How Did Wyoming Senators Vote in Narrow Defeat of Keystone XL Pipeline?

Both Wyoming Republican U.S. senators found themselves on the losing side of the March 4, 2015, vote in which supporters of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline failed to overturn President Barack Obama’s veto of a bill that would have brought about its construction.

Sixty-two senators voted to overturn the veto — five short of the 67 needed to secure a two-thirds majority — while 37 cast ballots against the move and one didn’t vote.

Wyoming senior Sen. Mike Enzi and junior Sen. John Barasso voted to overturn the veto.

Barasso released a statement on Jan. 7, 2015, before the vote that passed the bill vetoed by the president, where he called upon Obama to “stand with the American people and Congress in supporting the bipartisan and job-creating Keystone XL pipeline.”

Barasso described the Keystone project as being the “poster child for the gridlock and the dysfunction” of Washington, D.C.

“For more than six years it has been a symbol of out-of-control Washington bureaucracy. The State Department has absolutely refused to do its job and to make any kind of decision on the pipeline's application. The Keystone XL pipeline has also been a symbol of gridlock in the Senate. A small group of extreme environmentalists with deep pockets has bullied Democrat members of the Senate to block a bill that would move this important jobs project further,” Barasso said.

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In response to questions from constituents, Enzi released a statement on March 1, 2015, saying it made sense to build the pipeline.

“It provides jobs immediately. It provides a way for us to get U.S. energy into a pipeline to get it to refineries. Which, if we increase the supply, will bring down the price. It is an environmentally responsible way to move the oil and we should be building the pipeline,”
Enzi said.

The votes by Enzi and Barasso followed along party lines in the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels of crude oil daily.

The pipeline would run from Canada through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Republicans supported building the pipeline to create jobs while Obama raised concerns about Keystone XL’s potential effects on climate change and questioned how much of an effect it would have on employment.

The Senate voted 62-36 on Jan. 29, 2015, to pass a bill seeking to force construction of the 840-mile pipeline, which Obama had vowed to veto so long as federal environmental reviews continued, reported The Washington Post. Of the Senate’s 54 Republicans, 53 voted in favor of the bill — along with nine Democrats. The other Republican, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, did not vote.

The House of Representatives then voted 270-152 on Feb. 11 to approve the bill, which Obama vetoed Feb. 24, 2015.

All 54 Senate Republicans were among the 62 Senators who voted March 4 in favor of the unsuccessful attempt to overturn Obama’s veto. It indicated eight Democratic Senators voted in favor of the override and 37 Senate Democrats cast ballots against it while one Democrat — Joe Donnelly of Indiana, who had voted in favor of the bill Jan. 29 — did not vote.

North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven, who introduced the bill, said after the failed override attempt that pipeline supporters would try to attach Keystone pipeline approval to another bill this year, Reuters reported.

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