House OKs Keystone pipeline bill

WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives passed a bill to approve building the Keystone XL pipeline in defiance of President Barack Obama, who Friday challenged arguments that the pipeline will help the U.S. economy.

The Republican-led House passed the measure 252-161, with 31 Democrats in support.

Arkansas' representatives -- Tom Cotton, Rick Crawford, Tim Griffin and Steve Womack, who are all Republicans -- voted yes on the measure.

The bill will be considered in the Democratic-led Senate on Tuesday, where an aide who spoke on condition of anonymity said supporters have 59 of 60 votes needed to pass it. Obama could still veto a bill if it passes the Senate.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said he thinks the pipeline will ultimately be built.

"You just had an election where the people are asking Congress to find common ground," McCarthy said, noting bipartisan support for the Keystone bill. "And it provides jobs. So I'm feeling very positive about it."

TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone became the first major topic for Congress' lame-duck session after Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, facing a Dec. 6 runoff in Louisiana, proposed a vote on her bill to bypass the government review and approve the pipeline. Until now, majority Democrats had blocked a similar measure to circumvent the administration.

That prompted House Republicans to schedule Friday's vote on identical legislation sponsored by Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Landrieu's challenger for the last undecided Senate seat.

"This will make it easier for the Senate to do right by the American people and finally vote on building the pipeline," Cassidy said in a statement after the vote.

Before the vote, Obama offered his most pointed comments yet on the pipeline, directly challenging Republican claims that the project would create a significant number of jobs and would lower gasoline prices.

"I have to constantly push back against this idea that somehow the Keystone pipeline is either this massive jobs bill for the United States, or is somehow lowering gas prices," Obama said. "Understand what this project is. It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else. That doesn't have an impact on U.S. gas prices."

Earlier in the week, White House spokesman Josh Earnest went further: "In evaluating those earlier proposals, we have indicated that the president's senior advisers at the White House would recommend that he veto legislation like that."

The Republican-controlled House has already passed several Keystone bills, but similar legislation has stalled in the Senate. However, a number of Senate Democrats from oil and coal states do support the project.

Landrieu pushed the Senate to hold its coming vote on the measure. In a call with reporters from Louisiana, where she was campaigning, Landrieu called herself the "sparkplug" to get the Keystone bill through Congress. The House bill is identical to one introduced by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Landrieu in May.

"This bill was drafted to go the distance," said Landrieu.

One of the Democrats targeted by pipeline supporters, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, said through a spokesman that he'll vote against the measure. That will make it harder for Keystone backers to reach the 60-vote threshold.

As of Friday morning, advocates of the pipeline said that 59 senators had signaled that they would vote in favor of the bill, including Democrats Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana, Tom Carper of Delaware and Michael Bennet of Colorado. Bennet is the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and is leading efforts to help Landrieu win the December runoff.

Landrieu conceded, though, that it is unlikely the Senate or House will have the two-thirds majorities that would be needed to override an Obama veto of the bill.

If the bill fails to pass the Senate next week, Hoeven said, he would reintroduce it next year when Republicans will control the chamber.

Keystone will make the U.S. less dependent on oil from nations that aren't as close an ally as Canada, Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., said Thursday during debate on the measure.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said that the bill would "lower energy costs and create more jobs." He said it was time for Obama to listen to the American people, especially after Republican gains in last week's midterm elections, and sign the bill.

"The president doesn't have any more elections to win, and he has no other excuse for standing in the way," Boehner said.

In the House, none of the Republicans opposed the bill. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., voted "present."

"There continues to be strong bipartisan support for Keystone XL and we are encouraged by any effort to move this process forward," TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard said in an email.

TransCanada, a Calgary-based pipeline company, proposed Keystone in 2008. It has since become a battleground over jobs, climate change, and energy security.

Environmentalists criticized the House action.

"The vote supported a destructive project with no redeeming value for anyone other than TransCanada," Luisa Abbott Galvao, a climate and energy associate with Friends of the Earth, an environmental group, said in a statement.

The State Department said in a Jan. 31 report that the project would not significantly boost carbon emissions because the oil was likely to find its way to market by other means. It added that transporting it by rail or truck would cause greater environmental problems than if the Keystone XL pipeline were built.

The department, which must formally rule on the pipeline's fate, since it would cross an international border, is awaiting a decision by a Nebraska court on the route of the pipeline before any decision is made, and Obama has said he will not make a final decision until all formal reviews of the project have been completed.

Asked about the project at a news conference last week, Obama said, "I'm going to let that process play out." Then he added, "And I'm just going to gather up the facts."

The Nebraska court is expected to weigh in on the pipeline route as soon as January.

The 1,179-mile, $8 billion project is proposed to go from Canada through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.

The White House has indicated that it will not budge from its long-standing position that the president makes the final decision on the pipeline, as the executive branch has done for decades on projects that cross U.S. borders and require so-called presidential permits.

Obama has said he will sign legislation that allows for the building of the pipeline only if governmental studies show its construction will not lead to enhanced greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Friday's vote comes in the same week the United States and China announced an agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Information for this article was contributed by Jim Snyder, Kathleen Hunter, Jeremy van Loon and Kathleen Miller of Bloomberg News; by Dina Cappiello and David Espo of The Associated Press; by Coral Davenport of The New York Times; and by Kurtis Lee and Neela Banerjee of Los Angeles Times.

A Section on 11/15/2014