GOP senators back linking Keystone to debt-ceiling increase

Several Senate Republicans said Thursday that they support a high-stakes House GOP maneuver to tether an increase in the debt ceiling to approval of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.

“I think we should try to do anything we can to do some good things for the country and attaching [Keystone] and using the leverage of the debt ceiling is an acceptable strategy,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told E2-Wire in the Capitol Thursday.

“That’s how we got the sequester,” he added, referring to across-the-board federal budget cuts that stemmed from a 2011 debt-ceiling battle. “People forget that the only we way we got the sequester was by using the leverage of the debt ceiling.”

House GOP leaders announced Wednesday that their debt ceiling package would include, among other provisions, approval of TransCanada Corp.’s controversial pipeline, which remains under Obama administration review.

{mosads}Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), the Senate’s staunchest Keystone advocate, likes the plan as part of a wider effort to win concessions in the debt-ceiling fight.

“I strongly support approval of the project, so does a majority of the Senate, so I think it is great. Now, I still think we are going to have to find savings in order to get Republican support on the debt-ceiling agreement,” Hoeven said.

“I think [Keystone] is a good addition, I think it will help create more bipartisan support to get something passed, but we are still going to have to deal with the underlying financial reality we face, which is the deficit and debt, and we are going to have to have savings and reforms, I think, to get Republican votes on a debt ceiling [bill],” Hoeven said in the Capitol.

Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) also said they support including Keystone in a debt-ceiling package.

“I don’t want to raise the debt ceiling unless I can change the course of the country. I think the real key is to deal with what got you in debt, but the Keystone pipeline would really help create jobs and energy independence, so I think that makes sense to me,” Graham said.

UPDATE: A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) noted that McConnell supports legislative efforts to approve Keystone, but stopped short of endorsing the pipeline’s inclusion in a debt ceiling bill specifically.

“The Leader supports Keystone and supports efforts to enact it into law,” the spokesman said when asked about linking the debt bill to Keystone.

This post was updated at 6:10 p.m.