That was all about his re-election, and had nothing to do with energy independence for the American people.”

MinnPost/Terry Gydesen

Rep. Chip Cravaack

But even down-ticket candidates and back-bench lawmakers have taken up Keystone’s mantle. On Tuesday afternoon, for example, Minnesota Rep. Chip Cravaack tweeted: “144 days have passed since the State Dept. said building #Keystone was the ‘preferred’ option.”

The Obama administration’s official line has been that the pipeline is a State Department issue. The State Department already said the Keystone route would pose no significant risk to the environment, but the route still has little support in Nebraska, and a state law signed in November requires a more rigorous environmental review that can’t be completed by the Feb. 21 deadline.

Previewing Obama’s possible rejection of the plan, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday: A “political effort to short-circuit that process for ideological reasons would be counterproductive because a proper review that weighed all the important issues in this case could not be achieved in 60 days. … 

“It is a fallacy to suggest that the President should sign into law something when there isn’t even an alternate route identified in Nebraska … there was an attempt to short-circuit the review process in a way that does not allow the kind of careful consideration of all the competing criteria here that needs to be done.”

Other Democrats backed this line of thinking. In a statement, Sen. Al Franken said: "The administration should have been given the opportunity to complete a full analysis of the project before making its decision. This kind of brinksmanship isn't the way to get things done in Washington."

Republicans in Congress could look for other ways to advance the plan, such as moving the approval authority to a different government body. But without the payroll tax cut attached to such a measure, it would be highly unlikely to Congress and be signed into law.

Faye and Reynoso used the same word to describe their hopes for the project’s ultimate approval or rejection: hopeful. They’re on opposite sides of the issue, of course, but Reynoso said it shouldn’t be one easily classified by the conservative or liberal labels so often employed in Washington.

“It’s not about being Democrat or Republican or any particular party when it comes to creating jobs,” he said. “I don’t care what party they are, we’re going to work with them.”

Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry