Saturday, April 21, 2012

Senate Democrats Are Like Rats Deserting a Sinking Ship on the Keystone Pipeline

Alana Goodman reports in Commentary that "Contentions Dems May Force Obama to Make Keystone XL Decision."  The House has already picked up 69 Democratic votes to approve the pipeline and Byron York reports in the Washington Examiner that in the Senate, whee there is a Democratic filibuster against the pipeline, "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."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There are still a couple of GOP senate votes that are "moderate" coming out of the northeast. The two Maine senators, Snow and Collins, as well as Scott Brown the successor to Teddy often line up with the D's on enviro issues.

The benefits from Keystone are far from New England while the enviros are thriving on all of the college campuses. The GOP will need more like 15 senate D's as well as control of the senate before this ends up moving with the senate's 60 vote filibuster rule.