WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate on Wednesday failed to override President Barack Obama's veto of a bill to construct the Keystone XL pipeline, the first of many confrontations between the Republican-controlled Congress and the White House this year over energy policy.
The 62-37 vote is expected to be one of many veto showdowns between Republicans and Obama in his final term. Already, the White House has issued more than a dozen veto threats on legislation.
Proponents of the Keystone bill have said since its introduction that they didn't have the two-thirds of the Senate vote needed to override Obama's veto. They fell four votes short. But they've already been discussing other ways to force the pipeline's approval, either by attaching it onto must-pass spending bills or other, broader, energy legislation.