Kennedy said the president 'didn't deliver' because Republicans in Congress blocked him. RFK Jr. to greens: Not Obama's fault

Robert Kennedy Jr. thinks greens need to cut President Barack Obama some slack for not checking off everything on their environmental wish list.

“He turned down the [Keystone] XL pipeline proposal, he’s gotten CAFE standards for automobiles, he’s asked EPA to regulate carbon,” Kennedy said in a phone interview with POLITICO Thursday.


Instead, environmentalists should turn their anger on Congress, which scuttled carbon cap and trade legislation, said Kennedy, the founder of the Waterkeeper Alliance and son of the slain U.S. senator.

“His principal environmental initiatives, like all of his other initiatives, had been shut down by a Republican Congress,” he said. “For example, cap and trade, which passed [the House] ... was killed by the oil lobby in the U.S. Senate and by Republicans who say, ‘If Obama’s for it, we’re gonna be against it.’”

Many environmental advocates have been critical of Obama’s green record, particularly his support for oil, natural gas and coal as part of an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy, which itself was once a Republican rallying cry.

“A lot of people say, ‘OK, Obama didn’t deliver.’ Well, he didn’t deliver because he’s got a Congress like we haven’t seen before in American history,” he said.

Still, Kennedy would like climate change to garner more attention in the presidential campaign and the down-ticket contests, an absence Kennedy blamed on corporate cash distorting the debate since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

“I think politicians are reluctant to talk about that issue [climate change] because they think they’ll be targeted. I think that the problem is that we’re losing American democracy. That money is talking in these elections and it’s drowning out the voices of future generations and the American people,” he said.

But one issue that really dampens environmentalists’ enthusiasm for the president is the fear that he may give a nod to the Keystone XL pipeline.

“If he does, there’s going to be a battle. There’s gonna be a fight over that,” Kennedy warned.

Many environmentalists believe construction of the pipeline that would bring crude from Canada’s oil sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast would be a devastating blow to the Earth’s climate by unleashing vast amount of carbon.

Still, Kennedy suggested that it wasn’t fair to pre-judge Obama’s actions.

“At this point, he didn’t do it,” he said about Keystone.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 9:06 a.m. on October 12, 2012.