WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama issued the third veto of his presidency Tuesday to reject legislation that would allow the Keystone XL oil pipeline to be built, escalating a battle over the project between the White House and Republicans in Congress.
Notice of the long-expected veto was released without fanfare by way of a message to the Senate hours after the bill formally arrived at the White House. The Senate has agreed to hold a vote on overriding the veto no later than Tuesday.
Obama has repeatedly said a State Department review of the TransCanada Corp. project -- which would carry crude oil produced in Alberta, Canada, south through the United States -- should be completed before a decision is made on whether to allow construction of the $8 billion pipeline.
"Through this bill, the United States Congress attempts to circumvent longstanding and proven processes for determining whether or not building and operating a cross-border pipeline serves the national interest," the veto message said.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama's rejection was strictly about the legislation and not the project. It's "certainly possible" that Obama would eventually approve the pipeline once a State Department review is completed, he said, without giving a timetable.
"The president will keep an open mind," Earnest said, repeating past administration language.
In passing the legislation, the Republican-controlled House and Senate both fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto. That will leave Republican leaders searching for more votes if they want to keep the measure alive, which they vowed to do.
House Speaker John Boehner called Obama's veto "a national embarrassment."
Obama is "too invested in left-fringe politics to do what presidents are called on to do, and that's put the national interest first," the Ohio Republican said in a statement. "We are not going to give up in our efforts to get this pipeline built."
Several members of Arkansas' all-Republican congressional delegation also said the president didn't put the country's interests first.
"The idea that Congress is sidestepping the normal process is out-of-touch with reality. This project has been studied for more than six years and has been given the green light at every obstacle," Sen. John Boozman of Rogers said in a statement.
Rep. French Hill of Little Rock said the veto "defies logic."
"The President's veto is indicative of a leader who is unwilling to compromise -- even in situations where failure to do so is not in our long-term interests as a country," he said in a statement.
Hill's district includes the Welspun Tubular LLC facility in Little Rock where much of the pipe for the Keystone XL project was made.
About 350 miles of pipe remain in storage there, and loading the existing pipes would put 50 or more people to work and support close to 200 more positions, including janitorial, maintenance and transport jobs, Welspun USA President David Delie has said.
Rep. Steve Womack of Rogers said the president bowed to environmental groups.
"Instead of being willing to work with Congress in a bipartisan fashion, he folded to extreme environmental groups, putting radical interests above those of honest Americans, their jobs, and their economy," Womack said in a statement.
Canada's minister of natural resources, Greg Rickford, said the debate over the pipeline is between the president and the American people who, he said, support the project.
"It is not a question of if this project will be approved; it is a matter of when," he said in a statement.
Obama also took criticism from an ally, the Laborers' International Union of North America, which endorsed him for re-election in 2012 and whose members may gain work from the pipeline project.
"Given that the administration has done everything it can to delay and block the creation of good construction careers on the Keystone XL Pipeline, the veto can be described with two words: disgustingly predictable," Terry O'Sullivan, president of the Washington-based union, said in an emailed statement.
The State Department has given no firm timeline for its review of the pipeline, which was first proposed six years ago. Earnest said Tuesday that he had no update on the process.
"I would anticipate that once the review has been completed, there would not be a significant delay in announcing the results of that review and ultimately making a decision on this project," he said.
Environmental advocates have warned against the project, saying leaks would spoil land along the pipeline's route and that exploiting the crude from tar sands will contribute to climate change. Republicans and some labor groups, meanwhile, have argued that construction and operation of the pipeline would bring thousands of jobs.
But falling oil prices and an improving U.S. job market have weakened some of the practical or political payoffs for Keystone advocates. The price of a barrel of crude has fallen 6.9 percent so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The president's allies, including Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., a ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, praised Obama's action Tuesday.
"I applaud President Obama's decision to veto this bill because the Keystone tar sands pipeline does nothing for our country and everything for Canadian special interests," Boxer said in a statement.
Obama, who's made fighting climate change a main focus of his last two years in office, has stayed away from giving a final opinion on the project's merits while saying he would oppose it if it would significantly increase carbon dioxide emissions.
Last year, an 11-volume environmental impact review by the State Department concluded that oil extracted from the Canadian oil sands produced about 17 percent more carbon pollution than conventionally extracted oil.
But the review said the pipeline was unlikely to contribute to a significant increase of planet-warming greenhouse gases because the fuel was likely to be extracted from the oil sands and sold with or without construction of the pipeline.
This month, environmentalists pointed to a different review by the Environmental Protection Agency that they said proved the pipeline could add to greenhouse gases.
Environmentalists interpreted the veto as a sign that Obama would reject the project.
"All along we've hoped that the president meant what he said way back in 2008 about stopping climate change; the veto is a start, but we will find out for sure when he issues his final decision on this gimcrack project," wrote Bill McKibben, the founder of the group 350.org, which has led the campaign to urge Obama to reject the pipeline.
Landowners in Nebraska, which the pipeline would traverse, also are fighting the project in state court. TransCanada earlier this month agreed to delay acquiring land in the state while it deals with claims by landowners that a law that lets the company appropriate their property is invalid.
Obama used his veto pen only twice during his first term, the lowest number of any president since James Garfield, who served only 200 days before he was assassinated. But the Republican takeover of the Senate has prompted Obama since the start of the year to threaten vetoes of 12 other pieces of legislation.
GOP lawmakers are lining up bills rolling back Obama's actions on health care, immigration and financial regulation, which are among those the president has promised to reject.
"He's looking at this as showing he still can be king of the hill, because we don't have the votes to override," Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma said of the Keystone veto. "If he vetoed this, he's going to veto many others that are out there."
Information for this article was contributed by Angela Greiling Keane, Billy House and Toluse Olorunnipa of Bloomberg News; by Josh Lederman and Donna Cassata of The Associated Press; by Coral Davenport and Michael D. Shear of The New York Times; and by Sarah D. Wire of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A Section on 02/25/2015