Obama vetoes Keystone pipeline

WASHINGTON - President Obama vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline legislation Tuesday within hours of its arrival on his desk. Few bills have arrived with such fanfare and died so quickly.

Despite the legislation's demise, the third veto of Obama's presidency exposed his new political reality - unified Republican control of Congress that will force him to confront critics directly in a way he has rarely had to before.

For six years, Obama was relatively shielded by Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.), who as majority leader stymied many of the GOP's most prized proposals and allowed Obama to issue fewer vetoes than any president since Millard Fillmore (with the exception of James Garfield, who was assassinated shortly after taking office). But now that Reid's protection is largely gone, Obama will have to resort to vetoes more often.

The latest fight was still largely over process. In his veto message, Obama said the legislation "cuts short thorough consideration" of the six-year-old pipeline permit application before the State Department completes its review.

The State Department said it was still considering the project, adding that there was no timetable for a decision.

Republicans said the veto proved the president was more interested in catering to his base than delivering concrete results. They stressed, as they have before, lost construction jobs while glossing over the small number of direct long-term jobs - 35 - that the pipeline would create.

"The president not only vetoed bipartisan legislation today to finish building the Keystone pipeline, but he also denied Americans thousands of new, well-paying jobs and the opportunity to progress towards energy independence," said Senate Environment Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R., Okla.).

Some Democrats who back the pipeline, such as Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, also questioned Obama's action. Heitkamp, who helped rally 10 Democrats to vote for a pipeline measure last year, said that "watching bipartisan legislation come to a halt in one swift veto can be frustrating."

Pipeline foes were elated. Environmentalists - as well as some landowners along the Keystone XL route - have lobbied hard against the pipeline, arguing that the bitumen extracted in Canada's oil sands and shipped through the roughly 1,700-mile pipeline would accelerate global warming and endanger local waterways.