The GOP's last-minute victory this weekend -- forcing President Obama to rule on the Keystone XL oil pipeline within 60 days -- might appear to leave his relations with environmentalists on the same uneasy brink that they were for most of the fall.

But despite their unease with Democrats for agreeing to fast-track a decision on the Canada-to-U.S. pipeline in exchange for a two-month payroll tax-cut extension, greens publicly maintain confidence that the White House -- which has disappointed them several times this year -- will make good on suggestions that the Republican gambit would leave it no choice but to reject the $7 billion project.

"This may be the final chapter for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, now that Republicans are forcing the president's hand prematurely," National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Vice President Jeremy Symons said in an interview.

Sierra Club associate campaign director Kate Colarulli joined Symons in projecting that the GOP's insistence on making Obama address the politically volatile pipeline before his re-election would "end up backfiring."

Conservationists' rosy reading of the Senate's 89-10 payroll tax vote Saturday rests on a week-old avowal from the State Department, the agency in charge of vetting Keystone XL, that the 60-day window set by that broader bill would leave it "unable to make a determination to issue a permit for this project."

White House economic adviser Gene Sperling yesterday assured greens further by telling CNN that a two-month deadline "to do the serious environmental and safety and health reviews ... would make it almost certainly impossible for [State] to extend that permit" to TransCanada Corp.'s 1,700-mile link between the Alberta oil sands and Gulf Coast refineries.

Yet the language in the Senate-passed payroll tax bill, which mirrors a bipartisan bill introduced by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), interprets a lack of action within its 60-day window as automatic approval of the pipeline -- meaning that if State is "unable to make a determination," the pipeline may well receive a permit in February.

Moreover, a State spokeswoman Friday declined to say that the Lugar bill would force a rejection of Keystone XL, noting instead that Congress' latest action "would appear to legislate a different process" than the department has used since it began weighing TransCanada's bid in 2008 (E&ENews PM, Dec. 16).

Even if the administration does reject the pipeline, Republicans would still see an upside to having forced Obama to disappoint the project's labor union and business backers while pleasing environmentalists. The White House sidestepped that tricky political calculus in November by delaying its decision on the XL link until 2013, citing the need for additional environmental impact studies sparked by a rerouting of the pipe around the sensitive soil of the Nebraska Sandhills.

"It is absolutely incredible that President Obama wants to delay a decision until after the 2012 elections, apparently in fear of offending a part of his political base and even risking the ire of construction unions who strongly support the project," Lugar said in a statement Saturday.

Indeed, environmentalists who lamented Obama's delay of tougher smog standards in September and his lack of full-throated support for comprehensive climate change legislation have turned to Keystone XL as a proving ground for the president ahead of his tough re-election fight. That pressure was renewed over the weekend by activists such as Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica, who warned that Obama "will have failed one of the biggest tests of his presidency" if he fails to definitively block the pipeline in 2012.

Messy endgame

Even as Washington environmental players rushed to amplify their own camp's take on the murky Friday night deal that definitely linked Keystone XL to the payroll tax cut, House Republicans are preparing to add a new twist to the drama.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his lieutenants vowed yesterday to prevent the Senate bill from passing with a mix of votes from both parties when it comes to the floor today, instead predicting that they would amend it or move for a conference committee to push for a yearlong extension of the tax cut. "We agree" with Obama that "two months is too short," a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) fired back, accusing Boehner of abandoning a deal that upper chamber GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky worked out on his party's behalf and vowing that a failure to accept the terms of that bipartisan compromise would not win Boehner more votes on an alternative.

Appearing on NBC yesterday to discuss his opposition to the Senate proposal, Boehner blasted as "nonsense" the White House's hints that State would have to reject Keystone XL as a result of Republicans' 60-day deadline.

"Now the only issue here is that the president doesn't want to have to make this decision until after his election," the Ohioan said, citing "20,000 direct jobs, 100,000 indirect jobs, to build a pipeline from Canada down to the Gulf that would help our energy security."

Liberal Democrats and environmentalists note that those job-creation projections come from TransCanada- and industry-commissioned studies, pointing to the 13,000 short-term construction jobs promised in the company's formal pipeline permit application as a more reliable estimate of XL's economic impacts.

Keystone XL backers "don't tell you" [that] only a few hundred permanent jobs are needed to operate and maintain the pipeline," Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) said in a Saturday floor speech before joining fellow Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) in voting against the payroll tax-pipeline bill.

"And they also don't mention that the choice is not between jobs or no jobs," Leahy added. "They ignore the tens of thousands of permanent, safe American jobs that could be created by investing in clean, renewable sources of energy, which unlike tar sands oil don't pollute and will not be used up in a few short decades."