Environmentalists launched a multimedia campaign against the Keystone XL pipeline yesterday ahead of possible votes this week in the House and Senate to override President Obama's decision on the issue.

In an effort spearheaded by 350.org, which also led anti-Keystone XL protests this summer at the White House, activists announced plans to deliver more than 500,000 signatures on jump drives in 50 boxes to the offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) by this afternoon.

Former Vice President Al Gore issued a message on Twitter in support, while green groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council pledged to send out email action alerts.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.). Photo courtesy of Lugar's office.

Simultaneously, 350.org released a letter from 15 scientists to congressional leaders warning about the "pool of carbon" in Alberta's oil sands region, where the production process for crude releases more greenhouse gases than traditional oil drilling.

"It takes a lot of energy and water to extract and refine this resource into useable fuel, and the mining is environmentally destructive. Adding this on top of conventional fossil fuels will leave our children and grandchildren a climate system with consequences that are out of their control," says the letter, which was signed by Columbia University Earth Institute scientist James Hansen and climate scientists from the Woods Hole Research Center, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and other academic institutions.

A crowded lane for the highway bill

The environmental protests came in preparation for possible pro-Keystone XL votes this week in both the House and Senate as part of massive highway packages working their way through both chambers. In the House, a bill from Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) that would fast-track the pipeline and transfer authority over it to FERC is already part of the highway bill's text.

On the Senate side, Republicans filed an amendment to the highway bill yesterday that would authorize TransCanada to construct the 1,700-mile pipeline from Canada to Texas refineries.

It's unclear whether the provision will come up for a vote as part of the highway package, which is expected to be considered later this week. A senior Democratic aide in the Senate said yesterday that a vote could not be ruled out completely, but pointed to Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) comment yesterday that the highway bill is "too important to get bogged down with ideological amendments."

"We're not looking for a partisan victory here -- we're looking for the project to begin," an adviser to Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) wrote in an email about the amendment. Lugar joined Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), David Vitter (R-La.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in offering the measure, which parallels an earlier bill that garnered 45 co-sponsors, including Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.).

The Lugar adviser also said GOP senators would consider the FERC approach from Terry if that language is sent to the Senate.

Neb. waits for a clarification

"We are united in the goal of succeeding where President Obama has failed on Keystone XL," the adviser said.

GOP lawmakers have long accused the Obama administration of playing politics with the pipeline, considering that the State Department approved an oil sands pipeline three years ago, Enbridge's Alberta Clipper, when there were no environmental protests.

Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.). Photo courtesy of Terry's office.

Pipeline supporters also say that many of the environmental charges against Keystone XL are overblown, since Canada releases about 2 percent of global greenhouse gases (ClimateWire, Jan. 26). Other backers, including some labor unions, say the pipeline is a needed job creator that will enhance U.S. energy security.

In addition to concerns about greenhouse gases, pipeline opponents say that Keystone XL could raise the risk of oil spills and raise gas prices, since oil sands crude currently is sold at a discount in the Midwest. The pipeline, if built, would ease that bottleneck and send prices higher, they say.

The Obama administration denied a permit for Keystone XL in January, saying that it did not have enough time under a congressional mandate to find a new route of the project around an ecologically sensitive region in Nebraska. Since then, the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality and TransCanada officials told ClimateWire that they have ceased analysis of a reroute, pending clarification from Congress. That clarification from Congress may not come, according to one analyst.

"In the current political climate, I see virtually no chance for a pro-Keystone provision to pass in the Senate, and if one did, it would be dead on arrival at the White House, with no hope of overriding a presidential veto," said Kenneth Green, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.