Republicans blasted President Barack Obama on Tuesday for threatening to veto the $5.4 billion Keystone XL pipeline, charging him with pandering to liberal environmentalists instead of passing legislation that has strong bipartisan support in Congress.

“President Obama’s veto threat comes as no surprise,” said Sen. John Hoeven, the North Dakota Republican who co-sponsored the legislation. “He has held the Keystone XL pipeline project up for six years with endless bureaucratic delays. His strategy has been defeat through delay.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that “it’s interesting to note that the president declined to issue a veto threat last month when a Democrat senator was trying to save her job over the exact same Keystone bill.”

The Kentucky Republican, who said that the pipeline bill would be the first piece of legislation taken up by the new GOP-controlled Senate, was referring to embattled Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu. She lost a heated runoff election in December to GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy after a failed attempt to get the project approved.

Cassidy, who sponsored the House version of the Keystone bill that is expected to be approved on Friday, trounced Landrieu in the runoff to extend the GOP’s control of the Senate to 54 seats.

Source: Todd Beamon, newsmax.com