Brian Beutler November 10, 2011, 6:28 PM

Liberals and environmentalists are rejoicing tonight over the Obama administration’s decision to delay — or in bureaucratese, “seek further review of” — a proposal to build a massive pipeline from the Canadian Tar Sands to the gulf coast. But their celebration could be short lived.

Here’s the full backstory. The so-called Keystone XL pipeline has become the frustrated environmental community’s final litmus test for the President. Though the bureaucratic questions surrounding the project have to do with domestic health and safety concerns, environmentalists fear, with good reason, that the pipeline would assure the extraction of too much carbon for the climate to bear. So they’ve been hounding the White House and State Department for months in an effort to get the project scrapped altogether.

Instead, Obama will make the call after the election — assuming he wins. And now top advocates are reminding the administration that they’ll come right back, if it turns out, as liberal blogger Atrios put it, “[O]bama promise[d] not to approve keystone pipeline until after he is re-elected.”

“The President should know that nothing that happened today changes our position—we’re unequivocal in our opposition,” said activist Bill McKibben in a prepared statement. “If this pipeline proposal reemerges from the review process intact we will use every form of nonviolent civil disobedience to keep it from ever being built.”

With the exception of members like Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) who oppose the pipeline because it runs through their states and threatens their lands, Republicans attacked the President for threatening the project. But like McKibben, environmentally minded members worry the GOP will ultimately get its way.

“The State Department today raised the correct concerns, but reached the wrong conclusion,” said Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) “The catastrophic environmental risks of this proposed pipeline dictate the project be rejected, not delayed. I look forward to a swift and thorough investigation by the inspector general into the State Department’s review process.”

They have good reason to worry. Before activists turned Keystone into a national story, the project was mostly considered a done deal. There’s a lot of institutional pressure on the administration to see it through. And base voter clamor won’t have the same impact if and when Obama’s a second term president.

Barack Obama, Environment, Mike Johanns, Oil, State Department, White House