Senator Mitch McConnell will be the Senate majority leader come January, and the thirty year legislator has already determined his first piece of legislation to bring to the floor of the Senate for a vote.
“The first item up in the new Senate will be the Keystone XL pipeline, the Hoeven bill,” said Sen. McConnell at his last Capitol Hill news conference this year.
The symbolism is evident, as the Keystone XL pipeline bill has been a longstanding political sparring point between the wholly opposite while similarly idealistic ends of the political spectrum for well over two years now. Most recently the debate was highlighted in the Louisiana senate race, which ended with Democratic senator Mary Landrieu pleading with her party for the votes to pass the bill, an effort that left her a few votes short.
“[Keystone XL pipeline] will be open for amendment, and I hope that senators on both sides will offer energy-related amendments,” McConnell said. “There will be no effort to try to micromanage the amendment process. But we’ll move forward and hopefully be able to pass a very important job-creating bill early in the session.”
Now that Republicans have securely locked up the majority of the Senate, impending leader McConnell wants to be sure to capitalize on the favorable climate, and bring bills to the floor that the previous leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had kept logjammed for political purposes. Although he does not have the necessary votes to break a filibuster, and President Obama will ultimately decide the bill’s fate with his presidential veto, Sen. McConnell believes if an heir of bipartisanship could take hold in the legislative chamber, the XL pipeline still has a breath of life.
“People want jobs. And this project will create well-paying, high-wage jobs for our people and it certainly does enjoy a lot of bipartisan support,” said McConnell.
