from the industry, and from Canada to recommend this project.
He has held his cards close to his vest on this - not answering questions directly. He has spoken of a transparent process and not knowing what the study would show. He is very experienced at looking at these types of analyses and questioning the assumptions is as basic as you can get. I also hope that one very committed environmentalist is lobbying her husband pointing out that he knows what is right.
If it came down to whether it would hurt Obama if Kerry refused to approve it, I could see him approving it for all the reasons you suggest. I don't think it does because Obama can over ride any decision. I don't think, in spite of his excellent record, that Kerry approving it gives Obama any cover with environmentalists or the left. I think Obama is in a strange position on this as his recent comments on climate change really conflict with the idea of approving this. Not to mention, why throw away a valuable card for nothing.
Obama is in his second term, the question is whether - as Van Jones said he wants this to be Obama's pipeline. It is impossible to assume that in all future decades of use, it never springs a leak - devastating some part of the country. Does he want this as his legacy? Standing up and saying "no" - USING the lack of gains to the US in this report might be the best thing for him to do. The down side could be that Democrats will be hit with stopping that in 2014. That was threatened with ANWR as well - and it didn't really work. It could be that they would "punish" him by holding something else hostage - but they are already doing that with everything. In fact, if he has to do it, he likely would want to trade something big for it.
A cynical part of me could even see Kerry not approving it, giving his considerate opinion of why it is not in our interest - and Obama using overriding Kerry as a bargaining chip with the Republicans. (Note if Kerry approves it and Obama concurs, they get nothing from the Republicans in return.)
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