House Democrats broke ranks with the president and voted to approve the Keystone Pipeline on Wednesday.
Nearly 70 Democrats voted for the pipeline as part of a sweeping transportation bill, which passed the House by a vote of 293-127 on Wednesday. The Hill reports:
The bill creates another clash with the White House over the Keystone pipeline—a project at the heart of the Republicans’ energy agenda and their election-year attacks against the president.
Obama, facing divisions in his political base, has delayed a permitting decision on the project until after the election and threatened to veto the House bill over the pipeline language.
In January, Obama shot down an effort to build the pipeline—a project expected to create thousands of jobs—in order to appease environmental groups in this election year. In March, he approved constructing a small portion of the project in Oklahoma.