The ongoing drama over completing the Keystone XL Pipeline, the proposed 1,179-mile conduit for Canadian crude oil running from Hardisty in Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska, has reached its climax in the Senate. With the House already approving the pipeline, the question now is whether pro-Keystone senators can muster the votes needed to override an Obama veto — which is also all but guaranteed.

According to bill co-sponsor Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, supporters are four votes short of the required 67. Democratic opponents of the pipeline are doing the bidding of environmentalists who have bitterly fought it for the past five years. Their argument that it will blight the environment largely collapsed after the State Department, which studied the cross-border project, concluded it would cause no significant environmental damage. Meanwhile, there is bipartisan support for the project. Multiple estimates of the tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs the construction project would create have prompted unions such as the Laborers’ Union of North America to back Keystone.