The Keystone XL Pipeline bill will land on the president's desk later this month and Americans will then see whether he'll do the right thing and pass it or kowtow to the far left with a veto, Sen. John Barrasso says.
"We're going to put it on the president's desk. We're going to pass it through the House, pass it through the Senate. It's a bipartisan bill. We have over 60 cosponsors in the United States Senate. That's almost unheard of with legislation," Barrasso said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
Story continues below video.
Note: Watch Newsmax TV now on DIRECTV Ch. 349 and DISH Ch. 223
Get Newsmax TV on your cable system – Click Here Now
"The American public supports it, the unions support it, there are good jobs as a result of this, and we're going to make sure the president gets it on his desk, and I hope he actually reads it and then actually signs it.
"He said he's going to veto it, we'll try to override the veto, but the president has to decide if he's with jobs, the economy, the American people, or if he's going to continue to kowtow to the extremists on the far left."
The $5.4 billion project would span 1,179 miles and travel through Montana and South Dakota. In Nebraska, it would connect with existing pipelines and carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to Texas refineries.
Republicans argued that Keystone would create 42,000 jobs and increase the nation's GDP by $3 billion. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest cited an ongoing review of the project as to why it will be vetoed for now.
Barrasso — a Wyoming Republican who is chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee — also weighed in on Wednesday's deadly terror attack in Paris as "a direct attack on freedom, on free speech, on free press."
"We still don't know who exactly has done this, but there obviously is a component to a radical Islamist approach, whether it's ISIS, whether they are folks that already had gone over to Iraq and Syria for training and then back to France," he said.
"It's a concern with thousands from Europe going over and being part of that fight and having the freedom of movement to [move] throughout Europe. We have hundreds from the United States, it's been reported, that have gone as well, so the concern on behalf of all of us is we have to be able to identify them before they get us."