Congress sends Keystone bill to the White House and a likely veto from Obama

The House approved legislation Wednesday that would approve the Keystone XL pipeline — a vote that sends the bill to the White House and a likely veto by President Barack Obama.

Members voted 270-152 in favor of the bill, and it passed with 29 Democratic votes. That's similar to the House vote in January, when 28 Democrats voted for it.

Congress has passed a bill to approve the Keystone pipeline, but it's expected to be vetoed by President Barack Obama.

Today's vote was on a Senate version of the bill that was approved 62-36. With both houses of Congress in agreement on the same bill, it now goes to the White House.

Republicans have made a point of pushing for the approval of Keystone in the last few weeks, especially with a Republican-led Senate that also made it a priority. Earlier today, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) took a few jabs at Obama for continuing to oppose it, and said that opposition stands in contrast to the broad bipartisan support for the project.

"Even the president's own State Department will say that it creates at least 42,000 new jobs," Boehner said. "But instead of listening to the people, the president is standing with a bunch of left-fringe extremists and anarchists."

The trouble with Boehner's jab is that if Obama vetoes the bill, the votes in the last few weeks indicate Congress would not be able to override that veto.

A two-thirds vote is needed in each chamber to override a veto. Neither the 62-36 vote in the Senate, nor today's 270-152 vote in the House, meet that two-thirds threshold.

As a next step, there's been some talk about trying to attach a Keystone approval bill onto some other bill that "must" pass, such as a spending bill for the federal government.