This is not what democracy looks like, to revise the chant embraced by Occupy Wall Street. After a popular movement rose up against the proposed Keystone XL project–over a thousand people were arrested at one protest outside the White House, and 12,000 people joined hands around it at another-president Barack Obama announced that he would delay the tar sands pipeline until another environmental review was carried out.
That makes sense. People demonstrate vocal opposition to a measure, politicians respond. Cause and effect. It is, if I might be so bold, how democracy is supposed to work. So why is the tar sands pipeline back in the game? Why are Republicans suddenly fighting to get a measure approving the Keystone XL tacked onto an otherwise bipartisan payroll tax cut bill? One main reason: The oil industry wanted them to.
How Big Oil’s Back Room Dealing with the GOP Revived the Keystone XL via Brian Merchant – Treehugger