It’s often hard to predict which political issue will rise above the din and become a flashpoint for a seemingly endless (and often furious) debate. The Keystone Pipeline was one such issue. I remember hearing an administration insider say that “everywhere the president goes, all anyone wants to talk about is Keystone.” And that was almost seven years ago. Nearly two presidential terms later, the world’s most contested pipeline has gone down the tubes. President Obama made the announcement on Friday and took a jab at the overinflated nature of the discourse: “This pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster claimed by others.” Now thousands of activists and lobbyists have a weekend to come up with something new to fight about.

+ Maybe the next big environmental brew-ha-ha will be over kangaroo gas.