The chiefs of 17 green groups today delivered a political warning to President Obama, urging him to strip the State Department of authority over the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline or risk alienating environmentalists who backed him in 2008.

Today's letter to Obama marks the latest effort by green advocates to stoke concerns over what they call a compromised process at State ahead of a final ruling on the $7 billion pipeline, which would nearly double U.S. imports of emissions-heavy Canadian oil-sands crude. That anti-Keystone XL strike has ensnared Paul Elliott, a former aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton now lobbying for the pipeline, as environmentalists released internal emails that show him cultivating close ties to officials in Clinton's department (E&E Daily, Oct. 3).

In releasing the letter, the conservationist CEOs underscored that their charges of "cronyism" in the wake of the Elliott emails -- which drew vocal push-back from his employers at Alberta-based pipeline company TransCanada Corp. -- are only one avenue to impress upon Obama the importance of the Keystone XL decision to his green base.

State's environmental reviews of the pipeline project and the deliberations on view in the Elliott emails left Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune with "stark disappointment in an administration that promised transparent government and science-led public policy," he told reporters.

"There is still time for the State Department and President Obama to redeem themselves, accept that this process has been flawed from the beginning, and reject the process," Brune said, describing the Keystone XL assessment as something "we'd come to expect" from the George W. Bush administration.

Rainforest Action Network Executive Director Rebecca Tarbotton, another signatory of the letter, echoed that frustration among greens. "I think I speak for many people when I say we want the Obama of 2008 back," she said today.

Officials from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which did not sign today's letter, posted a similar entreaty on their group's blog today in discussing the Elliott emails. "It is time for the president to intervene in this process before it becomes a badge of corruption for his administration," NRDC's Anthony Swift and Susan Casey-Lefkowitz wrote.

TransCanada has long defended Elliott's work and his contacts with State as typical of a federal lobbying process that thousands of businesses and nonprofits engage in each year. The company reinforced that stance Sunday in response to the latest internal email release.

"We challenge Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups to release any emails from their over 60 registered lobbyists sent to the Department of State and the EPA," TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said via email, adding that such transparency "should not be an issue unless there may be something untoward in these emails."

A State spokesman also noted Sunday that the department has cut a wide swath in communicating with stakeholders on its pipeline decision, meeting "with industry as well as environmental groups, both in the United States and in Canada" during its deliberations over whether building Keystone XL is in the national interest.

"We are committed to a fair, transparent and thorough process," the spokesman said via email. "We listen to all opinions, but there is much more that goes into the national interest determination decision."

Click here to read the environmentalists' letter.