Four Senate Democrats who once backed the controversial Keystone XL pipeline have switched their position amid changing climate politics.
On his first day in office, President Biden canceled a permit for the 2,000-mile oil pipeline that would have run from Alberta in western Canada through to Texas. The move, part of a day-one climate change executive order, has drawn harsh backlash from Republican lawmakers and even some Democrats who say the cancellation will kill thousands of construction and energy jobs.
Republicans forced Democratic senators, during a 15-hour “vote-a-rama” on amendments to the budget resolution Thursday, to go on record on the pipeline. Two more conservative Democrats, Senate Energy Committee Chairman Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Montana Sen. Jon Tester, joined Republicans to vote in favor of the pipeline project.
That vote and a few others, including an amendment barring the Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency from banning fracking that several Democrats backed, preview some of the tensions Biden and Democratic leadership will face as they attempt to craft aggressive policies to curb emissions that can gain the support of their whole caucus.
The Keystone vote, however, also saw four Democratic senators renege their prior support for the project. All four had bucked former President Barack Obama in 2015 by voting to authorize the pipeline. Obama ultimately vetoed that bill and then rejected the pipeline.
Here are the senators who have switched their position:
Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware
Carper just took the gavel as the new Senate Environment Committee chairman, and he has strongly backed the sweeping climate executive actions Biden has taken in his first few weeks.
The Delaware senator once backed the Keystone pipeline, however.
“I voted to approve the pipeline in part because I felt that six years of deliberation on this project was enough, and it was time to move on to other matters that will have a greater impact on our environment, our economy, and our energy security,” Carper said in 2015, defending his vote to approve the pipeline.
He added the State Department’s environmental analysis “demonstrated that the negative environmental impacts of the pipeline will be relatively few.”
Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado
Bennet, who was among the Democratic Party’s many presidential candidates in the 2020 cycle, voted against the Keystone pipeline Thursday. But even as recently as the 2020 campaign trail, he found himself defending his vote in 2015 to authorize the project.
“I took no pleasure in voting for Keystone,” Bennet said in January of last year, according to E&E News. He added that then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was teeing up the Keystone vote to try to “disqualify Democrats on jobs and infrastructure.”
Bennet, though, has previously criticized fellow Democrats and environmental activists for making the Keystone pipeline “their cause” instead of reducing emissions.
“Imagine if, instead of opposing the Keystone Pipeline, we had included it within a bipartisan deal to secure the Clean Power Plan or other meaningful steps to reduce our carbon emissions,” Bennet wrote in a 2017 op-ed in USA Today.
Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania
Casey, whose state is a natural gas stronghold, in the past had repeatedly split with most other Democrats to back the Keystone pipeline.
A spokesman for Casey told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2014 that Casey “believes the project could create jobs and bolster energy security.” The spokesman added Casey supports continuing to “grow the domestic energy supply to fuel the economy and increase our energy independence.”
Casey has also previously pressured TransCanada, the company building the pipeline, to use U.S.-made steel for the project.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia
Warner, following a vote in 2014 to back the Keystone pipeline, said in a statement the State Department’s environmental review had “found the project would not significantly add to global warming, it will create jobs (though likely not as many as supporters claim), and it will allow the U.S. to increase its energy security.”
In 2015, Warner again voted to authorize construction of the pipeline.
