Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today sidestepped the politicized debate over her department's review of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, declining to comment on whether there would be a final decision before 2013.

The State Department last week announced a broader environmental assessment of the $7 billion XL link, which would significantly boost U.S. imports of emissions-intensive Canadian oil-sands crude, and delayed a final ruling on the project beyond 2012 -- drawing howls from Republicans who saw the postponement as an attempt by the Obama administration to avoid alienating both pro-pipeline industry groups and anti-pipeline environmentalists before Election Day.

Asked about the controversy by NBC in an interview taped today, Clinton avoided wading into the issue more than a year after she galvanized green opposition to the pipeline by saying that State was "inclined" to approve Keystone XL (Greenwire, Nov. 29, 2010).

State's "experts who are working on this," the former first lady told NBC's Chuck Todd, decided "that there had to be attention paid to a potential other routing." While congressional Republicans and the pipeline's sponsor have suggested that the 2013 time frame for finishing that route review could be hastened -- despite avowals from State that it would not be expedited -- Clinton took no position.

"It's a largely technical, scientific process," she said of the Keystone XL review. "Since I am [involved in] neither, I can't really comment on how long it would take to do properly."

Environmentalists and most Democrats bitterly oppose Keystone XL, citing the carbon footprint of Canadian oil-sands development and the potential for a spill from the pipeline. Business groups, labor unions, the GOP and conservative-leaning Democrats hail the project as a job creator that would lock down a secure long-term fuel source.

Clinton's seemingly pro-pipeline comment last year gave green groups a rhetorical weapon against the proposal after they filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about contacts between State and a former Clinton aide now working for Keystone XL's backer, Alberta-based TransCanada Corp. (E&E Daily, Oct. 3).

But oil industry interests today made their own bid to gain from the FOIA process. The Institute for Energy Research (IER), a nonprofit led by former Koch Industries lobbyist Thomas Pyle, filed a formal request for communications about the pipeline between State and several entities, including the White House, U.S. EPA, Nebraska politicians from both parties, and four green groups that have led anti-Keystone XL efforts.

"There is growing evidence that this administration cares more about satisfying environmental extremists ahead of the president's re-election bid than it does creating jobs," Pyle said in a statement on the FOIA request, linking the Keystone XL debate to the broader conservative case against President Obama's cleaner-energy agenda.

"The message of this administration is increasingly clear: reliable sources of carbon-based energy will face bureaucratic delays while bankrupt solar companies like Solyndra will receive preferential treatment and hundreds of millions of dollar in loans."