Fuel Fix – by Jennifer A. Dlouhy
WASHINGTON — The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday approved legislation to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline, following a divisive debate over climate change that previewed bitter fights to come.
The 13-9 vote to approve the measure — with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin the lone Democrat crossing party lines to back the bill — paves the way for Senate floor debate to begin as soon as Monday.
It could take weeks for the Senate to wade through potentially dozens of amendments to the three-page bill, with proposals tackling such topics as climate change, taxes and energy efficiency marking potentially the broadest energy debate the chamber has had in years.
Even then, the White House has threatened to veto the legislation, saying it would short-circuit a State Department review of the proposed border-crossing pipeline and a legal challenge to the route through Nebraska.
Both foes and fans of Keystone XL insisted Thursday that the fight is about much more than the fate of a single pipeline.
“It’s one project but it’s part of: Are we going to build the infrastructure we need to truly have North American energy security?” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., the bill sponsor. The legislation is a “test case to see if we can come together on the Senate floor, offer amendments on a bipartisan basis . . . and get something done for the American people.”
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, said the debate over Keystone XL is symbolic.
“I don’t think it’s going to destroy the environment,” King said. “I also don’t think it’s going to boost the American economy. But it’s symbolic, and it’s a turning point, it’s an inflection point. Is America serious about moving to different forms of energy or are we just back in the same old fossil fuel economy?”
First proposed by TransCanada Corp. six years ago, Keystone XL would run 1,170 miles from Alberta to Steele City, Neb., giving Canada’s oil sands crude a vital link to a Midwest oil hub and other pipelines that could ferry it to Gulf Coast refineries.
Supporters say it would support jobs — though just how many is a source of debate — and allow more Canadian crude to replace oil from Venezuela and other nations in Gulf Coast refineries.
Opponents say Keystone XL would sustain the extraction of the dense hydrocarbon bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands using mining, steam and other energy-intensive means that give the resulting crude a higher carbon footprint than alternatives.
The climate change consequences of the project were a flashpoint in Thursday’s committee meeting.
The panel voted 13-9 to table an amendment from Sen. Bernard Sanders, i-Vt., that would express a sense of Congress that climate change is real, caused by human activity and has already caused devastating problems. Sanders’ proposal also would insist that “it is imperative that the United States transform its energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy.”
That transition line sparked heated debate, with Manchin saying it unfairly cast the burden of countering climate change as a job for the U.S. — not the world.
Sanders’ proposal, which could be revived on the Senate floor, illustrates the challenge Democratic leaders will have in maintaining discipline over their members during the free-wheeling Keystone XL debate.
Senate Democratic leaders have already floated plans for amendments forcing TransCanada to use U.S. steel and barring the export of crude carried by the pipeline. Amendments on climate change, taxes and other issues could dilute Democrats’ messaging on American jobs and energy.
One potentially thorny proposal would force importers of Canadian oil sands crude to pay into the same spill trust fund that users of conventional oil help fund. The existing excise tax that keeps money flowing into the oil spill liability trust fund is not charged for bitumen from Canada’s oil sands, under a 2011 Internal Revenue Service decision.
Foreshadowing the floor debate to come, Democratic critics of Keystone XL on Thursday insisted that the legislation was a handout to foreign special interests — namely Calgary-based TransCanada Corp.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., excoriated Republicans for putting the Keystone XL bill at the top of their congressional agenda. “Money and power” are the forces driving the legislation, she insisted.
“Who does this new Republican Congress work for?” she asked. “Foreign oil companies or the American people?”
King quipped that the Keystone XL debate was transforming the Senate into a “planning board.” “This is a construction permit being issued to a private company — and a foreign one at that,” he said.
And Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., called the measure “a sweetheart deal from Congress that even U.S. businesses haven’t gotten.”
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/01/08/senate-panel-approves-keystone-xl-bill-despite-veto-threat/