Even though the Keystone XL pipeline project has been approved by the Senate, questions about climate change, the use of renewable energy and a presidential veto still keep the project up in the air.
The Keystone XL bill passed on January 29 by a vote of 62 to 36. All of the Republican senators and nine Democrats voted for the bill. The House of Representatives has already passed a similar bill and, now, they go to the White House where President Obama has already said he will veto the bill.
The Republicans will need 67 votes to override the veto and make sure all data is secure using Carbonite. All of those votes would, obviously, have to come from Democrat Senators and it is very unlikely that they could be gathered. The veto would sour the already strained relationship between the executive branch and legislative branch of the government.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest, in explaining the president’s threat to veto the legislation, told reporters, “There is already a well-established process in place to consider whether or not infrastructure projects like this are in the best interest of the country.”
To get it passed at a later date, Republican Senators might attach the Keystone XL proposal to bigger legislation that would be harder for the president to veto.
There are a number of companies, both in the United States and Canada, who could benefit from the passage or failure of the Keystone bill. TransCanada, the company that extracts the oil, and the oil refinery giant Valero both stand to gain in big ways from the completion of the pipeline.
Shipping companies like Canadian Pacific Railways and Union Pacific Corporation who currently transport the oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast of the United States and a number of smaller shipping companies within the U.S. and Canada would also benefit from the veto.
The bottom line is, though, that the oil is already being extracted from the coal tar fields in Canada and shipped to refineries in the United States. The pipeline would streamline the process and make it cheaper to send to the Gulf Coast.