McConnell makes final Keystone pitch

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday morning called on President Obama to sign the Keystone XL pipeline bill, probably for the last time before Obama’s expected veto.

{mosads}McConnell said on the Senate floor that lawmakers are sending the president “another piece of bipartisan legislation today. Americans of both parties are calling on him to sign it. There’s no good reason not to.”

Republicans quickly passed the bill approving the $8 billion project last month after they gained control of the Senate. But Obama and other administration officials have been vocal that the White House opposes the bill and that the president would veto it if it reached his desk.

But McConnell said that it would be “hard to imagine what a serious justification for a veto might be.”

McConnell and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) used an op-ed to urge the president to sign legislation approving the project, but said they would continue the fight if he doesn’t.

“The allure of appeasing environmental extremists may be too powerful for the president to ignore,” they wrote. “But the president is sadly mistaken if he thinks vetoing this bill will end this fight. Far from it.”

Republicans argue that the pipeline would help increase U.S. energy output and create jobs.

“It would pump billions into our economy,” McConnell said, adding that it’s “an infrastructure project that just makes good sense.”