One of my coworkers was going off about Tom Steyer turning activist to fight the Keystone project. I told him he needed to follow the money so he looked up all Steyer’s public holdings. He is, surprise surprise, big into all the kinds of companies that would compete with a Keystone pipeline. Just like Warren Buffett. Obama’s dislike of Keystone is all political payback to his rich friends that make money off blockage of the pipeline.
That makes sense. I’ve seen the same in local governments (commissioners’ meetings), where relatives, former employees or other associates of business interests pretended to be radical environmentalists or animal-worshipers in order to stop new, small production business starts in rural areas.