Fox poll: 65 percent want Obama to sign bill approving Keystone XL pipeline

It's not exactly huge news that a huge majority of Americans support the Keystone XL pipeline and want President Obama to sign legislation approving it. Keystone XL has been popular for a long time - and it's needed to be because the Obama Administration has been dragging its feet on approval for a long time. But you might have thought Democrats would be more opposed than supportive of the pipeline.

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If you thought that, you were wrong, as the latest Fox News poll shows:

A 65-percent majority says Obama should sign the Keystone legislation, according to the poll. That includes 82 percent of Republicans, 60 percent of independents and 52 percent of Democrats. Overall, only 22 percent of voters think the president should veto it -- which he has threatened to do. The U.S. House passed a bill approving the pipeline Friday. The Senate is now considering Keystone legislation, but there won’t be a final vote this week. Support for Keystone has held steady for years: 68 percent of voters backed it at the end of 2014, 70 percent in 2013 and 67 percent in 2012. Here again, support comes from more than half of Democrats, most independents and almost all Republicans.

When you think about it, this is really not that surprising. To the extent the Democrat rank-and-file consist of working people who want a healthy job market and reasonably priced fuel - and that includes a lot of union members, folks - they understand it really doesn't benefit them to have western nations rely so heavily on the Middle East for fuel. The subset of Democrats who oppose Keystone are the environmental activists who believe the nonsense that the pipeline somehow leads to the destruction of the Earth via global warming or whatever. Or it consists of people who gullibly lap up the propaganda that comes from "green energy" billionaire Tom Steyer, who is really just looking for ways to eliminate competition for himself. Obama's foot-dragging is a sop to a very specific segment of his political base. It has nothing to do with what the larger public wants, or even with good environmental policy. He knows perfectly well that the public opposees him on this, and that is excuses for inaction are nonsense. But green activist money speaks pretty loudly to Democrat politicians, and once you realize that, you understand how Obama goes about making decisions. You disagree with him, but this is not about you.