Keystone XL bill advances at Senate committee

The bid to build the pipeline, which began in 2008, has become a political flashpoint. Conservatives see it as a way to create jobs and wean America off of foreign oil while environmental groups have made it a symbol of President Barack Obama's commitment to global warming.

The project will likely satisfy neither side. The pipeline's construction is not expected to produce many direct jobs. The State Department's own analysis concluded that it wouldn't worsen climate change because the oil would be harvested and then transported by other means, including rail, even if the pipeline were not built.

The move assures that the first piece of legislation in the new Republican-controlled Senate is on a collision course with the White House, and neither side appeared to be giving any ground Thursday.

New energy committee chairman Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, urged colleagues not to be deterred by the veto threat, reminding them the bill fell just one vote shy of passing the Senate when Democrats controlled the chamber last year.

The bill this time around already has enough support to overcome a filibuster 54 Republicans and six Democrats are sponsors. But supporters acknowledge they are still short of what would be needed to overcome a veto threat, and were already discussing other means to get the pipeline approved.

Long wait for approval

Calgary-based TransCanada Corp.has been waiting for more than six years for a U.S. permit to build the $8-billion pipeline, which has become a major irritant in Canada-U.S. relations.

The pipeline would connect to an existing TransCanada system, enabling some 830,000 barrels of crude per day, mostly from Alberta, to more directly reach the lucrative Gulf Coast market by cutting diagonally from the Saskatchewan-Montana border to Steele City, Neb.

Prior to the Senate committee's vote Thursday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called on Obama to rescind his veto threat.

"So for a president who has said he'd like to see more bipartisan co-operation, this is a perfect opportunity," McConnell said in a statement.

Supporters say the pipeline project would ease American dependence on Middle East oil. Critics argue that the drilling itself is environmentally harmful and that much of the Canadian crude would be exported with little or no impact on America's drive to reduce oil imports.

But while the $5.4 billion project has become a political lightning rod, it will have minimal impact on the two issues that the two sides care most about, which for Republicans is jobs and for liberal Democrats, their concern about worsening climate change.

The State Department in its evaluation of the pipeline, now on hold until a Nebraska court rules on its route, said the oiilsands would be developed regardless of whether the pipeline was built.

The same review said that during the two-year construction period about 42,000 jobs would be created, but only 3,900 would be directly related to the pipeline.