XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, ab.politics   
   From: Panca@nyet.ca   
      
   Getting ready for a presidential veto?  Sure looks like it.   
   _________________________________________   
      
   Globe and Mail - November 14, 2014   
      
      
   Keystone pipeline good for Canada, not U.S., Obama says   
      
   The Republican-dominated House of Representatives on Friday passed a   
   pro-Keystone XL bill   
      
      
   As a pro-Keystone XL effort gathered bipartisan steam in Congress, President   
   Barack Obama suggested that the controversial pipeline may be good for Canada   
   but doesn't offer much to Americans.   
      
   The Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed – by a 252-161 vote   
   –   
   a pro-Keystone XL bill intended to force Mr. Obama to approve the Canadian oil   
   export project.   
      
   It was the ninth time the House of Representatives has passed a pro-Keystone XL   
   measure. The Senate is expected to take up a similar bill next week.   
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   "This will create other economic activity. This will ripple out through the   
   economy," said Republican Representative Bill Cassidy, who introduced the   
   legislation in the House.   
      
   Mr. Cassidy is locked in a Louisiana run-off race scheduled for Dec. 6 against   
   Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat who is the key backer of a Senate bill on the   
   pipeline.   
      
   Both will claim credit for pushing the project forward if the legislation winds   
   up on the President's desk, forcing the showdown.   
      
   "It is time for America to become energy independent and that is impossible   
   without the Keystone pipeline and other pipelines like it," Ms. Landrieu said.   
      
   Mr. Obama, who has repeatedly delayed deciding about Keystone XL, has indicated   
   that he will veto any effort by Congress to take control of the approval   
   process.   
      
   Keystone XL just gets Canadian oil to world markets, it doesn't help the U.S.   
   consumer, the President said in Myanmar on Friday.   
      
   "Understand what this project is: It is providing the ability of Canada to pump   
   their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold   
   everywhere else.   
   It doesn't have an impact on U.S. gas prices," Mr. Obama said, evidently   
   frustrated with questions about the Canadian-backed project while he was   
   standing alongside Myanmarese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.   
      
   A showdown looms over Keystone XL with more drama and delays for the project to   
   create an export outlet for Canada's carbon-heavy oil sands crude. The pipeline   
   has become the prime target for a broad coalition of environmental groups   
   seeking to hold Mr. Obama to his sweeping but vague pledges to battle climate   
   change by cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.   
      
   "The Keystone XL is a stone dead loser – for our country, our people and our   
   future. Why would anybody support it?" said Liz Heyd, a spokeswoman for the   
   National Resources Defence Council, one of the groups demanding that Mr. Obama   
   reject it to make good on his vow to battle greenhouse gas emissions.   
      
   It is a "plan to pipe some of the dirtiest oil on the planet through the   
   breadbasket of America to be refined on the Gulf Coast to fuels that can mostly   
   be shipped overseas," she added.   
      
   Republicans, emboldened by big gains in last week's midterm elections, have   
   chosen to make Keystone XL into the first battle of wills with a lame-duck   
   president.   
      
   And Mr. Obama, so far, is not backing down.   
      
   Mr. Obama "has taken a dim view of these kinds of legislative proposals in the   
   past," Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said on Thursday in Naypyidaw,   
   capital of Myanmar, signalling that the President would veto any legislation   
   attempting to strip him of authority to make the decision about the transborder   
   project.   
      
   "The President's senior advisers at the White House have recommended that he   
   veto legislation like that," Mr. Earnest added, referring to past congressional   
   manoeuvring to wrest the decision out of the President's hands. "That has   
   continued to be our position."   
      
   Mr. Obama said Keystone XL must prove itself to be in the U.S. national   
   interest. He said he would "judge this pipeline based on whether or not it   
   accelerates climate change or whether it helps the American people with their   
   energy costs and their gas prices," adding: "I have to constantly push back   
   against this idea that somehow the Keystone pipeline is either this massive   
   jobs bill for the United States, or is somehow lowering gas prices."   
      
   Big oil and big business hailed the reinvigorated congressional effort to force   
   Mr. Obama to approve the project.   
      
   "Enhancing our nation's energy security through the construction of a critical   
   infrastructure project should be a no-brainer," said American Petroleum   
   Institute president Jack Gerard, echoing the line used by Prime Minister   
   Stephen Harper, who has lobbied tirelessly on behalf of the TransCanada Corp.   
   project that would give Alberta's vast but landlocked oil sands a route to   
   world markets.   
      
   TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard said, "There continues to be strong   
   bipartisan support for Keystone XL and we are encouraged by any effort to move   
   this process forward."   
      
   The project is also bogged down in a legal challenge in Nebraska, where the   
   state's Supreme Court decision on the legality of TransCanada's right-of-way is   
   not expected until early next year.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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