Want that Keystone XL pipeline, do ya? Obama sure would like a carbon tax!

The Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel and her Potomac Watch column are essential reading if you really want a sense of how and why things happen in Washington. But it won't necessarily leave you encouraged. Say, for instance, you think Democrats have no hope of passing a climate change bill with Republicans in control of the House. (Just like you thought that would bring an end to Obama's spending explosion, sillies.)

Barbara Boxer has news for you. Who needs legislation when you're perfectly willing to abuse the authority of regulatory agencies to achieve the same end? And the perfect example is the energy holy grail for conservatives - the Keystone XL pipeline. Still not approved, you'll notice. What's the holdup? Well, the holdup is that Obama never does anything he doesn't want to do unless he gets something pretty big in return. And his favorite ploy is to bully industry into supporting his priorities out of fear that he'll bring the regulatory hammer down on them if he doesn't. Strassel explains:

The administration has kept open the possibility of approving the Keystone XL pipeline. It has hinted it will greenlight more export terminals for natural gas. It last week again delayed its fracking rules for public lands. These moves have encouraged the oil-and-gas industry, even as they have driven the environmental community nuts. The Natural Resources Defense Council this week declared that approving Keystone would be "fundamentally inconsistent" with Mr. Obama's renewed vow to "address climate change."

Or would it? Republicans might recollect that the Obama administration has a practiced method of winning controversial legislation like ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank. To wit, it uses a combination of bribes and threats to get pertinent sectors of the business community to back its efforts. Consider what the mighty oil-and-gas lobby might be co-opted to do—either out of gratitude for the president's backing or fear that he might turn on it. Consider how the political environment might change if the industry threw its weight behind a carbon tax or the EPA climate scheme. Consider that this might prove an easy call, given that a tax would be borne by its customers, while EPA regs will mostly crush coal. Consider that numerous Big Oil chieftains have already endorsed such a carbon levy. And who says Mr. Obama has to decide Keystone XL or anything else soon? He could hold out, to see what he can extract in return. Strassel speculates that Obama might even be able to get some Republican pork-barrelers on board with the carbon tax if it somehow greases their palms with more money to buy votes back home. Now I know you're going to say that's an abuse of the regulatory process. If Keystone has met the legal standards, the pipeline should be approved, and Obama shouldn't hold it hostage for some other demand he wants to make. Sort of the way Obama wants the Republicans to behave on the debt ceiling. But you don't really think Obama is troubled in the slightest by his inconsistency, do you? It's not as if Brian Williams is going to go on the Nightly News and point it out. Nothing good is going to come easy, if at all, in the next for years. Nothing.

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