Justin Trudeau’s defeat of Prime Minister Stephen Harper means that the continent is once again on Keystone watch. | AP Photo After Canadian rout, a quick verdict on Keystone? People on both sides of the pipeline dispute say President Barack Obama would be wise to act before Justin Trudeau takes office.

If President Barack Obama wants to kill the Keystone XL pipeline at the best possible moment for his relationship with Canada's new Liberal government, both sides in the battle over the divisive oil project say he can't do it soon enough.

Justin Trudeau’s stunning defeat Monday of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper means that after seven years of speculation and delay, the continent is once again on Keystone watch, waiting for Obama to render a verdict that could come any day. A quick decision could avoid making Keystone's demise a political embarrassment for Trudeau — who, like Harper, supports the Alberta-to-Texas pipeline, but who has blamed the prime minister for turning it into a source of friction with the U.S.


“If I were going to do it, I would do it in a matter of days," said one former U.S. official, speaking anonymously about Obama’s most politically fraught environmental policy decision. Waiting for several weeks to turn down a permit for Keystone, the official added, would mean "it will happen on Trudeau’s watch. [Obama] doesn’t want to weaken Trudeau.”

A source with close ties to the Canadian oil industry agreed: "If it happens soon, then Trudeau hasn’t even found the bathroom yet, so nobody can blame it on him, and [the Obama administration] has stayed out of the election cycle and didn’t get involved in Canadian politics."

Then again, Obama faces no legal deadline for approving or rejecting the permit that TransCanada Corp. first applied for in September 2008. The only timeline the White House has offered is that he plans to do it before he leaves office.

Secretary of State John Kerry didn’t offer any updated time frame Tuesday, when he declined to directly answer a question on whether a decision was "imminent." But his words indicated it could be coming soon.

"It will get done in its appropriate moment and I would like to get it done as fast as possible," Kerry said during a climate change gathering at the State Department.

Monday’s election results provide a new optimum time frame for Obama to act: during the weeks it will probably take for Trudeau to form a new government.

Trudeau faces pressure to prove himself to the Canadian oil industry, which is suffering from a crash in crude prices and the stalling of several big pipeline projects, setbacks that dashed Harper’s hopes of creating an “energy superpower.”

Yet the 43-year-old victor also built his campaign around an Obama-like message of hope and vowed to work with the U.S. on climate change. That gives Obama ample reason to want to spare his new Northern partner the bulk of the blowback that a Keystone rejection would generate in Canada.

The calendar for Obama's ambitious climate change agenda also suggests he too would benefit from a quick decision on Keystone. The president and Kerry are pushing to achieve a global pact to limit greenhouse gas emissions during United Nations talks in Paris at the end of this year, a meeting that Trudeau has vowed to make a priority — in contrast to Harper, who pulled Canada out of the 1997 Kyoto climate agreement and relentlessly championed the country’s carbon-emitting oil industry.

Even before the Paris talks open, the grassroots green army that turned Keystone into a headache for Obama is ready to do the same for Trudeau. Activists led by the climate group 350.org plan to stage a sit-in in the Canadian capital Nov. 5, dubbing it a "climate welcome" for the new prime minister.

Now that Harper has "crashed and burned," 350.org’s Jamie Henn said, "President Obama is even more free to reject the pipeline and reestablish common ground on climate with Canada. With Paris fast approaching, now's a great chance to hit the reset button."

Even Henn's opponents in the Keystone battle agree that Obama would be wise to act fast.

One U.S. industry source tracking the Canadian election agreed that a swift choice by Obama would "look like he’s rejecting a Harper-era proposal, not a Trudeau one." Still, Trudeau would face a decision on how to spin that outcome.

"Does he dare pull a 'If I had been in power, Obama would have approved it'?" the U.S. industry source wondered, adding that the "key will be for Obama to reject it before he meets in person for the first time with Justin."

Obama called Trudeau on Tuesday, discussing issues including the Paris climate talks, though a White House readout of the call did not mention Keystone. It's also unclear whether Keystone came up in a Tuesday meeting at the White House among Obama, Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden.

At the very least, Obama has avoided some ruffled Canadian feathers by pushing the decision until after Monday's vote.

"I think it would have been a real slap in the face if it was rejected before the election,” said a longtime observer of U.S.-Canada relations, who asked for anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue so soon after the election. "It’s sort of a foregone conclusion now that it will most likely be rejected. Most people think it will be rejected between now and the climate conference.”

And the Canadian oil industry-linked source noted that if Obama wanted to shock Washington by approving the pipeline, he "could go forward with Keystone on condition of [getting] a full partner on climate strategy" in the new Canadian government, "including higher standards on [oil] producers."

While Trudeau supports Keystone, he has heavily criticized Harper for not doing more to fight climate change. He has also promised to convene a meeting of Canadian provincial leaders to shape a new emissions policy within 90 days of taking power. And people tracking the issue say they think he and Obama will be able to overcome the pipeline's contentious bilateral politics.

“Harper has said he won’t take no for an answer on Keystone. Well, Trudeau might,” said Andrew Finn, the program associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Canada Institute.

Kenny Bruno, a veteran green campaigner against Keystone and other Canadian heavy oil projects, acknowledged that Trudeau's Liberals are "nominally" in favor of the pipeline. "But if there's a rejection, they're not going to go down to Washington and say, 'We won’t take no for an answer,' like Harper did."

Meanwhile, a rejection of Keystone would generate elation from many in the international climate change community, long frustrated that a U.S. president who has made global warming a central part of his agenda hasn’t killed the project sooner.

“A rejection of the Keystone pipeline would bring further momentum into the Paris talks by demonstrating the seriousness which which the Obama administration is addressing climate change,” said Jennifer Morgan, the global director of the World Resources Institute’s climate program. “Domestic action like this in the U.S. both enables it to work with other countries so they do their fair share and increases U.S. credibility abroad.”

The Obama administration has steadfastly stayed mum on the pipeline, declining near-constant questions from reporters about when the president will make a decision. Even in the White House and at the State Department, only a handful of top officials are privy to the details of the Keystone review.

But Obama himself has tipped his hand in public comments over the last year, dismissing proponents’ arguments that the pipeline would boost the economy. The president’s determination to secure a climate agreement in Paris, paired with Kerry’s decades-long track record advocating for measures to rein in emissions, has many on both sides of the issue convinced that Keystone is doomed.