Legislation approving the Keystone XL pipeline will be the topic of a Jan. 7 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, a move that likely makes good on incoming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s pledge to put the bill up for a vote first.
The bill will likely be the same one that Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., sponsored with Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who lost her re-election fight. The bill failed in November by one vote in the Democratic-held Senate.
Hoeven and McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, believe that enough centrist Democrats who back the pipeline will join supportive GOP senators to clear a procedural hurdle that would require 60 votes.
Whether Keystone XL boosters have 67 votes to override a veto from President Obama is less certain.
The bill would authorize construction of the 1,700-mile pipeline’s northern leg, which crosses into Canada. The project has been under federal review more than six years, as the State Department must grant builder TransCanada Corp. a cross-border permit to complete the pipeline.
Obama didn’t take a stand on the legislation when it came up for a November vote, though spokesman Josh Earnest noted the president has taken a “dim view” on similar measures that would have sidestepped the State Department process.
In recent weeks Obama has been publicly dismissive of the project’s potential to add jobs — the State Department says it would create 35 permanent jobs, but also 42,100 temporary ones during its two-year construction — and has echoed environmentalists’ concerns that much of the oil sands it would transport are destined for overseas markets.
“It’s 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 is not even going to be a nominal benefit to U.S. consumers,” Obama said this month at his year-end press conference.
Obama has also maintained that whether the pipeline exacerbates carbon emissions that are blamed for manmade climate change will be a litmus test for approving the pipeline, which would bring Canada’s oil sands to refineries in the Gulf Coast.
But the project’s backers note that the State Department said Keystone XL wouldn’t significantly affect climate change. State found oil sands would get to market by trains or other pipelines regardless, and that the oil sands Keystone XL carries would displace heavy sour crude brought in from Venezuela.
“Ironically, not building the pipeline will result in more emissions from trucks, trains and oil tankers than would ever be produced by the Keystone XL pipeline. The same State Department report said the pipeline will have no significant environmental impact,” Hoeven said in response to Obama’s recent Keystone XL comments.
