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“I suspect that over the next six months, this is going to be a debate that will become part of the campaign, and I will be very clear in voicing my belief that we’re going to have to take further steps to deal with climate change in a serious way.”

U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, speaking to Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner in a new interview. Obama went on to defend his nuanced positions on the Keystone XL pipeline and Canadian tar sands, arguing that while he was unhappy with Republican attempts to circumvent the pipeline approval process, Canada was likely to develop the tar sands no matter what [...]

Jason Reed / Reuters

Obama’s Energy Strategy: All of the Above—and a Lot of Oil

Why was President Obama speaking at the small town of Cushing, Oklahoma this morning? Whether or not you know the answer to that questions probably predicts where you stand on energy policy. Cushing is the Pipelines Crossroads of the World—they even have a monument. The town is the central hub for American oil pipelines, feeding [...]

Jocelyn Lee for TIME

Keystone: How Bill McKibben Turned a Pipeline into an Environmental Rallying Point

The proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline is the environmental issue that will not go away. More than a month after President Obama rejected the initial plan for the pipeline—which would have moved some 830,000 barrels a day of oil sands crude from Alberta across the upper Midwest—barely a day goes by without partisans on [...]

Nick M Do

Gasbag: Why No President Can Bring Us $2 Gasoline

It’s Presidents’ Day as I write this, so if you were lucky enough to have the day off, give some thanks to Washington, Lincoln and all the other chief executives — even stinkers like James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson. Of course in modern American politics, every day is really Presidents’ Day — so central is [...]

Bloomberg via Getty Images

Pipeline Politics: Are the Oil Sands “Game Over” for the Climate? One Study Says No

There are no shortage of reasons why the Keystone XL pipeline has become such a hot button issue for environmentalists. Many worry about the risks the project could pose to the Ogallala aquifer in Nebraska, where the pipeline was originally designed to pass. Indeed, when President Obama rejected Keystone XL in January, his stated concern [...]

Bloomberg via Getty Images

Pipeline Politics: Keystone, Advocates and Analysts

If there were any doubt that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline—which would bring more than 700,000 barrels a day of Canadian oils sands through the Midwest to refineries in the U.S.—has become the biggest environmental issue in America, this week should have quieted them. On Monday at 12 PM ET a coalition of major environmental [...]

Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg / Getty Images

Pipeline Politics: Keystone Is Dead (For Now). What Happens Next?

Chalk a win up for the environmentalists. On Wednesday, the White House announced that it was rejecting—on the recommendation of the State Department—the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would have brought 700,000 barrels a day of oil sands crude from western Canada into the U.S. In many ways the announcement—forced by Congressional legislation passed late [...]

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Pipeline Politics: How an Oil Sands Project Has Become Key to Environmentalism

Given that there are already more than 2.3 million miles of pipelines in the U.S.—carrying petroleum products, chemicals and natural gas—it might seem odd that so much political energy has been expended on a proposed 1,700-mile pipeline. Yet the controversial Keystone XL pipeline—which would cross the upper Midwest to carry crude from Canadian oil sands [...]

The Climate Movement Temporarily Stops an Oil Sands Pipeline. Now They Need to Start Something

Give Bill McKibben and the thousands of other protesters who put their safety and freedom on the line in protest after protest against the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline: they won their battle. Today the State Department—which has jurisdiction over the project because it connects the U.S. with Canadian oil sands—announced that it would [...]

Greens Are Justifiably Mad About the Oil Sands Pipeline. But Sitting Out 2012 Elections Would Be Insane

For the past week, hundreds of activists—from celebrities and scientists to ordinary citizens—have come to Washington to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring up to 500,000 barrels of crude a day from western Canada’s oil sands. Scores of those activists have been arrested, but more keep coming every day, urging President Obama [...]