On the recordJanuary 8, 2015
the majority leader has stated this morning that we have to stop protecting the President from good ideas and use this as his exhibit A--the Keystone Pipeline bill--which is likely to come up for debate before the Senate the beginning of next week. It is an important measure, an important issue that has been talked about over a long period of time, and the actual debate on the Senate floor will commence the beginning of next week. The majority leader has moved a bill through the rule XIV process, which under the Senate rules is an effort to bring a bill directly to the floor and not through the committee. At the same time there is a parallel effort under way in the newly formed energy committee of the Senate--formed as of yesterday, I might add--to consider this bill, as well, to mark it up. So I am not sure which bill will come to the floor. Perhaps the effort will be merged at some point. But there is no delay from our point of view from any of the motions or objections that we have raised. We ask only that the committee structures be established so that the bill could go through the orderly process of committee. That happened yesterday and now it is in the hands of the energy committee. If their markup is going to be perhaps later this week or next week, then we will be prepared to bring this measure to the floor after the regular order process of committee consideration of this bill.…
