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Rep. Terry: Boehner will link pipeline bill to jobless insurance, payroll tax bill
House GOP leaders plan to attach legislation to speed up approval of the controversial Keystone XL oil sands pipeline to a broader package that extends unemployment insurance and payroll tax cuts, a Republican lawmaker said.
Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.), the sponsor of the Keystone pipeline measure, told reporters that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced the strategy at a House GOP conference meeting Friday morning.
“The Speaker announced that this bill will be part of the unemployment and tax holiday package,” Terry said at a press conference on the pipeline bill.
A spokesman for Boehner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The strategy, if it comes to pass, could make opposing the Terry plan more difficult for Democrats because extending unemployment insurance and payroll tax cuts this year are priorities for Capitol Hill Democrats and the White House.
The Obama administration last month punted a federal decision on a permit for TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Alberta-to-Texas pipeline until 2013 — notably, after the presidential election.
But Terry’s plan — along with separate Senate legislation — would require a much faster decision on the proposal to carry hundreds of thousands of barrels per day to Gulf Coast refineries.
The bill has support from almost all the Republicans on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, the Nebraska lawmaker said.
The new GOP bill would give FERC 30 days to act on TransCanada’s permit application, and substantially restricts FERC’s discretion to reject the project.
FERC, under the legislation, would also separately approve the re-routing within Nebraska.
Terry told reporters Friday that Nebraska environmental regulators can complete an assessment of the new route within six months. FERC would then have 30 days after receiving the state environmental assessment to approve that portion. “If there are no barriers, [FERC] will have to approve the permit,” Terry said.
Terry said FERC is better equipped than the State Department to handle the pipeline. “FERC is the expert agency in pipelines, pipeline safety, pipeline siting,” he said in explaining the effort to take away the State Department’s authority.
He also said the bill will take the issue “out of politics,” an oblique reference to the tricky terrain facing the White House on the pipeline — a project that many unions support but environmental groups bitterly oppose.
“This removes any decision-making from the State Department and the President. They don’t have to pick between friends now,” Terry said.
Pipeline advocates – which include powerful business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute – have called the project a way to enhance U.S. energy security and create jobs.
But environmental groups strongly oppose the $7 billion pipeline due to greenhouse gas emissions and forest damage from the energy-intensive oil sands projects, potential spills along the route and other issues.
"The pipeline would remove existing constraints on tar sands production, dramatically increasing carbon pollution for decades," said California Rep. Henry Waxman, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, at a hearing on the pipeline Friday.
—This post was updated at 11:30 a.m. and 11:56 a.m.
