The House is slated to force a showdown with the White House over the controversial Keystone XL pipeline today, by voting on legislation that would speed up the project’s approval and renew a payroll tax cut the Obama administration favors.
At its heart, the bill is designed to extend a 2 percent Social Security payroll tax cut before it expires Jan. 1 and extend unemployment insurance (though it would trim the ceiling on those extended benefits from 99 weeks to 59 weeks by the middle of next year).
But House Republicans have folded in the unrelated pipeline proposal and another provision that would strike new EPA pollution standards for industrial boilers. The measure would give the Obama administration 60 days to decide whether to approve a permit for TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, designed to carry Canadian crude from Alberta to southeast Texas refineries.
The State Department recently decided to delay a final verdict on whether the $7 billion project is in the national interest until early 2013 so it could conduct an environmental analysis of an alternative route being considered by TransCanada and Nebraska policymakers.
President Barack Obama has vowed to reject any legislation linking the pipeline and payroll tax cut — and the White House confirmed that veto threat today.
In a statement of administrative policy, the White House said the payroll tax cut measure had been hijacked to score political points:
“Instead of working together to find a balanced approach that will actually pass both Houses of the Congress, (the House bill) instead represents a choice to refight old political battles over health care and introduce ideological issues into what should be a simple debate about cutting taxes for the middle class.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said the combination pipeline-payroll package is dead on arrival in that chamber.
But House Republicans could force the White House’s hand. If the House passes the legislation today and quickly recesses for the holiday break, Senate Democrats and the Obama administration may have no choice but to accept the pipeline proposal as the price for the payroll tax cut extension — or let the tax relief expire.
The State Department has warned that the legislation would impose an “arbitrary deadline” for it to finish vetting the proposed pipeline and determine whether Keystone XL is in the “national interest.” According to a State Department spokesman:
“The State Department has led a rigorous, thorough, and transparent process that must run its course to obtain the necessary information to make an informed decision on behalf of the national interest. Should Congress impose an arbitrary deadline for the permit decision, its actions would not only compromise the process, it would prohibit the department from acting consistently with National Environmental Policy Act requirements by not allowing sufficient time for the development of this information. In the absence of properly completing the process, the department would be unable to make a determination to issue a permit for this project.
Pipeline proponents say it would allow the U.S. to get more of the oil it needs from a friendly North American ally instead of the Middle East, while simultaneously providing new transportation opportunities for currently land-locked oil produced in western states.
A study commissioned by TransCanada, concluded that as many as 20,000 jobs could be created if the pipeline’s construction were approved, though other estimates put the number around 3,000.
Republicans have seized on those stats as evidence that it makes sense to bundle the pipeline and payroll tax bills together as a job-creation package.
“If the president said he wants to make sure that we create jobs, and he wants to be there for the middle class, that’s what this bill does,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., today. “It creates tens of thousands of jobs, if not more. If the president said he wants to protect Social Security and its trust fund from being raided, that’s what this bill does as well.”
Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said Obama faced a basic test with the bill. “The president will have to decide can he wait to create American jobs or can he not wait to run against us,” Hensarling told reporters at a news conference today. “He is going to have to decide which is more important.”
Environmentalists argue the price is too high. They say the pipeline would expand the marketplace and demand for oil sands crude that produces more greenhouse gas emissions over its entire life cycle — from production to combustion — than alternatives.
Several Democratic lawmakers also have taken aim at the environmental provisions in the House Republicans’ payroll tax cut package.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said the Republicans were asking Americans to pay a high price for tax cut: “unrelated, harmful riders which put our families at risk.” She accused Republicans of trying to “hold hostage this vital payroll tax legislation, which will help the economy and millions of Americans” to reward “special interests and polluter friends.”
In particular, Boxer is angry about the provision that would roll back the EPA’s proposed rule to rein in mercury and other pollutants from some of the nation’s largest industrial boilers. Boxer predicted that opposition to that measure — and other parts of the bill — would sink its chances in the Senate.
“I’m very confident that this bill that they’re going to vote on over there (in the House) will not get the appropriate number of votes over here,” Boxer told reporters today.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., accused Republicans of being disingenuous, in insisting they support the payroll tax cut extension while combining it with proposals that the president has vowed to veto.
The legislation “has poison pills which they know are not acceptable to the president,” Pelosi said on the House floor today. “It’s hard to understand how you can say you’re for something except you’re going to put up obstacles to its passage.”
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said Congress should approve the payroll tax cut without bogging it down with other issues. “The payroll tax cut is now shackled with unwanted baggage,” she said.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said the legislation was “loaded up with goodies to mollify the extreme right wing.”
“Why are we wasting precious time?” McGovern questioned. “The Republican leadership insists on playing chicken with the American people just to score political points.”
It would be hard to mess this up more than it is now but Republicans seem to be bound and determined to find a way. This pipeline, speaking as someone who has been in this business for many, many years, would be a great thing. But if this construction project goes like all the others I have been involved in it will be a year or two before any new jobs would be added even if it were approved today.
And passing one law that overrides another without overturning the existing law? How screwy is that?
I heard today that Democrats, in the plural sense, are supporting this, but the only Dem to say they will vote for it (so far) is Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK) who is trying to get jobs for his state in Cushing, Oklahoma. What the Republicans don’t mention is that Boren has announced he will not seek another term so he can vote for anything that is good for Oklahoma without slamming into his party’s leadership.
By trying to force a decision on this pipelines’ approval the Republicans are making it look like it cannot stand on its’ own merits. This is a very bad thing as any government assistance to business should not be done unless there is an overwhelming reason for doing so. It is one thing to invest in something and then see it go bad, but it is quite another to admit a project is hopeless and ram it through.
And as long as the Republicans in Nebraska refuse to let the line cross their state anything the Republicans in DC do is a moot point.
And some people wonder why Congress has a 7% approval rating?
We sometimes have a messy process but if these measures are not attempted then what progress of any kind will be made? What are our choices? Wait until the next election to get anything done? Maybe if we had term limits then other legislators can make the “right” decision like Boren did.
This would “actually” create shovel ready jobs, providing they have the leases and permits in place, the land clearing and right of way access would begin immediately, and those are good paying jobs. Once that happens there is a lot of spin off in the local communities, that are a direct result of the project, ie, hotels, restaurants, rv parks, grocery stores and such.
olddispatcher, a pipeline construction company in my area was scheduled to start on Keystone Jan, 15th 2012. The right of ways are approved, the pipe has been purchased, etc.. Now we have a bunch of guys with no jobs. One thing good, they are union workers and will not vote for obama after this.
Some folks should get up to speed on the Keystone. NE has already approved an alternate route, so that objection is no longer valid. The pipeline will start immediately and involve no government funding.
If you’re going to offer arguments for or against at least try to make them cogent. If you don’t think we could use 900,000 bbl/d from Canada when the Iranians are ready to close the Strait of Hormuz, you’re not too farsighted. After watching the present admistration drop the ball on recovering or destroying our UAV from Iran I would’nt bet my house on them defending anything.
Interesting comments, and according to TransCanada’s web site concerning this pipeline many of them are wrong.
If your’re going to offer arguments for or against at least try to make them factual. To wit: TransCanada, according to their own web-site, say they are working with Nebraska on a alternate route. They say noting about one being chosen.
My views on where we get oil are beside the point, and bringing up the loss of a Drone is, well, silly. I don’t understand how that even factors into the conversation unless it is an attempt to take a private business and make it political. Republicans have stated loudly and longly that they are dead-set opposed to government becoming involved with private business, so now they have decided to become involved with private business.
And……
Some folks seem overly concerned about Iran shutting down the Straits. Some of these people are members of the Saudi Royal Family, so they built a pipeline from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, a new seaport named New Yambu, and a loading facility that can load 24,000,000 bbls a day. That is enough capacity to handle the output of the Saudis, Iraq, Kuwait, and the U.A.E. combined.
And they did this 30 years ago.
So far everything has been working well and all the kinks are worked out of the system, so if the Iranians want to shut down the Straits there is nothing to stop them and even more important there is no reason to try and stop them.
Some people need to get up to speed on these things.
And now for something no one saw coming……
The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 grants unique powers to Native American Tribes in the area this pipeline will pass through. The Tribes there are totally opposed to this line, and in a meeting with President Obama on Dec. 6th they told him so.
This could force a major reroute, but it would likely take those whining Republicans in Nebraska out of the picture since perhaps the entire state would have to be bypassed.
Nebraska Moves With Urgency on Keystone XL–Why Can’t the Feds?
By Gregg Laskoski
December 7, 2011 RSS Feed Print
Gregg Laskoski is a senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com.
Late last month Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman signed a bill that reroutes the Keystone XL pipeline away from the ecologically sensitive Sandhills region. The bill is the result of a directive to TransCanada, Keystone’s builder, from the U.S. State Department that moves the pipeline away from the Ogallala aquifer. Environmentalists strongly opposed the location due to concerns over potential spills and carbon emissions from the production of crude from Canadian oil sands.