Keystone pipeline sent to proper environmental review

The good news — the best news in ages — is that Obama's ordering that the Keystone pipeline project actually be sent into legitimate environmental review, which many experts are predicting will kill the project (not just push the issue past election time).

Leadership on Obama's part? Hardly.

This environmental review — and the timing of it — is a direct response to the heartening "surround the White House" action on Sunday led by Bill McKibben and 350.org. Direct action that was deliberately timed to take place exactly one year from next year's presidential election. Obama doesn't just need votes. He needs enthusiasm. And he must be learning that if he remains tepid ad infinitum he will be wholesale abandoned by exactly the wave that elected him in 2008 — and whom he's betrayed since then. Betrayed is a strong word. Supply another in its place if you'd like.

Here's the NY Times' report.