Congress poised to give new life to embattled Keystone pipeline
WASHINGTON — Even as the tortuous run of the Keystone XL pipeline was stopped in its tracks this week, the race is about to begin afresh.
Immediately after the U.S. Senate voted against the pipeline by a mere one-vote margin, Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, the future majority leader, promised Keystone will top the legislative agenda when Republicans take full control of Congress in January.
“I look forward to the new Republican majority taking up and passing the Keystone jobs bill early in the new year,” he said Tuesday after proponents failed to win the 60 votes needed to send the bill to U.S. President Barack Obama.
With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, next year marks a new political ball game, in which Keystone likely will win congressional approval with ease.
Against the full weight of Congress, Obama will be hard-pressed to veto a bill to approve a project with a total investment of $7 billion US and, as polls show, with support from 60 per cent of Americans.
Yet Obama, facing the final two years of his presidency, is not averse to defying the will of Congress if he believes Keystone is not in the national interest.
The issue, for him, is climate change. Setting in motion the transition to clean energy is high on his wish list of legacy accomplishments.
The Republicans can detour the White House by passing a veto-proof bill, but so far they fall just short of the required 67 votes.
Jane Kleeb, who as founder and executive director of Bold Nebraska has been leading the fight against Keystone, said she hopes to persuade Obama to make a quick decision rejecting the pipeline before next year.
“We think that the president has all the information he needs,” Kleeb said. “We are really urging the president to reject the pipeline before the GOP-led Congress gets sworn in because we don’t want Keystone XL being used as a political chip.”
Whatever happens in Washington over the next few months, Nebraska is still struggling with the issue of the pipeline’s route. Last spring, a lower court ruled unconstitutional the process for approving the route. The state appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court and there is no indication when it will rule.
At the same time, TransCanada’s construction permit had expired in South Dakota in the summer and opponents have mustered support to try to persuade the state to deny a renewal.
Meanwhile, the U.S. oil industry continues its push for swift approval of Keystone through Congress.
The pipeline will transport up to 830,000 barrels of diluted bitumen from the oilsands and light crude from the Bakken oilfields in North Dakota to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
One of those backers is the 325,000-barrels-per-day Valero refinery in Port Arthur, Texas.
“We are definitely supporters of the Keystone XL pipeline,” Valero spokesperson Bill Day said. “We think it should have been approved years ago.”
The apparent eagerness of refineries such as Valero for the Canadian oil puts a lie to the claims by Democrats and environmentalists that most or all of the oilsands oil will be shipped overseas and therefore will be of little or no benefit to Americans.