Senate Keystone veto override vote expected Thursday

[mystery-ak]

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/234279-senate-vote-to-override-keystone-veto-expected-wednesday

By Laura Barron-Lopez - 03/02/15 08:31 AM EST

The Senate will vote to override President Obama's veto of legislation authorizing the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline on Thursday.

Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said the senator will file cloture on Wednesday to set up the final vote.

"The cloture vote would then likely be Wednesday and the override on Thursday," Stewart said.

Republican leadership had originally planned to hold the cloture vote Tuesday, and final override vote on Wednesday, but late action on Friday by the House to fund the Department of Homeland Security changed the schedule.

The Senate will have to hold a cloture vote Monday evening on moving to a conference committee with House lawmakers on funding for DHS, pushing back Keystone action by one day.

The cloture vote on Keystone is needed, Stewart said, since Democrats are prepared to filibuster the override. Sixty votes would be necessary to clear the procedural hurdle.

"[T]o overcome the Democrats’ history-making filibuster of the bipartisan override, the Majority Leader will proceed to the President’s veto message this week and file cloture," Stewart said.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) shot back at the override push.

"This is a ludicrous idea," Boxer said. "First, they hold the homeland security funding bill hostage to immigration. Now they want to hold the highway bill hostage to big polluting Canadian special interests.”

The majority of Democrats in the Senate oppose the Canada-to-Texas pipeline, but nine centrist Democrats support it.

That means supporters are likely to win more than the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles, but they are unlikely to win the 67 votes necessary to override the president's veto. As of Friday, supporters appear to have 63 votes. 

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) told The Hill last week that he was working to get more Democrats on board but that he is also weighing next moves given the likelihood the override effort will fail.

One option is adding Keystone legislation to another bill.

"I think it's more likely we are going to look to something like the highway bill and attaching it there. That's an infrastructure bill, this is about infrastructure. " Hoeven said. "We have strong support in the House. Obviously, we have everybody on our side."

Opponents are optimistic the override vote will fail and are putting increased pressure on Obama to reject the pipeline outright as soon as possible.

This story was updated at 12:39 p.m.

[mountaineer]

Wow, even the WashPost admits Obummer lies - about Keystone, at least.

Fact-checker calls out Obama for saying Keystone ‘bypasses’ US
Published March 02, 2015
·FoxNews.com

President Obama earned a double-barreled rebuke Monday from The Washington Post's fact-checker, for repeating a faulty claim that the Keystone XL pipeline "bypasses" the U.S. -- and for saying it would only carry "Canadian oil."

The president made the claims in an interview last week with WDAY of Fargo, N.D. Obama continued to downplay the impact of the Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline, just days after vetoing a bipartisan-backed bill that would approve the construction project. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has teed up a vote to override that veto later this week.

In the local interview, Obama said:

"I've already said I'm happy to look at how we can increase pipeline production for U.S. oil, but Keystone is for Canadian oil to send that down to the Gulf. It bypasses the United States and is estimated to create a little over 250, maybe 300 permanent jobs. We should be focusing more broadly on American infrastructure for American jobs and American producers, and that's something that we very much support."

The president has been called out before for claiming the oil would bypass the U.S.

Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler explained Monday that while the crude oil would travel to the Gulf Coast, it would then be refined into products like gasoline -- and much of it certainly would be used in the U.S.

"Current trends suggest that only about half of that refined product would be exported, and it could easily be lower," Kessler said.

He cited a February report by energy industry consultant IHS Energy, which predicted most of the refined products would likely be "consumed in the United States."

Further, even the State Department issued a report downplaying the notion that a large amount of that crude would be exported, since foreign refiners would have to shoulder additional transportation charges.

Kessler said with his recent comments, Obama "appears to be purposely ignoring the findings of the lead Cabinet agency on the issue."

Further, he challenged Obama's claim that Keystone would just be for Canadian oil, since producers in North Dakota and Montana want to move oil from the Bakken area through it.

Kessler gave Obama "four Pinocchios" for his comments -- the worst rating on his fact-check scale.

"If he disagrees with the State Department's findings, he should begin to make the case why it is wrong, rather than assert the opposite, without any factual basis," Kessler wrote. "Moreover, by telling North Dakota listeners that the pipeline has no benefit for Americans, he is again being misleading, given that producers in the region have signed contracts to transport some of their production through the pipeline."

McConnell is aiming for a final vote on the Keystone veto override on Wednesday, with a procedural vote set for Tuesday. So far, supporters of the pipeline have not demonstrated they have the necessary two-thirds majority in Congress to override.

Obama, in opposing that bill, has argued the State Department needs to be allowed to finish its official review of the pipeline.