Amid the focus on rifts within the Republican Party, it’s easy to miss the splits on the other side of the aisle.
We had a recent example when the Senate passed a non-binding resolution calling on President Obama to approve the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to refineries along the Gulf Coast.
No surprise that all 45 Republicans voted yea. What makes it interesting is that they were joined by 17 Democrats — six more yes votes than the last time the Senate voted on the pipeline. That’s nearly one-third of the Democratic caucus now on record as dissenting from a key party dogma: Fossil fuels are evil, no matter how much America still depends on them.
Now, many of these Democrats represent states whose economies stand to benefit from Keystone or who face difficult re-election battles. But the yeas also include several Democrats not on the at-risk list — for example, Michael Bennett of Colorado, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Even more interesting, most of these 17 Democrats also opposed taxing industrial carbon emissions — another key plank of the environmental platform.
What gives? Our guess is these 17 Democrats were emboldened by a new study from the president’s own State Department that found the pipeline would cause no major environmental damage. And their vote reflects frustration that for all Obama’s talk about taking “control [of] our energy future,” environmental activists within their party have kept America from fully developing our considerable oil and natural-gas resources.
With these 17 Democrats, we believe it’s time for Obama to stop debating the pipeline and start letting people build it.