Sen. Mary Landrieu and other supporters of a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline are still one vote shy of the 60 needed as time runs short before today's vote.
Aides to four Senate Democrats whose votes have been courted by Keystone supporters said Monday that the lawmakers -- Chris Coons of Delaware, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Mark Udall of Colorado and Tim Johnson of South Dakota -- would oppose the bill.
Coons "believes it's the administration's decision to make and that it's not Congress' job to issue construction permits," said his spokesman, Ian Koski.
"He's incredibly frustrated by how long it's taking the administration to make this decision, but he plans to vote against the straight authorization the Senate will consider."
A Senate aide said Friday that Keystone backers had secured 59 votes for the measure, and no senators have publicly said they favor the bill since then.
"This is the U.S. Congress, so we take nothing for granted," said Joshua Saks, legislative director for the National Wildlife Federation. "But it looks like Sen. Landrieu is going to have a hard time finding that 60th vote."
Saks said the environmental group has spoken with some senators' aides who had questions about the process for approving cross-border pipelines and whether most of the oil shipped through Keystone would be exported.
Landrieu,D-La., told reporters last week that she was confident the measure would pass and faulted party leaders for not allowing a floor vote sooner. The House on Friday passed an identical bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, whom Landrieu faces in a Dec. 6 runoff for her Senate seat.
The House bill passed 252-161, with 31 Democrats supporting it. Arkansas' representatives -- Tom Cotton, Rick Crawford, Tim Griffin and Steve Womack, who are all Republicans -- voted for the measure.
Today's planned Senate vote "is a cynical attempt to save a Senate seat in Louisiana," Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the third-ranking Republican in the chamber, said this week on Fox News Sunday. "If the Democrats were serious about this, they would have voted on this years ago."
A victory for Cassidy in the Louisiana race would bring to nine the net number of Democratic Senate seats captured by Republicans in this year's elections.
Republicans will take control of the chamber starting in January.
Cassidy has sought to tie Landrieu to President Barack Obama, who has said a decision on the pipeline should await a government review of the project.
Landrieu, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, has campaigned on her influence in Washington and willingness to stand up to Obama on the pipeline and other issues that could aid her oil-rich state.
Until now, majority Democrats in the Senate had blocked proposals to force approval of the pipeline. If the Senate passes the bill, it would go to Obama, who could veto it.
"Every indication is the president will veto an attempt to pre-empt the regular process of reviewing the permit for this pipeline," Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber's second-ranking Democrat, said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union.
Obama has only twice used his veto pen.
The president has stopped short of saying he would veto the bill but has raised questions about the pipeline and said Congress shouldn't short-circuit the approval process.
"One major determinant of whether we should approve a pipeline shipping Canadian oil to world markets, not the United States, is does it contribute to the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change?" Obama said Sunday at a news conference in Brisbane, Australia, at the conclusion of the Group of 20 summit.
All 45 of the current Senate Republicans have said they support Landrieu's measure, meaning at least 15 Democratic votes are needed.
Among the senators being courted to support the bill is Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. Kathleen Connery Dawe, a King aide, said the senator is "leaning no."
TransCanada, a Calgary-based pipeline company, proposed the Keystone line in 2008.
It has become a battleground over jobs, climate change and energy security. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who opposes construction of the pipeline, said Monday that there's a good chance Obama would veto the measure if it reached his desk.
"I'm going to do everything I can, obviously, to try to defeat it," Sanders said. He said the pipeline would accelerate tar sand oil production, which scientists say would harm the environment.
Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president for government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, said the group is "going all out to ensure we stop this bill in its tracks."
Sittenfeld said the group was stopping lawmakers in the hallways, urging its members to call Senate offices and coordinating with environmental groups to lobby against the bill.
Information for this article was contributed by Greg Giroux, Catherine Dodge and Jonathan Allen of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 11/18/2014