(by Roberta Rampton and Jeff Mason, YahooNews.com) WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Democrats on Thursday defeated a Republican proposal to give a permit to the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline in a vote that will give Republicans more ammunition to criticize President Barack Obama’s energy policies on the campaign trail.  Republicans argue the pipeline, which would ship oil from Canada and northern states to Texas, would create jobs and improve energy security at a time of surging gasoline prices.

[President] Obama put TransCanada’s $7 billion project on hold earlier this year pending further environmental review. He [then] took the unusual step of calling some senators personally ahead of the vote, asking them to reject the proposal.

“He understood that a majority of the American public, a majority at least in the Senate, are strongly in favor of this project,” said Senator Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, who sponsored the bill to take control of the pipeline decision away from Obama.

The Republicans tried to advance their plan as an amendment to a highway funding bill. It failed on a vote of 56-42, four short of the 60 needed to pass*, although 11 Democratic senators voted with the Republicans. …

“We’re going to continue this fight,” said Republican Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, who championed the bill. … “With gas prices going up every day, with what’s going on in the Middle East, I’ll tell you what: the pressure is just going to increase on the [Obama] administration to get this project done,” Hoeven said.  …..

The Keystone amendment was among 30 measures – many of them energy-related – being voted on as the Senate pushes in coming days to renew funding for highways and other infrastructure projects, slated to run out at the end of March.

Earlier, the Senate defeated proposals to expand the area available for offshore oil drilling and extend the time for manufacturers to phase in new pollution regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for industrial boilers.

But the Keystone amendment attracted the most attention. The pipeline would carry crude from Canadian oil sands to Texas refineries and would also pick up U.S. crude from North Dakota and Montana along the way.

Environmental groups have fought the project, staging large protests last year that pressured the Obama administration to block approval.

…Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, said in a statement:  “We’re grateful to the administration for denying the permit and for Senate leadership for holding the line.”  [Jeremy Symons of the National Wildlife Federation said “We are pleased the Senate stood up to oil giants and sided with the American public.”  NOTE: A Pew Research Center poll last month found 66% of Americans who have heard about the issue say the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries should be approved, while 23% say it shouldn’t.] …

Democratic senators who voted for the Republican Keystone plan included Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jim Webb of Virginia. [The voters in these states support the construction of the pipeline, therefore these Democrats might have risked losing in their next election if they had voted against the pipeline.]

Two Republican senators were absent, and all the 45 who were present voted for the amendment. [The two absent Republican senators include Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois who is recovering from a recent stroke, and North Dakota Senator John Thune, whose mother passed away the day before the vote.]

Reprinted here for educational purposes only. Visit ca.news.yahoo.com/keystone-oil-pipeline-bill-fails-senate-000638747.html for the original post.

*NOTE: For an ordinary bill to pass each chamber or house of the U.S. congress, it needs a simple majority of yea votes which would be 50% + 1 vote.  In the Senate, ordinarily there are a total of 100 seated Senators. 50% of 100 is 50. A simple majority is 50% + 1, thus the fewest yea votes required for an ordinary bill to pass the Senate is 51. 

The Senate has the ability to bring things to a standstill with a filibuster. Historically, a filibuster would take the form of a group of Senators agreeing to prevent a bill from passing by preventing it from ever coming up for a vote. They would prevent the vote from taking place by talking about the bill. …if [a senator] lost the floor [during his filibuster] to someone not opposed to the bill, that person could simply call for the vote to take place. However, if enough Senators have agreed to continue to filibuster, they could prevent the vote from taking place indefinitely by reading from the phone book and yielding the floor only to one another. … The only way to stop the endless proposal and debate of amendments to a particular bill and bring it to an immediate vote is with a successful vote of cloture. For such a vote to be successful, it must be supported by three fifths of the seated Senators which would be 60. (from wiki answers)