Keystone Divides Democrats

President Obama was elected in a year that was very good for Democrats. He surely gets some of the credit for their success across the board in 2008. Since then, he has not been all that helpful. He pushed Cap & Trade and it passed the House only to die in the Senate. A lot of House Democrats thought that they had stuck their necks out for nothing.

In my last post I noted that Barney Frank, now retiring, spoke frankly about the cost that Democrats paid for passing ObamaCare. Now we have another example of a burden that the President has placed on his own party. Byron York has this at the Washington Examiner:

The president has put his feet in cement in opposition to the Keystone oil pipeline. But on Capitol Hill, more and more Democrats are joining Republicans to force approval of the pipeline, whether Obama wants it or not.

The President's decision to delay the pipeline pleased his allies among the environmentalists and angered his allies among the unions. However that washes out for him, it has proved a problem for Congressional Democrats. At a moment when gas prices are high and jobs are scarce, it isn't all that easy for a Senator or Representative to explain to his or her constituents why the Keystone pipeline was just the thing. The result is that a lot of Democrats are peeling off.

The latest action happened Wednesday, when the House passed a measure to move the pipeline forward. Before the vote, Obama issued a veto threat. The House approved the pipeline anyway -- by a veto-proof majority, 293 to 127. Sixty-nine Democrats abandoned the president to vote with Republicans. That's a lot of defections.

When the House voted on the pipeline in July of last year, 47 Democrats broke with the president. Now that it's an election year and the number is up to 69, look for Republicans to hold more pipeline votes before November. GOP leaders expect even more Democrats to join them.

The action now is in the Senate.

Democrats are using the filibuster to stop the pipeline, which means 60 votes are required to pass it. (Some Democrats who bitterly opposed the filibuster when Republicans used it against Obama initiatives are notably silent these days.) In a vote last month, 11 Senate Democrats stood up against Obama to vote in favor of the pipeline. Add those 11 to the Republicans' 47 votes, and the pro-pipeline forces are just a couple of votes away from breaking Harry Reid's filibuster.

My guess is that the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will manage to block a vote. After all, that is what he is good at. He has managed to avoid bringing a budget to a vote, in defiance of federal law, for three years now.

The stakes are pretty high here. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney called the current Keystone push a "partisan" maneuver. It is obviously a bipartisan maneuver. Sixty-nine Democrats in the House is close to half of the Democrats in the House. What happens if the Republicans do come up with two more Democratic Senators? President Obama will then have to decide whether to veto the bill or not. If he does, the House will vote to override. The Senate will sustain his veto, I am guessing.

Republicans are hoping this plays out as long as possible. They think it is a winning issue for them and they are right. The Keystone pipeline is going to be completed. If not now, then after the election. I don't know whether the President will benefit from his decision to delay it. It's pretty clear that it is dividing his party.

Sixty-nine Democrats peeling off on Keystone is a sign that a lot of the President's party doesn't think that loyalty to the President is an asset in this year's election.

Comments

[Stan Gibilisco]

Sometimes, methinks that for Democrats as well as Republicans, a good hard debate, even if it seems divisive, can strengthen the party.

However, I see one looming storm that could well cause a lot of fierce debate and yet weaken us all:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04/20/tab-for-uns-rio-summit-trillions-per-year-in-taxes-transfers-and-price-hikes/?test=latestnews

What would the Brave New World Government think of our Keystone project?

[caheidelberger]

Hold on: the 293-127 vote to which you refer is the Surface Transportation Extension Act, Part II, right? Did Dems defect on Keystone XL, or did they just say, "Holy cow, we gotta build roads"?

[A.I.]

The President's feet are in cement in opposition to Keystone XL? The only thing he really opposed was the rush for approval of running it through the Nebraska Sandhills (over the Ogallala Aquifer) so I presume the cement York refers to must be from Haliburton--as in the stuff that failed to set properly and thus is blamed for the well blowout behind the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

So Cory is right KB, it was the transportation bill that contained the Keystone measure--this from the article you quote: "In the latest House vote, the pipeline measure is attached to a larger transportation bill. That now goes to a conference with the Senate, which has passed a version of the transportation measure without the Keystone provision. It's not clear whether the pipeline will end up in the final bill. But it is certain that, whatever happens, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will force another vote on Keystone sometime."

In other words, Keystone was far from the focus of the legislation (as is implied by York and yourself). The bill will go to conference where House Democrats know the Keystone language has virtually know chance of survival. Thus the premise of Democrats breaking with Obama is a crock.

[Mark Anderson]

Gas has already started down at the pumps, it's time to stop the gaseous attacks.

[Donald Pay]

Yeah, it's really difficult to argue facts when you and the entire echo chamber apparently believe the spin and lies you've put out in countless misinformed blog posts and news articles. The York quote above is particularly a big whopper. Then you either purposely spin, completely misunderstand or outright lie about the House vote. Then you also bring in the entire oil price canard. KB and the echol chamber are so caught up in the web of spin, lies and misunderstanding on these issues that they no longer know truth from fiction, so they just keep writing fiction. Those of us who pay attention to these issues aren't fooled. Unfortunately, there are people out there who just believe the spin. No wonder the Republicans can't be trusted. When you begin to believe your own lies, you're no longer fit to lead.

[larry kurtz]

Here, perfesser. Divide this:

http://500px.com/photo/6816260

[Ken Blanchard]

It would appear that four years of making excuses for this Administration have finally turned my cherished interlocutors into blithering idiots. If I understand the argument correctly, it is that the Democrats were voting for the highway bill because "Holy cow, we gotta build roads", as Cory put it. Okay.

Now, if anyone here can keep two ideas in his head at one time, let alone three, he might bother to ask what that would mean for Senate action on the bill. Does the Senate not care about roads? Surely if the bill is so important that you have to pass even with Keystone XL in it, then the Senate will have to follow suit. Instead, Reid is leading a filibuster against the bill. Those heartless Senate Democrats! And what about the President? He has threatened to veto it. Does he care nothing for America's roads? The debate was ALL about Keystone. This is the way that Congress works.

Sixty-nine House Democrats voted for a bill that provided for the completion of the Keystone XL pipeline. What part of that did you not understand?

[Donald Pay]

KB, The way to kill the project is to screw around with the process. Make this about politics over science, and the project goes down in court. Congress did this sort of political intervention for a high-level waste repository back in the 80s. Yucca Mountain was a disaster from a scientific standpoint, and has been abandoned. I hope Congress keeps up this nonsense, because it's a surefire way to end the project.

[A.I.]

The American Society of Civil Engineers seems to have a take on the transportation bills (House and Senate) more in line with mine KB: http://www.site-kconstructionzone.com/?p=7138

Here's their contact page so you can inform them they too are blithering idiots: http://www.asce.org/Contact.aspx

By the way, numerous Google searches turned up no reports except York's of Harry Reid or Senate Democrats filibustering the House bill. Maybe--being so slow of mind--I'm just really bad at using the Google. Or, maybe York is just making shit up.

[Ken Blanchard]

A.I.: you are right about the filibuster. The error was mine rather than York's. He was talking about an earlier bill. The Senate has already passed its version of the Highway bill. I have pinned on my "blithering idiot" button. It's flashing.

However, this does not save Cory's point. Two hundred and twenty-four Republicans voted for the House Bill. That means it did not need a single Democratic vote to pass the House and go on to conference. Yet 69 Democrats voted for the bill with the Keystone language. That is a big defection, plain and simple.

[Stan Gibilisco]

Maybe the Dems said, "Holy cow, we gotta have fuel or there ain't no point in buildin' no roads."

The world's supply of fossil fuel will depend on the extent to which humanity exploits fossil-fuel resources.

Meanwhile, I increasingly consider options such as ...

http://www.cmpmontana.com/index.php/fuseaction/listings.detail/ID/2851

World state collapse.

[d.G.]

South Dakota is the most socialocaly faciest state in U.S.

[d.G.]

I have lived in 11 separate states and I have NEVER experienced such a totaling state/province like this. Wow, the police have no problem on stamping our rights. It seem the densely population in the is progressive and liberal as all, but the farmers to all the west are not too educated. I like the liberal policy that guns are allowed, but conservatives think this represents conservative. Plus, church does not make on conservative, just as Lincoln's views made him a liberal, despite being the founder of NOW conservative party, Which is loony tunes compared to what it was intended. Liberal = social freedom while conservative = "you can't do that. It's moral!" Coopered to what standard? The world ideology is falling in on the plains, and conservatives are ALLWAYS on the wrong side of history. Forget about my typos