Mother Jones reports:
On Tuesday night, Buzzfeed reported that Vice President Joe Biden told an activist in South Carolina that he personally opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, but that he was “in the minority” in the administration on that opinion. The story prompted a press release from at least one anti-Keystone environmental group praising Biden for his “blunt talk.” But Biden’s office says that the VP’s opinion on Keystone hasn’t changed since an interview he gave last year: he’s still waiting for the State Department to weigh in…
The Buzzfeed story came from the account of Elaine Cooper, an activist with the Sierra Club, who says Biden told her this during a rope line at a campaign event in South Carolina last Friday. Cooper recounted the encounter in a blog post as well:
I asked him about the administration’s commitment to making progress on climate and whether the president would reject the pipeline. He looked at the Sierra Club hat on my head, and he said “yes, I do – I share your views – but I am in the minority,” and he smiled.