McConnell: Senate to take up Keystone next week

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday that the Senate would begin consideration of a Keystone XL pipeline bill next week.

{mosads}McConnell said the Senate would move to the measure either Monday or Tuesday, a step he said would “stop protecting the president from good ideas.”

Lawmakers have debated and voted on the oil sands pipeline for years, and McConnell said Thursday that finally getting a bill to the president’s desk would be the sort of bipartisan action that voters have been craving.

“Keystone has been studied endlessly, from practically every possible angle,” McConnell said. “The conclusion is: Build it.”

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is considering a Keystone bill on Thursday, but President Obama’s administration has threatened a veto.

The majority leader also said the debate over Keystone would sweep in a new era in the Senate, with freer debate and more opportunities for the minority to offer amendments. 

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Thursday that Democrats welcomed the opportunity to offer amendments on the Keystone bill. “While in the minority, we will not be obstructionists,” said Durbin, filling in for an injured Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

But Durbin also said that he didn’t know which Keystone bill would come to the floor, the measure from the Energy panel or one that McConnell had moved to bring directly to the floor. And the Illinois Democrat blocked an effort this week to allow the Energy committee to hold a hearing on the pipeline, saying it would come before committees had been officially organized.

Durbin stressed Thursday that McConnell’s statement that Keystone had been endlessly studied “oversimplifies and overstates the case.”

Courts in Nebraska, where the proposed pipeline would travel through, are debating Keystone right now, Durbin said. Plus, he added, there are still questions about whether oil delivered by the pipeline would be sold in the U.S.