After yet another Obama administration delay on deciding whether to approve the Keystone Pipeline, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Sunday on Meet the Press that she didn't think the move was political.
"As a member of Congress who represents hundreds of thousands of people in south Florida, I want to make sure the right decision is arrived at and that the president makes that decision carefully and doesn’t factor politics into his decision, which I don’t think he is," Schultz said.
The decision has widely been viewed as just that, given its controversial nature and Obama's need to keep environmental lobbyists with deep pockets happy in an election year. Even MSNBC's Morning Joe called the move a purely political one. As pointed out by the National Review, "the State Department recently found that Keystone XL would have no significant impact on the environment — a conclusion upheld by the department’s inspector general."
Schultz said the decision on Keystone was "complex" and called the environmental concerns "legitimate." She dodged when host David Gregory asked directly whether Obama should approve its creation, which is popular in states where vulnerable Senate Democrats desperately need a boost.
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.), who faces a tough re-election fight, slammed the move as an "indefinite delay."