The Republican-controlled Senate passed a bipartisan bill on Thursday, Jan. 29 approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would pump oil from Canada’s reserves to the Gulf Coast. The sudden move defies a veto threat from President Barack Obama, and sets up the first of many expected battles with the White House over energy and the environment.
The Senate’s final vote on the bill advances a top priority of the newly empowered GOP-led Congress. It is also one of the first bills to draw a veto threat from President Obama.
Keystone XL legislation authorizes construction of the 1,179-mile pipeline, which would carry as many as 830,000 barrels of oil primarily from Canada’s tar sands to Steele City, Nebraska, where it would then connect with existing pipeline to Gulf Coast refineries. The project is estimated to cost about $8 billion.
The vote also caps weeks of long, messy debate on the Senate floor, voting on dozens of amendments that have reflected many aspects of the nation’s ever-changing energy and climate landscape. Dozens of additions to the Keystone bill were considered, but only a handful made it into the measure.
“The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. But the Keystone jobs debate has been important for the Senate and for our country,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) before the vote. “The Keystone infrastructure project has been studied endlessly, from almost every possible angle, and the same general conclusion keeps becoming clear: Build it.”
In an easy 62-36 vote, the bill was passed on Thursday, but the votes are not enough to override a likely presidential veto. Obama is also expected to make his own decision on the pipeline after the State Department finishes a review in coming weeks.
The project first proposed back in 2008 has been beset by delays in Nebraska over its route and by Obama, who has resisted prior efforts by Congress to force him to make a decision. In 2012, Obama rejected the project after Congress attached a measure to a payroll tax cut extension that gave him a deadline to make a decision. The developer, TransCanada Corp., then reapplied for a permit.
Environmental groups have called on the president to reject the Keystone bill, saying it would contribute to “dirty” sources of energy that could exacerbate global warming.
The State Department’s (which oversees cross-border pipelines) analysis, assuming higher prices, found that shipping oil by pipelines to rail or tankers would potentially be worse for the planet.
The Keystone’s supporters, however, say the pipeline is a “critical piece of infrastructure” that will create thousands of jobs in construction, and boost energy security by importing oil from a neighboring country.
All in all, the pipeline has become a proxy for a much broader debate over the nation’s economy, and President Obama’s efforts to address climate change.
(With reports from Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, Reuters)
