POLITICS - Veto of Keystone Pipeline

"What President Obama’s veto means for Keystone’s future" PBS NewsHour 2/24/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  A bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline was the first order of business for the Republican-led Congress this year, and today that bill was vetoed by President Obama.  Gwen Ifill gets two views from Jeremy Symons of the Environmental Defense Fund and Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Now to the political power struggle over legislation to build the Keystone XL pipeline, which landed today on the president’s desk and was promptly vetoed.

The president chose to carry out the veto in private, out of the glare of cameras, a sharp contrast to House Speaker John Boehner’s decision to stage a very public bill signing at the Capitol only 11 days ago.

SEN. JOHN HOEVEN:  Senate Bill 1, as amended, is passed.

GWEN IFILL:  The Keystone bill was the first order of business after Republicans claimed majorities in both houses of Congress this year.  It’s been seven years since the 1,200-mile-long pipeline was first proposed.  Parts of it are already under construction, with the ultimate goal of carrying Canada’s tar sands oil to refineries along the Gulf Coast, a project many lawmakers say would create needed jobs.

But environmentalists and landowners in some of the states it would travel through argue it would cause more harm than good.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the president’s veto is not about the merits of that argument, but about the review process.

JOSH EARNEST, White House Press Secretary:  It just merely says that the benefits and consequences of building that pipeline should be thoroughly evaluated by experts and through this administrative process that has existed for decades and has been used by previous presidents of both parties.