President Threatens Veto if Republicans Attach Keystone XL Pipeline to Payroll Tax-cut

Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Challenges. Discussion »

President Obama with
Prime Minister Harper
of Canada

WASHINGTON - Republicans are playing hard ball on the Keystone XL pipeline. They want to attach it to the payroll tax-cut extension vote.

Last month, President Obama announced he would delay a final decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline until after the 2012 presidential election.

Unhappy with the his announcement to delay the final decision, Congressional Republicans are attempting to attach Keystone to the payroll tax-cut extension.

“Any efforts to try to tie Keystone to the payroll-tax cut, I will reject,”

President Obama said on Wednesday.

The Republicans welcome a showdown over Keystone with the president, according Michael Steel, a spokesperson for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Republicans, backed by the oil industry, believe the Keystone pipeline will increase jobs. Most serious analysts reject the projected increase in jobs as fabricated conjecture.

The Keystone XL Pipeline fight is getting more and more partisan. The Keystone XL Project is a 1700 mile long crude oil pipeline that would transport between 700,000 to 900,000 barrels of crude oil per day. This pipeline is planned to extend from Alberta, Canada and pass through the states of Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas on its way to the Gulf of Mexico for storage and export overseas.

American Indians and environmentalists oppose the pipeline.

The proposed pipeline coming down through the Plains states has caused great concern, particularly among the Oglala in South Dakota.

TransCanada's proposed pipeline route is right though the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations. It will cross the Oglala Sioux Rural Water Supply System in two places.

The President does not want to confuse the Keystone issue and others with the payroll tax-cut extension.

"The question is going to be, are they willing to vote against a proposal that ensures Americans, at a time when the recovery is still fragile, don't see their taxes going up by $1,000?"

President Obama asked.

"Efforts to tie a whole bunch of other issues to something that they should be doing anyway will be rejected by me." President Obama concluded.

posted December 8, 2011 1:30 am est