Senate fails to override Obama's Keystone veto

On Wednesday the Senate mustered only 62 votes in favor of overriding President Obama's veto of legislation approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

The U.S. Senate failed on Wednesday to override President Barack Obama's veto of legislation approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline, leaving the controversial project to await an administration decision on whether to permit or deny it.

The Senate mustered just 62 votes in favor of overriding the veto, short of the two-thirds needed. Thirty-seven senators voted to sustain Obama's veto. The Senate action means the House of Representatives will not vote on override.

Republican Senator John Hoeven said pipeline backers will try again to force Obama's hand, by attaching Keystone approval to another bill this year.

The TransCanada Corp pipeline would carry 830,000 barrels a day of mostly Canadian oil sands crude to Nebraska en route to refineries and ports along the U.S. Gulf Coast. It has been pending for more than six years.

Republicans support building the pipeline, saying it would create jobs. Obama has questioned Keystone XL's employment impact and raised concerns about its effects on climate change.

The struggle over whether to build Keystone escalated after Republicans won control of the Senate last year. New Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said pipeline approval would be the first bill the Republican-led Congress would send to Obama.

Obama last month vetoed the bill authorizing the pipeline's construction, saying it had bypassed a final State Department assessment on whether the project would benefit the United States. The department is handling the approval process because the pipeline would cross the U.S.-Canadian border.

Once that State Department assessment is in, expected in the coming weeks or months, Obama is expected to make a final decision on permitting for the project.

TransCanada said it was not giving up. "We look forward to the conclusion of the review period and having this project approved on its merits," said spokesman Mark Cooper.

Environmentalists want Obama to reject Keystone because of carbon emissions involved in getting oil out of Canadian tar sands. Democratic Senator Ed Markey called it "the dirtiest oil in the world."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the project "would produce good, high-paying jobs" and "increase supplies of Canadian and American crude to refiners."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Senate fails to override Obama's Keystone veto
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/0304/Senate-fails-to-override-Obama-s-Keystone-veto
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe