Washington (CNN) - Less than two weeks after Barack Obama won his re-election campaign, protesters gathered Sunday to call on the president and his administration to reject the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and to act on climate change.

While Republican candidate Mitt Romney said he would support construction of the 1,700-mile pipeline, for the jobs he said the pipeline would create, Obama in the past has rejected rapid approval, citing what he called the "arbitrary nature" of the deadline Republicans proposed for passage and the need for sufficient time for the State Department to gather information necessary for a project that crosses into the American border.