Hillary Clinton moved from being “inclined” to support the controversial Keystone XL pipeline to announcing Tuesday that she’d oppose it. The move that comes as the former secretary of state seeks the Democratic presidential nomination and felt pressure from rival candidates as well as environmentalists and progressives.
Here’s how she got to Tuesday:
October 2010: We’re “inclined” to back it
“We haven’t finish all of the analysis,” Clinton, then secretary of state, told the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. “So as I say, we’ve not yet signed off on it. But we are inclined to do so and we are for several reasons.”
June 2014: “I can’t respond” but we’re “trying to get it right”
“I can’t really comment at great length because I had responsibility for it and it’s been passed on and it wouldn’t be appropriate, but I hope that Canadians appreciate that the United States government — the Obama administration — is trying to get it right,” Clinton told Canada’s The Globe and Mail as she promoted her book, Hard Choices. When asked if she personally agreed with the pipeline, she said, “I can’t respond.”
January 2015: “I’m not going to express an opinion”
“We have differences and you won’t get me to talk about Keystone because I have steadily made clear that I’m not going to express an opinion,” she told an audience in Winnipeg. “It is in our process and that’s where it belongs.”
July 2015: “If it is undecided when I become president, I will answer your question”
“I am not going to second guess (President Barack Obama) because I was in a position to set this in motion,” Clinton said just two months ago in New Hampshire. “I want to wait and see what he and Secretary (John) Kerry decide.”
She added, “If it is undecided when I become president, I will answer your question.”
September 2015: “I oppose it”
“I think it is imperative that we look at the Keystone pipeline as what I believe it is — a distraction from important work we have to do on climate change,” Clinton said Tuesday in Des Moines, Iowa. “And unfortunately from my perspective, one that interferes with our ability to move forward with all the other issues. Therefore I oppose it.”