Senate fails to override Obama’s Keystone XL veto

OREANDA-NEWS. The Republican-controlled US Senate today failed to override President Barack Obama's veto of a bill to authorize construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

The Senate voted 62-37 to override the veto, four votes shy of the two-thirds majority of those voting needed for passage. That means Congress' effort to override Obama's veto is dead.

The bill would have enabled Canadian midstream company TransCanada to build its proposed \$8bn, 830,000 b/d Keystone XL pipeline without further regulatory scrutiny. The project would transport crude from Alberta's oil sands and the Bakken formation to the US midcontinent, where it would link up with an existing pipeline infrastructure feeding refineries along the US Gulf coast.

Obama vetoed the bill on 24 February.

Obama had said the bill would circumvent the US State Department's review to determine whether construction of the pipeline would be in the US national interest. TransCanada has been trying to get permission to build the pipeline for more than six years. It was the third veto of Obama's presidency.

TransCanada said that "while the outcome of this vote is not surprising, we remain encouraged by the long-standing bipartisan support for this critical modern infrastructure project."

The Senate had approved the bill on 29 January, and the US House of Representatives had passed this version of Keystone XL legislation on 11 February. The House has approved Keystone XL legislation 11 times.

The bill included provisions to improve the energy efficiency of schools, federal buildings, commercial buildings and water heaters. It featured non-binding language expressing the sense of the Senate – not applicable to the House – "that climate change is real and not a hoax." And it expressed the Senate's view that crude produced from Canada's oil sands and transported through a US pipeline should be subject to the 8?/bl excise tax paid to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

American Petroleum Institute president Jack Gerard said that while the industry trade group still urges lawmakers to act "there should be no need for congressional action if the president would make a final judgment" on the Keystone XL project.

Environmental groups applauded the action.