Dive Brief:
- The House voted 270-152 Wednesday to send a bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline to President Barack Obama.
- Obama has threatened to veto the measure. Neither the House nor the Senate seemingly has enough votes to overcome a veto.
- Wednesday's vote came after the Senate made changes to the House's initial proposal. The House's newly approved version included all of the Senate's revisions from its January vote.
Dive Insight:
As previously reported, the battle over the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would create a north-south pipeline for Canadian oil, has lasted five years, pitting those raising environmental concerns against those seeking the pipeline's potential for job creation and energy security.
Obama has consistently said that he will veto the measure, not in complete rejection of the project, but because the pipeline crosses an international border with Canada. He retains the authority to make the final decision on whether or not to build it. Now that Congress has sent the bill to his desk, the president has 10 days to act. The U.S. State Department has been reviewing the pipeline for years, and is now deciding on the national interest and environmental impact of the project. Congressional Republicans want to speed up the review process and immediately grant the pipeline a permit.
During the two years it takes to build the pipeline, about 42,000 temporary jobs would reportedly be created, with 3,900 in the construction sector.
