Infrastructure

Conservative Democratic Rep. John Barrow has put forward a measure urging inclusion of the pipeline project in transportation legislation.

Republican lawmakers are pushing for inclusion of the pipeline but are signaling it won’t be non-negotiable.

A former Senate Democrat predicted Tuesday that President Obama will eventually approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and suggested that election-year politics are preventing the project from moving forward.

“In my judgment, this pipeline will be built. The question is when is the decision made,” former Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said during an event hosted by the American Petroleum Institute, the powerful oil-industry group.

Dorgan said Obama punted a final decision on the pipeline because his liberal base, including environmental groups, opposes the project, which would carry oil sands crude from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

“I think we all understand that the president is reluctant to move forward because he has some supporters that are concerned about it,” he said.

Sen. John Hoeven predicts that the House and Senate will agree on a long-term surface transportation bill by June 30.

Rep. Mica on Thursday sounded optimistic notes about negotiators including Keystone in the transportation bill.

The Canadian company behind the embattled Keystone XL pipeline project — which is at the heart of the Washington, D.C. energy battles — has proposed a new route through Nebraska aimed at avoiding the environmentally sensitive Sandhills region.

TransCanada Corp. filed the proposal with state environmental officials in Nebraska on Wednesday, the company said. The Omaha World-Herald has more on the plan here.

The filing came on the same day that the House passed a GOP-led bill that mandates federal approval of the proposed pipeline, which would bring Canadian oil sands south to Gulf Coast refineries.

The House is slated to vote Wednesday on the bill that keeps the transportation programs funded through September.

House Republicans plan to pass their extension with just GOP votes, if necessary, putting pressure on the Democratically controlled Senate.

The second-ranking House Democrat accused Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday of bucking the wishes of the chamber's majority when it comes to passing a spending bill for transportation.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.), the Democratic whip, said Boehner's resistance to a Senate-passed transportation bill betrays the Speaker's own stated strategy of letting the House "work its will."

"The Speaker has said many times that the House ought to be allowed to work its will. We would hope that the Republicans would put on the floor the Senate bill and let it be voted up or down, and I think it would pass," Hoyer said during his weekly press briefing in the Capitol.

The Senate on Wednesday is expected to finish work on S. 1813, the transportation authorization bill, which would finally give the House something to chew on when it returns next week.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) predicted on Tuesday evening that the Senate would finish the bill by mid-Wednesday. Authorization for federal transportation spending expires at the end of this month, so the House has a few weeks to figure out whether and how to amend the Senate bill.