DES MOINES, Iowa — Tom Steyer’s hard green line is turning soft when it comes to Hillary Clinton.

The billionaire climate activist has spent more than $100 million of his personal fortune to support green-minded candidates and ballot initiatives in the past five years, ruffling the Washington establishment while threatening to torpedo even fellow Democrats who don’t hew the line on controversies like the Keystone XL oil pipeline. But he declined repeatedly Tuesday to criticize Clinton, who still refuses to take a stand on Keystone, and whose just-released initial climate proposal is notably short on specifics about issues like fracking and Arctic drilling.


Steyer told POLITICO that he won’t demand that Clinton stake out a position on the proposed Alberta-to-Texas pipeline, which greens have seized on as a litmus test for politicians’ willingness to take on climate change. That suggests he’s satisfied for now with her silence.

“She isn’t for Keystone,” Steyer said. “She has no position.”

He explained: “We haven’t insisted that people make a decision on that because it hasn’t been necessary. Maybe we’ll change our minds. We drew a line in the sand on supporting it, but we haven’t drawn a line in the sand and said that absolutely everybody has to take a position on this.”

Steyer’s comments might come as a surprise to some of his fellow environmental activists, who have dogged Clinton with demands that the Democratic presidential front-runner oppose the project — especially because Steyer has also made killing Keystone a priority in his crusade to tackle climate change.

After a 2014 Senate vote on the pipeline, he declared that a lawmaker’s position on Keystone “signifies whether they are standing up for or against the next generation on the issue of climate,” arguing that approving the pipeline would mean “millions of tons of new carbon pollution entering the air.”

The billionaire had earlier wielded Keystone as a wedge issue against Democrat Stephen Lynch — who had once shown reserved support for the pipeline — during Massachusetts’ 2013 Senate primary. Lynch lost that race to now-Sen. Ed Markey, one of Congress’ most outspoken environmentalists.

Steyer also ran anti-Keystone ads last year during President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, and his aides even flirted with targeting then-Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu last year in Louisiana for supporting the project.

On the other hand, Steyer supported then-Sen. Mark Udall in last year’s midterm elections, even though the Colorado Democrat refused to say whether Obama should approve or reject the pipeline.

Steyer stressed that he still strongly opposes Keystone and his group has never backed a candidate that supports the project. He also appeared to sympathize with Clinton’s argument that it would be inappropriate to weigh in on the project. ”She has an argument that she was secretary of state, she was part of the process,” he said.

Clinton stuck to her no-position stance Tuesday, telling reporters that the pipeline’s fate is Obama’s decision to make. “If it’s undecided when I become president, I will answer your question,” she said.

As secretary of state, Clinton presided over a department that repeatedly found few environmental risks from building Keystone, and she said in a 2010 appearance in San Francisco that the administration was “inclined” to support the project. But she has since then resisted pressure to stake a position, saying Tuesday that she doesn’t want to interfere with current Secretary John Kerry or the White House.

For now, it appears that Steyer is making a strategic decision to hold his fire when it comes to Clinton, no doubt aware that bomb-throwing would be ill-received by her advisers, many of whom have close ties to the billionaire and his staff. Steyer is widely believed to have political ambitions for himself someday, perhaps as a future candidate for governor of California.

“It’s not as if I haven’t thought about what’s going to happen after November 2016,” he said when asked about whether he’ll run for governor. “But what is true is that I haven’t committed to anything happening after November 2016.”

Steyer said he doesn’t know whether his super PAC, NextGen Climate, will endorse a candidate for president this cycle. And he declined to be pinned down on whether he might endorse one of Clinton’s rivals, such as Martin O’Malley or Bernie Sanders, if she fails to offer a strong enough climate platform.

“I don’t know because I don’t actually expect that to happen,” he said in an interview in Iowa. “I’m actually expecting that she’s going to come out with a really thoughtful, detailed plan.”

Sanders hasn’t been shy about criticizing Clinton for not declaring her opposition to Keystone. “It is hard for me to understand how one can be concerned about climate change but not vigorously oppose the Keystone pipeline,” the Vermont senator said in a statement Tuesday.

Clinton aides did not respond to a request for comment.

Steyer insisted he hasn’t effectively endorsed Clinton already, despite hosting a fundraiser for her in May at his San Francisco home.

“We have very high expectations for her,” he said. “We think that she’s going to be a really important and positive candidate.”

The interview came just days after Clinton released the first part of her climate change agenda, which among other things called for an expansive investment in solar energy. While Steyer stressed that Clinton plans to flesh out her proposal, he signaled his early support.

“If there’s one thing you can say about Hillary Clinton and her campaign, it’s that they’re super thorough,” he said. “I think they’re trying to set a framework that is going to be meaningful on this. I think it is going to be a centerpiece of what they do. I think they’re going to want to be aggressive about it.”

Steyer’s reluctance to criticize Clinton has turned heads among some of the former secretary of state’s opponents.

“If he wants to be the authority on climate change, and if he wants to dictate a litmus test, then he has to be prepared to be 100 percent solid on the issue and he can’t play favorites,” one national Democrat not supporting Clinton said. “He has to be prepared to have a frank conversation with his friends; otherwise it’s inauthentic.”

Steyer said Clinton’s plan appears to be in line with the standard he recently called on all presidential candidates to embrace: generating 50 percent of the nation’s power from carbon-free sources by 2030 with an eye toward “a completely clean energy economy” by 2050.

Clinton’s aides took pains this week to stress that her plan exceeds Steyer’s 2030 goal when nuclear energy is included — an indication that the campaign is paying attention to the billionaire. But the plan appears to fall slightly short of the longer-term goal. Clinton’s plan calls for moving the economy to “a path towards deep decarbonization by 2050.”

O’Malley had earlier pledged to wean the U.S. electricity system entirely off fossil fuels by 2050, while Sanders has endorsed a tax on carbon emissions — a holy grail for many climate activists.

Despite the fact that Clinton’s climate plan was released just days after Steyer outlined his green standard for presidential candidates, Steyer said he is not coordinating with the campaign.

“Because we may do independent expenditures, we don’t talk,” he said. “We want to make sure that nobody says we’re coordinating, which is illegal.”

Steyer was in Iowa this week to meet with his state-based staff as it prepares for a busy election cycle. NextGen has offices in Iowa, Florida and New Hampshire — and it may expand to other states. The group is building on the infrastructure it set up during the 2014 midterm elections, when Steyer spent $74 million of his own money in an attempt to elect pro-climate-action Democrats in seven Senate and gubernatorial races. (Three of his favored candidates won.)

This time, in an effort to persuade young, environmentally conscious voters to turn out at the polls, NextGen has expanded its campaign operation on key college campuses. The billionaire said he “absolutely” plans to get involved in House and Senate races, though he said NextGen is still finalizing its plans.

Steyer also said the climate change debate has shifted since the last election cycle, where NextGen and other groups were more focused on bashing Republicans for not acknowledging the scientific consensus about climate change.

“The debate has moved,” he said. “We’re definitely on to solutions. The denying thing is pretty much gone. I think the Republicans are probably trying to figure out what the hell to do.”

Steyer again declined to say how much money he is willing to spend this cycle, arguing that he can’t put a price tag on his efforts because the presidential campaign is still evolving. For the 2014 midterms, Steyer’s aides said the billionaire hoped to spend $100 million — half from his personal fortune and half from outside sources. But his aides eventually walked back that figure as they struggled to woo donors.

This time around, Steyer has mostly self-funded his efforts. Since the beginning of this year, Steyer has contributed $5 million to NextGen out of the $5.2 million the group had raised as of the end of June, according to financial records.

“We definitely will continue to try to get people to join us,” he said. But he conceded: “If last time is any judge, unfortunately, we’ll probably be writing the majority of the checks. But I hope I’m wrong.”