House vote on Keystone approval set next week

The House will vote next week on the Senate’s bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced the scheduled vote to reporters on Tuesday, days after the Senate approved the bill.

{mosads}The House easily passed similar legislation in January. But the Senate added a number of amendments, necessitating another House vote.

Those amendments include a nonbinding statement that climate change is real, an energy-efficiency measure for buildings and schools and an amendment related to the oil-spill trust fund.

McCarthy did not provide a specific day for the vote on the controversial oil pipeline, planned by TransCanada Corp. to run from Canada’s oil sands to the Gulf Coast.

“Passing this measure will send the bill right to the president’s desk after years of uncertainty and delay,” McCarthy said in a statement.

“Finally, we will know if the president will side with American jobs and North American energy security or not. I hope that the president will look at how Republicans and Democrats worked together to pass this bill and will reconsider his veto threat.”

President Obama has criticized Congress’s attempts to legislate on Keystone, maintaining that it is solely his responsibility to approve or deny the pipeline.

The White House threatened early in January to veto the bill if it reaches Obama’s desk.