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, couldn'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 didn'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 don'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 us 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 us gulf coast
texas republicans keystone canada first democrats democrat this year senate obama 62 37
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  republicans say they'll attach the keystone language to a 'must pass' bill later on, vowing the project is not dead 