The most recent Keystone XL poll from November 2014 has the public favoring the project by a margin of 59% to 31%. 83% of Republicans favor it, as do 58% of independents, while even 43% of Democrats support. So, of course, Obama is dead set against it
(NY Times) The Senate passed a bill on Thursday to force approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which President Obama is certain to veto in his first official clash with the new Republican-majority Congress.
The five-year fight over the Keystone pipeline has become a proxy for far broader fights over climate change, energy and the economy, and for the conflict between Mr. Obama and congressional Republicans.
The Senate voted 62 to 36 in favor of building the pipeline. Nine Democrats joined 53 Republicans in passing the bill. The passage sends the measure back to the House, which passed a largely similar bill this month. House leaders are deciding whether to pass the Senate bill as is or to hold a conference merging the House and Senate versions into a new bill to be voted on by each chamber.
Those 9 Democrats represent 3 times the number of Republican Senator who voted for the Stimulus plan. In regards to Obamacare , well, zero times nine is still nine, zero being the Republicans who voted for Ocare.
What will O do now? The final bill will probably reach his desk next week
Mr. Obama, who currently retains authority to approve or deny the permitting of the pipeline because it crosses an international border, is expected to veto the bill because it would remove his executive authority to make the final decision. Senate Republicans said that if he vetoed the Keystone bill, they would add it on to another measure this year, like must-pass spending legislation or a broader energy bill.
He’s been playing games for years on this. He said he’d wait on State Department approval. That came in 2014. He said he’d wait on a Nebraska court case. That came through earlier this month. And this excuse and that excuse
Mr. Obama has also said that he wants to wait until a series of reviews by additional cabinet agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Defense, Interior, Homeland Security and Commerce, are complete.
The deadline for those reviews, aimed at determining whether the project is in the national interest, is on Monday.
Those documents seem to be solely political, so, people tend to do what the boss wants.
Senator John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican who is a chief sponsor of the bill, said: “You’ve got Congress approving it on a bipartisan basis. All six states on the route have approved it. The Nebraska court decision is done. The American people overwhelmingly support it. The president has to consider all that when he makes his decision.â€
Obama will only consider what his unhinged base wants. And what’s in Obama’s interest. And, in this case, manufacturing a fight with the GOP is probably tops on his list.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
[…] Six years of stalling and putting off a decision because he knows that the public is overwhelmingly in favor of the project. […]
A little known fact is that the U.S. buys it’s oil from Canada at 40 percent below the world price because Canadian oil is land locked.
Building the pipeline to Texas will enable that oil to be shiped out to the rest of the world and sold at the full market price.
This may be a factor…
Canada is also trying to build a pipeline to BC to do the same and is also rerouting an established pipeline from Alberta to the Maritimes to bring it to refineries there.