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 The measure fell just short of the 60 votes needed for passage,
despite frantic last-minute lobbying by supporters, especially
Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who faces a runoff
election on Dec. 6. She has staked her hopes of winning a fourth
Senate term on the Keystone gambit.
The tally was 59 to 41 on TransCanada Corp's $8 billion project,
with all 45 Republicans supporting the bill.
Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, who will become Senate Majority
Leader in January after his party made big gains in this month's
midterm elections, said after the vote that consideration of a
Keystone bill would be "very early up" in the next congress.
Obama opposed the Keystone bill and wants the State Department to
finish its review of the pipeline. He has said he would not approve
the pipeline if it significantly raised greenhouse gas emissions.
If the bill had passed, Obama was widely expected to veto it, a
power he has used only three times during his six years in office.
Obama raised new questions about the project during a trip to Asia
late last week, saying it would not lower gas prices for U.S.
drivers but would allow Canada to "pump their oil, send it through
our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else."
Republican Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, who co-sponsored the
Keystone bill with Landrieu, has pledged to keep trying to force
approval of the project that the administration has kept under
review for more than six years.
Hoeven may introduce a new bill in January or February, or he could
attach a Keystone measure to a broader bill that Obama would find
difficult to veto.
The Senate will have 63 "yes" votes for Keystone next year and is
"starting to coast" to the 67 that would be needed to overturn an
Obama veto, Hoeven predicted. "Getting to that magic number is a
possibility," he said.
Despite the loss, Landrieu was upbeat. "There’s no blame, there’s
only joy in the fight," she told reporters.
UNLOCK ITS BENEFITS
Construction workers, unions and energy companies say the pipeline,
which would transport more than 800,000 barrels of oil a day from
Alberta to Nebraska en route to the Gulf of Mexico, would create
thousands of jobs.
But the project has galvanized environmentalists who say developing
Canada's oil sands would spike carbon emissions linked to climate
change and that much of the oil would be sold abroad.
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Tom Steyer, the billionaire ex hedge-fund manager who raised
millions of dollars to support environmentally-minded candidates in
the midterm elections, said the Senate "decided to stand on the
right side of history." The State Department has delayed a final
decision on Keystone pending a legal decision in Nebraska over the
pipeline's route that is expected in coming weeks. The department
has said in previous reviews that Keystone would not significantly
boost greenhouse gas emissions.
Tuesday vote was taken hard in Canada where development of the oil
sands is important to Alberta's budget. "We are disappointed that
U.S. politics continue to delay a decision on Keystone XL," a
spokesman for Canada's Natural Resources Minister said via email.
Russ Girling, the chief executive of TransCanada, said his company
will not give up: "We will continue to push for reason over
gridlock, common sense over symbolism and solid science over
rhetoric to approve Keystone XL and unlock its benefits."
TransCanada, which has already built a pipeline from the Gulf Coast
that would connect with Keystone XL in Nebraska, says the new link
would take two years to complete once approved. As oil prices have
fallen more than 25 percent since the summer, the pipeline could be
an increasingly important piece of the puzzle for development of the
oil sands.
TransCanada shares closed down 57 Canadian cents at C$56 on the
Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday.
 (Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Valerie Volcovici, Ros
Krasny, Amanda Becker, Richard Cowan, David Lawder, David Ljunggren
in Ottawa, Nia Williams in Calgary and Julie Gordon in Vancouver;
editing by Steve Orlofsky, Bill Trott, Paul Simao, Matthew Lewis,
Cynthia Osterman and Ken Wills)
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