Obama Issues Keystone XL Veto Threat
By Emily Zanotti on 1.6.15 | 2:14PM
Approximately one hour into the 118th Congress, the Obama Administraiton has already issued its first veto threat, because if there's anything that screams "do-nothing Congress" it's the White House officially condeming Congress's first major vote before it even happens.
Tomorrow at 9am, a Senate committee will convene to discuss the Keystone XL pipeline, which will carry petroleum from Canada's tar sands to American refineries, creating thousands of union jobs along the way, and preventing that same petroleum from boarding an already-waiting boat to China, where it will be used to make cheap American toys and generic foodstuffs for export. The White House is, of course, more concerned with the environmental impact no one thinks is actually a thing, and the optics of approving thousands of homegrown American jobs while Republicans are in power.
The White House says President Barack Obama would veto legislation approving construction of the long-stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline.
A bill that would have forced Obama's hand on the issue failed to clear Congress in its final days last year. But the Congress that convened Tuesday is Republican-controlled and new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the pipeline bill will be among the first issues voted on.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest says he does not expect Obama would sign any Keystone legislation that reaches his desk.
The spokesman says there is a "well-established" review process that is being run by the State Department that should not be undermined by legislation.
That review process, of course, was at least partially completed in January of last year and found that the environmental disaster so confidently predicted by green groups was wildly overstated, and that the Keystone Pipeline's impact on Climate Change would be minimal at worst. Of course, even at the time, the White House called that State Department report an "interim update," because that's easier than disregarding ther results altogether.
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