Keystone bill passes House: eyes now turn to Senate.

That’s one way to put it, at least:

The House on Friday passed legislation to authorize construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, setting the stage for a showdown in the Senate next week.

The legislation was approved 252-161, with 31 Democrats joining Republicans in backing a construction permit for the controversial project, which would bring oil sands from Canada to refineries in the United States.

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…although I should note that the term ‘controversial’ is, well, controversial: basically, the most progressive Democrats out there hate the thing, largely because they don’t like Americans to have cheap energy*.  Everybody else thinks that the idea is just swell; unfortunately – for the Democrats – the aforementioned progressives made a better offer.  Short-term thinking for the win!

But there’s another way to put it: which is, Who loves their legislators more?  More from the Hill:

Passage of the bill was hailed by its chief House sponsor, [mc_name name=’Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’C001075′ ] (R-La.), who is facing a runoff against [mc_name name=’Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’L000550′ ] (D-La.) on Dec. 6 after neither won a majority in the general election.

Of course the GOP pushed the bill out almost immediately after the election:  aside from pretty much everything else, doing so is a solid favor for Rep. Cassidy.  The question is, though, is whether [mc_name name=’Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000146′ ] is going to give Sen. Landrieu a single, solitary, isolated smidgen of assistance in her upcoming race.  There’s a general perception that Landrieu is doomed, you see. So why should Reid do her the favor, given that the alternative is forcing Barack Obama to embarrassingly veto the bill?

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…Veteran Senate-watchers will no doubt read that paragraph with a certain amount of shock, or possibly cosmic horror; like many extremely exclusive organizations, the Senate tends to think in terms of being them against the world**.  That the head of the Senate Democratic caucus might actually consider the well-being of the parvenu sitting in the Oval Office over that of a Senator – well, that’s just strange.  Wrong. It’s like adding 2+2 and getting ‘purple.’

Mind you, it may in fact happen that Landrieu will get her version of the bill past the cloture vote.  If that happens it’ll probably pass – and get promptly vetoed, because Barack Obama doesn’t care about any Democratic politician not named ‘Barack Obama.’ But Landrieu losing the cloture vote serves Reid’s purposes, as there will be a few Democrats up for re-election who will not want to have ‘voted against Keystone’ on their rap sheets. Won’t help Landrieu, but again… general perception that she is doomed.

:shaking head: You can say a lot of things about the Republican party, and I’d probably agree with a good many of them.  But the cynical callousness on display here – against one of their own! – is just nasty. I’m glad I don’t have to be the one to defend this kind purposeful disloyalty…

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Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Look up ‘deep ecology’ sometime.  Short version: some people think that we have too much stuff.  Where it gets awkward is that a nontrivial percentage of those people define ‘a second child’ as ‘stuff.’

**Admittedly, the Senate is in a better place than most groups are when it comes to fighting off the world.

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