President Obama yesterday billed the State Department's review of the Keystone XL oil pipeline as "recommendations" rather than a ruling, raising hopes among environmentalists that he would assume ultimate say over the controversial project.

Obama did not clearly state in yesterday's interview with Nebraska TV station KETV that a decision on the $7 billion Canada-to-U.S. pipeline would fall to him. But his choice of words to describe the complex vetting process for the XL line -- saying that State would "giv[e] me a report" and that he would "measur[e] these recommendations when they come to me" -- were a powerful signal to greens who have long fought for the White House to take control of the pipeline proposal.

"It's encouraging that the president is taking responsibility for this decision and how the pipeline would affect public health, the impact it would have on our energy future," said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune, whose group is part of a massive anti-XL protest planned for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Sunday.

Brune added that the president's KETV interview, among his most in-depth to date on the factors that would determine the fate of the pipeline-turned-political football, "means that we've selected the right target for sure" for the weekend sit-in. Indeed, Obama's hint of a buck-stops-here response to Keystone XL came a day after his spokesman walled off the White House from the project's fate (E&ENews PM, Oct. 31).

Yet Obama's interview appeared to skip a crucial step in the 2004 executive order that centered the Keystone XL decisionmaking process at State. Though Obama could work around that edict at any time, it keeps the project in State's hands until a determination is made on whether building Keystone XL would be in the national interest -- a formal finding once expected to come this year but now considered likely to slip into 2012 (E&ENews PM, Nov. 1).

At that point, the order allows the leaders of consulting agencies, including U.S. EPA and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, to object to a national interest determination within 15 days after its release and "refer the application to the president."

What the president's remarks did reveal were a notable awareness of the issues that make Nebraskans wary of Keystone XL, which would significantly increase U.S. imports of emissions-intensive Canadian oil-sands crude if approved.

"[M]y general attitude is, what is best for the American people? What's best for our economy, both short-term and long-term? But also, what's best for the health of the American people?" Obama said. He also cited the potential for the Cornhusker State's Ogallala Aquifer to be "adversely affected" by the pipeline in noting the importance of "taking the long view on these issues."

Bill McKibben, the 350.org founder and climate activist who has led the grassroots charge against the pipeline, issued a statement hailing Obama for "indicating that the environment will be the top priority going forward" before adding: "Of course, it's not just people in Nebraska that are upset about this project."

Yet Nebraskans are mounting the most direct threat yet to the pipeline, a dearly sought priority of congressional Republicans, the oil and gas industry, major business groups and labor unions. A special session of that state's Legislature opened yesterday, convened by its GOP governor to determine whether a bill forcing the pipe away from the aquifer's most delicate sections could pass muster both legally and politically.

The pipeline's sponsor, Alberta-based TransCanada Corp., yesterday warned that any rerouting of Keystone XL could sink the project through a two-year-plus delay of State's process -- though the company declined to condemn a shorter delay, such as a one-year extension that could move a final decision past Obama's re-election race.

Even as the true impact of Obama's comments on the pipeline project remained murky, environmentalists who have shined a spotlight on potential conflicts of interest at State cheered the claim staked by the president's phrasing.

"If the scope and severity of the threats posed by the pipeline are accurately understood, it will be obvious to President Obama that the costs far outweigh the benefits and that he must reject it," Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica said in a statement.