Associated Industries of Missouri continues its support of the Keystone XL Pipeline project, and thanks Missouri Senators Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt for their votes in favor of the project Tuesday night. AIM president Ray McCarty personally contacted both Senators’ offices last week to express support for the bill.
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday night came up one vote short of the 60 needed to pass the pipeline project on to the White House. But the project is not dead, according to incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In the moments following the vote, McConnell said he looked forward to bringing the project up for a vote again in the new Republican-majority Senate.
Looking at the math of that statement, McConnell seems to have a good argument that the pipeline project will pass. Three of the Democrat Senators who voted against Keystone (Johnson of South Dakota, Rockefeller of West Virginia and Udall of Colorado) were either defeated, or otherwise replaced, by Republicans. There will be at least 53 Republicans in the new Senate. If all 14 Democrats who voted for the project vote the same way again, there would be 67 votes for Keystone XL, enough to pass the bill – and, perhaps more importantly, enough to override a veto by President Obama.
“The Keystone XL Pipeline will provide much-needed jobs in Missouri,” said AIM president Ray McCarty. “We would like to thank Senators Blunt and McCaskill for their support of this important project, and look forward to their continuing support when the project comes back up for a vote in the Senate in the months to come.”
Comments