The US Senate failed Wednesday to override President Barack Obama 's veto of a bill approving construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline . It 's expected to be the first of many confrontations between the Republican-controlled Congress and the White House this year over energy policy . The 62-37 vote involved eight Democrats voting with all 54 Republicans . A ninth Democrat , who also favors the pipeline project , missed the vote . At best , then , the GOP would have needed four more Democratic converts to override the veto and send the package to the House for its own attempt . SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEOS . NOT A HAPPY CAMPER : Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell , seen in the Capitol on Feb. 23 , could n't muster enough votes to override President Obama 's Keystone XL veto . NOT TODAY : Obama signed the Homeland Security Department 's budget into law on Wednesday , but has no intention of signing a Keystone construction bill . Pipes sit at the TransCanada Corp. Houston Lateral Project pipe yard in Mont Belvieu , Texas , waiting to be hooked up to a massive flow of Canadian oil from Alberta 's tar sands . Democrats Michael Bennet of Colorado , Tom Carper of Delaware , Bob Casey of Pennsylvania , Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota , Joe Manchin of West Virginia , Claire McCaskill of Missouri , Jon Tester of Montana and Mark Warner of Virginia crossed party lines . Joe Donnelly of Indiana was the nonvoting supporter of the override . The same exact group of nine joined together earlier this year to give Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell enough votes to pass the bill , dubbed 'S . 1 ' because it was the Senate 's first order of business in January . Already , the White House has issued more than a dozen veto threats on legislation favored by Republican lawmakers . The White House did not have an immediate comment on the vote , but Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer tweeted a rejoinder almost immediately . 'It seems GOP 's decision to spend most of their first couple of months in charge on Keystone was not as good an idea as it seemed on paper , ' he wrote on Twitter . Obama himself told Reuters in an interview Monday that he would reach a final decision on the project by the end of his term , leaving wiggle room for a future deal . And Danielle Droitsch , Canada Project director at the Natural Resources Defense Council , vlaimed Canada 's 'dirty tar sands oil pipeline is simply not in America 's national interest . ' Proponents of the Keystone bill have said since its introduction that they did n't have the two-thirds of the Senate vote needed to override Obama 's veto . They 've already been discussing other way to force the pipeline 's approval , either by attaching it onto must-pass spending bills or other , broader , energy legislation . 'If we do n't win the battle today , we will win the war because we will find another bill to attach this pipeline to , ' said North Dakota GOP Sen. John Hoeven , the chief sponsor of the bill , before the vote . Democrat Heidi Heitkamp , the state 's other senator , said afterward that 'more work remains to gather additional support for this project . ' 'Last Congress I successfully recruited ten Democrats to support Keystone , ' she said , 'and I ’ m not one to back down from a fight . ' McConnell pleaded with Democrats for more support of the bill , which he said advanced the president 's own priorities . 'If you 're interested in jobs and infrastructure and saving your party from an extreme mistake , then join us , ' he said . 'Vote with us to override a partisan veto and help the president pursue priorities he 's advocated in the past . ' Obama has repeatedly resisted Congress ' attempts to force his hand . SHORT-LIVED : Republicans signed their Keystone bill on Feb. 13 and sent it to the White House , but it came back to them with Obama 's 'veto ' signature . His veto of the bill , the third of his presidency , said that the bill circumvented longstanding and proven processes for determining whether cross-border pipelines serve the national interest and cuts short consideration of its effects . The $ 8 billion project would transport oil extracted from Canada 's tar sands to pipelines linked to Gulf Coast refineries , and would also include some oil from North Dakota . Environmentalists have framed the pipeline as a test of Obama 's commitment to address climate change , arguing that it would open up a path for tar sands oil to get to market . Republicans have pushed the pipeline as a job-creating infrastructure project that will supply the U.S. with oil from a friendly neighbor , rather than unstable regimes . The State Department 's analysis found that the oil would be harvested regardless of whether the pipeline is built , a conclusion that the EPA said needed to be re-examined given low oil prices . The same review said the pipeline would create thousands of jobs during construction , but ultimately it would require 35 permanent employees to maintain . State did not tackle an estimate of how many jobs the project might create in the petroelum industry as a new gusher of oil flows to the U.S. Gulf Coast .
Obama 's first veto this year killed approval of the Canada-to-Texas oil pipe . Eight Senate Democrats joined all 54 Republicans but the vote fell short . Two-thirds , or 67 senators , are needed to overturn a veto . The final vote was 62-37 , with one Democrat who favors the pipeline absent . Comment: