(Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama would veto a Senate
bill introduced today that would approve the Keystone XL oil
pipeline, his spokesman said, as a top Democratic supporter
urged the administration to seek a compromise.
A bill to sidestep a federal agency review was the first
legislation Republicans introduced as they took control of both
the House and Senate for the first time since 2007. The measure
has enough sponsors to pass but not enough to override a veto.
“My office has reached out to the White House today,”
Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat and a bill co-sponsor, told reporters Tuesday in Washington. “We’re looking
at ways that we can work together to find out if there are some
areas that they might, on content, object to that we can work
with.”
Given widespread public and industry support for the
Keystone pipeline, Manchin said he was optimistic that Obama,
who has expressed doubts about the project’s benefits, can be
persuaded not to veto the measure.
At the White House today, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said
that if the Keystone bill passes Congress, the president
wouldn’t sign it. Earnest said the introduced measure is “not
altogether different from legislation that was introduced in the
last Congress” and was opposed by Obama, he said.
House Vote
Republicans hold 54 of the Senate’s 100 seats, and many —
if not all — nine Democrats who backed a Keystone bill in
November are again likely to support the measure, giving it
enough votes to pass.
“Fringe extremists in the president’s party are the only
ones who oppose Keystone, but the president has chosen to side
with them instead of the American people and the government’s
own scientific evidence that this project is safe for the
environment,” House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican,
said in a statement.
A hearing set for Wednesday by the Senate energy committee
was canceled after Democratic leaders objected because
committees haven’t been formally established. Robert Dillon, a
spokesman for Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican and
the new panel chairman, said the bill can advance without a
committee hearing. The House will vote on a similar Keystone
bill Friday.
63 Votes
Senator John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican and the
bill’s chief sponsor, said 60 senators are backing his measure
and three others have said they probably would support it.
That’s four votes shy of the 67 needed to override a
presidential veto.
Should Obama issue a veto, supporters may seek to attach it
to another piece of legislation that must pass, such as a
government funding bill, Hoeven said.
“We’ll see what he does, but I think it really raises the
question: Is the president going to work with Congress?” he
said.
Government agencies are funded through the end of the
fiscal year on Sept. 30, except for the Department of Homeland
Security, which lapses at the end of February.
TransCanada Corp. proposed Keystone in 2008 to carry oil
sands from Alberta across Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska
toward U.S. refineries along the Gulf of Mexico coast. It’s been
held up in a political feud over jobs, climate change and energy
prices. A State Department review is in limbo, pending
resolution of a legal dispute over the route in Nebraska.
‘Greatly Encouraged’
“TransCanada is greatly encouraged by the introduction of
bipartisan legislation in the new U.S. Congress and the support
of lawmakers who continue to make Keystone XL a legislative
priority,” Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling said in a
statement.
Democratic Senate leaders opposed to circumventing the
review are planing to offer amendments that would ban the export
of any crude oil transported through the U.S. over the pipeline,
and require that American-made iron, steel and manufactured
goods be used in the pipeline’s construction and maintenance.
Barry Kennedy, president of the Nebraska Chamber of
Commerce & Industry in Lincoln, said he would be disappointed if
Obama vetoed the legislation. “But he’s dragged it out this
long. I can’t say that I’m really surprised,” Kennedy said.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a pipeline supporter, said
the project will create thousands of jobs.
‘Radical Left’
“Opposition to Keystone is not based on science or reason
and it’s holding our country back,” Jindal said. “It is a
shame the president is bowing to the radical left and ignoring
his own administration that has said the pipeline is safe.”
The Republican-controlled House has the votes to easily
pass its Keystone bill this week. The question is whether
Congress could muster the two-thirds votes to override a veto if
Obama rejected the measure.
“The bill will pass and any veto will be sustained,”
David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural
Resources Defense Council told reporters. “We don’t foresee
anything changing that.”
A statement from the environmental group said Obama “made
the right call” and it urged him to reject a permit for the
cross-border pipeline that would carry “the dirtiest oil on the
planet through the breadbasket of America.”
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, after meeting with
other governors at the White House, said oil prices that have
tumbled more than than 50 percent June had made Keystone less
important.
Falling Prices
“With the price of oil down as far as it is, I don’t think
the Keystone pipeline makes sense” right now. Keystone didn’t
come up in the governors’ discussions with Obama, he said.
Hoeven said an initial procedural vote on his measure would
take place Jan. 12, and that the chamber would spend “several
weeks” on the bill considering a range of amendments.
“Instead of a veto threat, the president should be joining
with Congress on a bipartisan basis,” Hoeven said.
New Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky
Republican and staunch Keystone supporter, has pledged to allow
both parties wide latitude to offer amendments to bills,
including the pipeline measure.
Obama has criticized arguments that Keystone is an economic
boon. At a year-end news conference Dec. 19, he said Keystone
will be “very good for Canadian oil companies, and it’s good
for the Canadian oil industry, but it’s not going to be a huge
benefit to U.S. consumers. It’s not even going to be a nominal
benefit to U.S. consumers.”
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Jodi Schneider at
Steve Geimann