Dems Cave on Keystone XL

You might have seen this from Guy Benson a little while ago: Victory II: Democrats Cave on Keystone in Payroll Tax Cut Deal. He's got a GOP source that says the Democrats are giving us Keystone XL in exchange for a mere two month extension of the payroll tax cuts.

Click over then come back; there's some good stuff there. Here are more details, as sent to me by one of our guys on the Hill:

What [it] basically does is require the State Department to issue the permit for Keystone XL within 60 days, unless President Obama explicitly says the pipeline is not in the national interest and kills it (that would definitely not be good for him to do).

It also tells State to allow construction to go ahead while it works with Nebraska to resolve any remaining environmental or routing issues. The governor and legislature there are on board with getting a new route to allay any concerns.

So we got the Keystone language, Dems got a 2 month extension of their payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance, but the cost is fully offset (with spending cuts) so it doesn’t add to the deficit.

As Ace noted this afternoon, Press Secretary Jay Carney was reluctant to repeat Obama's veto threat over Keystone XL, so the President is in the hot seat now. Democrats and unions (BIRM) were freaking out over being put in a position to oppose the thousands of jobs represented by Keystone XL.

Obama can still cancel the pipeline under the deal, but, as Guy writes, it's much more likely that he's about to throw the enviroweenies under the bus. It was one thing when the vague "Obama State Department" was putting the pipeline on hold for further studies that wouldn't be concluded until after the election. But now Obama would be on the record as saying that the proposed pipeline isn't in the national interest. That's not going to happen. This man doesn't vote "no." He votes "present."

Can I get a big "good job" for Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader McConnell? The Hill reported earlier today that McConnell was making a big push on this. It paid off.

BTW: For the folks who always ask themselves why the media, why Politico, why the Hill, etc., always end up with info before conservative media and conservative blogs, note that this went out to us before it hit the wires. The GOP is learning.

Oh and further: Drink the sweet, vegetarian tears of the enviroweenies:

"It's bulls—-," said Sierra Club President Michael Brune. "This is no way to run a government. We've got Republicans in Congress who are willing to hold the entire government hostage simply to give a Christmas present to industry."

Yum.

Thanks to Slublog for that.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 08:33 PM

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