No sooner did the Obama administration announce a year-plus of extra environmental review for the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline than its backers began weighing strategies to speed up a federal verdict, an effort the House GOP is set to formally join this week.

The Energy and Commerce Committee's energy and power subpanel -- which earlier this year crafted a proposal to force a decision on the XL link by the beginning of this month, only to see it stall in the Senate -- could use Friday's hearing on fast-tracking the pipeline to help shape a second plan to force the administration's hand on the project. House Republicans signaled in the aftermath of the State Department's delay in ruling on Keystone XL that they could mount a new legislative push for the pipeline despite their slim chances of success in the upper chamber.

"We are concerned about the timeline slipping even more," Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.), chief sponsor of this year's first pro-XL bill, said two weeks ago as he hailed pipeline sponsor TransCanada Corp. for agreeing to reroute its $7 billion project around his home state's ecologically vulnerable Sandhills region (E&E Daily, Nov. 15).

Even if the dwindling number of legislative days in 2011 makes it impossible for the GOP to take a new Keystone XL bill to the floor, the issue is all but assured to remain fertile ground for political combat heading toward next year's elections. With its promise of up to 800,000 barrels of Canadian oil-sands crude per day heading from Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries, the pipeline is a potent symbol for both business groups elated by its job-creation potential and environmentalists opposed to its emissions-intensive fuel.

The invocation of "energy security" as well as jobs in the announcement of Friday's hearing also suggests that Republicans plan to hammer President Obama for punting on a project hotly desired by the government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Even some pro-XL Democrats have echoed Energy and Commerce Republicans in warning that Harper's team could encourage TransCanada and other oil-sands crude suppliers to shift their focus to Asian export markets -- a prospect that environmentalists counter is much easier said than done.

"I can tell you this right now, that the [potential] pipeline that runs from the oil sands of Alberta to the Pacific Coast and loading supertankers for China is a lot closer than building" Keystone XL, Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-Mont.) told Fox Business Network this month.

"They're our friends, they're our neighbors," he added of Canadian fuel companies. "But they are in the oil business, and they'd like to sell that oil."

TransCanada is not alone in staking billions of dollars on boosting exports of oil-sands crude, which has a large greenhouse gas footprint -- as much as 82 percent greater or as little as 5 percent greater than conventional fuel, depending on the source of emissions data and its frame of reference. Enbridge Energy Partners LP said this month that it is advancing plans for a smaller pipeline, dubbed Wrangler, that could open a path for oil-sands crude from refineries in Cushing, Okla., to the Gulf of Mexico, while TransCanada executives suggested earlier this month that they could break the 1,700-mile Keystone XL plan into smaller pieces to win quicker federal approval (E&E Daily, Nov. 17).

Any such shift in response to the State Department's extra environmental review of the XL line is likely to meet with strong push-back from the alliance of green groups that cheered the administration's move to delay a final ruling on the project beyond Election Day.

Schedule: The hearing is Friday, Dec. 2, at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.

Witnesses: TBA.