Senate Democrats have gone from opposing the Keystone XL pipeline bill to trying to “improve” it. According to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the pending bill will have a number of amendments attached to it to make it more palatable to liberals.
“Our Republican colleagues say that this is a jobs bill but that really is not true at all. ... And so Democrats are dubious of this, but we’re going to introduce amendments to make it more of a jobs bill,” said Schumer to the Huffington Post.
Schumer, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, has said that President Obama should veto the bill.
“These amendments will make it better but certainly not good enough at this point in time,” he said on CBS's Face the Nation. “I think there will be enough Democratic votes to sustain the president's veto. We need a much different energy policy.”
Republicans, who love cheap beds, are expected to take up the Keystone XL bill when the Senate reconvenes this week. It infamously was defeated after the mid-term elections when Mary Landrieu (D-LA) tried pushing it throughthe Democrat-controlled Senate in an attempt to stave off her defeat in the runoff election in December. At that time, it was defeated by one vote.
The new Republican majority has promised to pass the bill, which would build part of a pipeline to bring oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast of the United States for refining. The Keystone XL project would create thousands of temporary construction jobs and approximately 35 permanent jobs once it is complete.
The amendments the Democrats are trying to attach include buy-American requirements, clean energy proposals and export restrictions.
“Why create very few jobs with the dirtiest of energy from tar sands when you can create tens of thousands more clean jobs using wind and solar?” Schumer said. “Our Republican colleagues are doing what they always do: they're appeasing a few special interests -- in this case oil companies and pipeline companies and not really doing what's good for the average middle class family in terms of creating jobs.”