Has the groundwork been laid for Obama to approve Keystone?

>>> looking to last friday afternoon at the almost happy hour of 3:30 the estate department released a long awaited report to the 2,000 page state department analysis arguing that the keystone pipeline would have little impact on climate change . in a statement the sierra club said it was outraged by the report, asserting whether this failure was willful or accidental, this report is nothing short of malpractice. ben, it looks and sounds -- it seems as if the president is -- or the ground work has been laid for him to approve the pipeline. the question i have is how much other stuff is he going to have to make up? is he going to have to have concessions else where to make up for what climate change advocates are going to be very eveningry about?

>> i don't think so. i think what he has here is he has a kind of case where he can say, you know, look, this was not going to solve -- opposing the keystone project was not going to solve the problems that you guys are worried about anyway. you saw reports saying that rail companies were building, you know, connects up to northern alberta to take beg gas and oil out of the tar sands if the pipeline didn't get built. the broader challenge is the demand side challenge. you know, not a supply side challenge.

>> that's what the white house has said too. it's worth noting that ernest is officially nominated as energy secretary, and gina mccarthy at the e.p.a. republicans already expressing their outrage. inhoff says appointment is making clear that the president is going to continue pursuing an aggressive climate agenda at the e.p.a.

>> well, and to ben's point about why he is not going to have to do something else. having that kind of opposition actually helps him. i mean, essentially if he has people who are opposing his picks on the grounds that he has such an aggressive climate change agenda, he does have the ability to sort of fall back on this report and say this was going to happen anyway. we can go ahead with this. this is not going to address your complaints. i don't think that's a negative for him.

>> if he has a fighter at the epa perhaps that will mean new regulations for existing coal plants and new coal plants. we have to leave it there. what a tiny little subject to try to end on. thank my very talented panel. that's all