Some Washington observers believe Obama will ultimately greenlight the pipeline project. | REUTERS Obama words turn up Keystone heat

President Barack Obama is in a pipeline pickle.

The president’s call for action on climate change during Monday’s inaugural speech puts his upcoming decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline in an even brighter spotlight — pitting his pledge to tackle global warming against his stated commitment to an “all of the above” energy strategy.


( Also on POLITICO: Nebraska governor Dave Heineman OKs Keystone XL route)

Republicans and industry groups will unleash a torrent of attacks on the president if he rejects the pipeline. And Keystone has strong support from some Democrats in Congress near the pipeline’s proposed route, including Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Jon Tester of Montana.

Some Republicans are already laying the groundwork to use a rejection of Keystone to question the president’s support for energy and jobs.

“The president needs to decide if his allegiance is to the environmental extremists or hard-working American families,” Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso said Tuesday.

But greens warn that approval of the pipeline will wreak havoc on the climate, betraying the expectations the president raised anew Monday.

“One can’t promise a full-on attack on the climate crisis and then approve the project that climate scientists have singled out as a particular disaster,” said Bill McKibben, founder of the group 350.org, which organized massive White House sit-ins against Keystone in 2011. “It wouldn’t make sense, and it would undercut all his powerful words.”

In the middle, some environmentally minded Democrats who praised Obama’s speech appear to be making room for a Keystone approval.

When asked whether approving the pipeline will diminish Obama’s climate legacy, Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who strongly opposes the project, said: “It depends on what else he does. … It’s part of a package. If he did that but did 17 things that, you know, clean it up, … I’d have a different opinion.”

Time is running out for Obama to choose. The president will have to make a final decision on the project in the coming months, probably after the first quarter of the year.

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman approved the revised Keystone XL pipeline route Tuesday, putting the ball in the State Department’s court. The new route avoids an ecologically sensitive region of Nebraska, one of the biggest sticking points in the fight over the 1,700-mile project.

White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to say Tuesday how Heineman’s action will affect the timeline for the State Department’s review of the pipeline, saying, “I don’t want to get ahead of that process.”

“When the State Department has something to move forward on, we’ll obviously address that issue, when it does,” Carney said.

As for the prominence that Obama gave climate change in his inaugural address, Carney told reporters that “it’s an important issue. It is a priority. But it is not a singular priority.”

Liberals and their allies in the environmental movement are ratcheting up the pressure on the president to reject the pipeline, which would carry oil sands crude from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

Anti-Keystone activists are hoping to build the scientific case against the pipeline. In recent weeks, they’ve released several studies detailing what they say would be the harsh climate change effects of the project.

One report released by the Canadian environmental think tank Pembina Institute asserts that the pipeline would increase current oil sands production by 36 percent and would produce upstream emissions equal to 6.3 coal-fired power plants or more than 4.6 million cars.

Officials with the country’s top environmental groups met at the White House before the election to present aides with their top priorities for the president’s second term. Among the top three priorities: rejecting the Keystone pipeline and other fossil-fuel projects that could harm the environment. In briefings with White House staff since the election, the officials have reiterated their concerns with the pipeline.

“I think the facts are pretty clear,” Environment America Executive Director Margie Alt said. “You cannot ignore the implications.”

But Washington observers, including many who oppose Keystone, believe the president ultimately will greenlight the project, which has been entangled in the permitting process for years.

“I think he realizes that unconventional oil has to be a part of the equation,” said Charles Ebinger, an energy analyst at the Brookings Institution.

Ebinger said the president is likely to frame the pipeline in terms of energy security and jobs rather than climate change.

“I think he’ll wrap it up into jobs and opportunities for American exports and try to give it as a good a gloss as he can,” he said.

Another factor to watch: the country’s relationship with Canada, which stands to win big if the pipeline is approved.

“It’s not an either-or — you can have energy independence from the Middle East, and you can achieve your climate change objectives, and that’s what Canada wants to do, as well,” Canadian Ambassador Gary Doer told POLITICO.

The president’s public commitment to tackling climate change could help soften the blow to environmentalists if he indeed approves Keystone.

During the Inauguration on Monday, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) made that point to his Democratic colleagues.

“He’s just setting you up for the approval of Keystone,” Upton said he told Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who was sitting next to him during Obama’s speech.

But in a conversation with reporters Tuesday, Upton said he doesn’t know where Obama will fall on the pipeline.

Upton said he still plans to pursue pro-Keystone legislation, though he offered no details. And Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) vowed Tuesday to reintroduce legislation allowing Congress to force approval of the project if Obama kills it. Hoeven told POLITICO he circulated a letter at the Republican caucus lunch Tuesday calling on Obama to quickly approve the pipeline.

Some Democrats who lauded Obama’s climate goals weren’t making hard-and-fast verdicts Tuesday on the pipeline.

“There are a whole host of questions surrounding Keystone,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said when asked whether approving Keystone would be consistent with Obama’s pledge to tackle climate change.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a vocal clean-energy advocate, said the pipeline “can be a part of a much broader clean-energy agenda.”

Pressed for clarification, Carper said compromise is essential to making progress on climate change and renewable energy, and each side in the debate needs to make sacrifices.

“That means that the fossil-fuel folks aren’t going to get their way, and those of us who are strongly supportive of clean energy and the clean-energy economy aren’t entirely going to get our way. There’s got to be a meeting in the middle,” he said.

Reporters asked: Is approval of the pipeline part of that “meeting in the middle”?

“What I said, I said. That’s all I’m going to say,” Carper replied.

Still, the most liberal senators didn’t pull any punches.

“It would be a terrible message. You cannot say that we have to transform the energy system, that we have to cut back on carbon and that we’re going to approve the Keystone pipeline,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who plans to introduce legislation in February that includes putting a price on carbon.

Darren Goode, Talia Buford and Darren Samuelsohn contributed to this report.