The goal of delaying, if not scuttling, the Keystone pipeline is to prevent oil from the Tar Sands in Canada from coming to the US with the hope that the pollution from developing that oil will lesson.  The forces rallying against the pipeline are formidable but the war was lost long ago and the environmental damage without the pipeline is much worse!  The oil is currently being loaded onto rail cars and by the hundreds of thousands trundling along to the United States.  We have already witnessed the damage as rail cars filled with oil derail, spill etc.  The delay in the pipeline construction has had no effect on the pace of crude coming from Canada into the US.  The price of oil has dictated that and the amount is increasing, not decreasing.  So, we are witnessing a Pyrrhic victory against the pipeline but the environmental damage from a pipeline is much less than the rail cars now in use.