Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hopes to keep a bill on the Keystone XL pipeline, to be introduced Tuesday, relatively free of extraneous riders so as not to give President Barack Obama any ammunition to help him justify an expected veto,
Politico reported.
The
House will vote Friday on its own bill authorizing construction of the oil pipeline.
The plan in the Senate is for Keystone to be introduced by Sen. John Hoeven, R-North Dakota, then be sent to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday for a hearing, and be voted out of committee by Thursday.
A Democratic source told Politico that Democrats did not plan to introduce riders at the committee stage.
The Senate would then debate Keystone next week.
At that point, Democrats are expected to introduce riders aimed to embarrass Republicans up for re-election in 2016. Republicans will have to defend 24 Senate seats, some of them in swing states.
Democratic amendments could, for instance, insist that none of the Keystone XL oil be exported, that only U.S. steel be used to construct the pipeline, or relate to global warming, according to Politico.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the Republican Whip, said he was considering how best to handle the anticipated Democratic riders.
McConnell says he is committed to
"regular order" in processing Senate legislation. While Democratic amendments will be allowed, the majority leader intends for procedural moves to ultimately produce a clean bill.
At the same time, he is urging GOP senators not to overload the pipeline bill with their own unrelated amendments. He prefers to leverage spending bills in order to block the administration on Obamacare and other controversial policies, Politico reported.
GOP senators are being reminded that they control both chambers of Congress and to be patient as their leadership pursues the Republican agenda in an orderly manner, according to Politico.
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