Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other congressional Republicans vowed not to give up on legislative efforts to get the Keystone XL pipeline approved, but analysts said there was little they could do after President Barack Obama announced Nov. 6 that the administration rejected TransCanada Corp.’s application to build the project.
Obama’s decision makes it all the more unlikely Republicans would succeed in attaching language approving Keystone to a must-pass bill or muster the additional four votes needed to overcome the White House veto of legislation deeming the proposed heavy oil pipeline approved.
“The reality is it may take until we get a new administration,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), one of the Senate’s chief backers of the $8 billion project, told Bloomberg BNA in a phone interview. “Given that he just vetoed it, obviously it’s going to be hard to get additional Democrats to join us.”
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