McConnell Counters Obama’s Pipeline Veto Threat

Mark Wilson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Wednesday forcefully rebuffed President Obama’s threat to veto legislation authorizing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, saying the president’s warning was “anything but productive.”

A day earlier, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that Obama would veto a pipeline bill passed by the Republican Congress because a study on its environmental viability hasn’t yet been completed by the State Department.

However, McConnell, who now runs things in the Senate after the GOP takeover last November, contends that the president needs to accept the fact that the mood of the country has shifted in favor of Republicans.

The GOP has argued for the past six years that the pipeline, which would run from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, will create tens of thousands of jobs and make the country more energy independent.

But besides environmental concerns, the administration says that the effect of boosting U.S. oil supplies will be minimal because Canada plans to export most of its crude elsewhere.

During his speech on the Senate floor, McConnell touched on a number of other topics but none seem to stir curiosity more than his suggestion that Republicans were responsible for the recent surge of the U.S. economy.

His words: “After so many years of sluggish growth, we’re finally starting to see some economic data that can provide a glimmer of hope. The uptick appears to coincide with the biggest political change of the Obama Administration’s long tenure in Washington: the expectation of a new Republican Congress.”

The Democratic National Committee then tweeted, “Jokester Mitch McConnell said that economic recovery is due to 2014 election results. Our response: Hahahahahahahaha.”

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