The U.S. Senate on Tuesday rejected legislation to construct the Keystone XL pipeline by a vote of 59 to 41, one shy of the 60 needed for passage.

The Senate’s rejection of the bill, co-sponsored by U.S. Sens. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Mary Landrieu, D-La., means President Obama won’t have to decide whether to veto it.

The pipeline would carry up to 830,000 barrels of oil a day from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur, Texas.

On the Senate floor Tuesday, the bill’s opponents said the Keystone XL project symbolized an energy policy of the past, one that would have severe environmental effects.

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. and leader of the Senate’s opposition to the bill, said the XL in the pipeline’s name stood for “extra lethal.”

Boxer, who heads the Senate’s Environmental and Public Works Committee, called the oil from Canada’s tar sands “the filthiest on the planet.”

“Downwind from the tar sands extraction sites and refineries in Canada, significantly higher levels of dangerous pollutants and carcinogens have been documented,” she said. “People living in the nearby communities are suffering higher rates of cancers linked to toxic chemicals. I’ve met them; I’ve talked to them.”

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the original Keystone pipeline, completed in 2010 and stretching from Hardisty, Alberta, to Wood River, Ill., leaked 12 times in its first year of operation. He said oil from tar sands is the most difficult to clean up after a spill.

“Ask the communities along the Kalamazoo River in Michigan,” he said. “It has more than $1 billion so far to clean up a tar sands spill in 2010, and more than four years later it’s still a mess and landowners continue to wait for help to restore their property.”

Opponents also argued that Keystone XL would serve Canada’s international exporting interests while leaving the United States with its environmental risks.

“Canada doesn’t want this pipeline in their country for good reason,” said U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. “They know the environmental risks. The energy will not have any major impact on the United States. It’s for export; it’s not for the United States. So why are we doing this?”

Proponents of the bill said Keystone XL’s construction would make energy independence in the United States possible.

Landrieu, head of the Senate Energy Committee, said Keystone XL, in conjunction with energy partnerships with Canada and Mexico, could make the United States “the super energy powerhouse of the planet.”

“We can build the Keystone pipeline, creating thousands of temporary and millions of permanent jobs, which are not created by the permanency of the pipeline itself,” she said. “It’s by the signal that America is serious about energy independence. That will create millions of high-paying jobs, and there’s no disputing that fact.”

Hoeven said Keystone XL would be built without “one penny of federal money” and would create tax revenue to help reduce the country’s deficit and debt. He said the project was also about America’s national security “because it helps us build energy security in this country with our closest friend and ally, Canada.”

“Working with Canada, we won’t have to get energy from Venezuela or the Middle East or anyplace else in the world,” he said. “We can produce it right here at home.”

The Senate’s vote comes less than a week after the House approved Keystone XL legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge. Cassidy said his bill contained the exact same language as Hoeven-Landrieu.

Cassidy, who will face Landrieu in a Senate runoff election Dec. 6, released a statement Tuesday expressing his disappointment at the Senate’s failure to pass the legislation.

“If there was ever legislation that should be enthusiastically approved by President Obama and his supporters in the Senate, it should be the Keystone XL pipeline,” he said. “The Senate should have approved it today — it should have approved it six years ago.”

In a statement released Tuesday evening, Landrieu said Keystone XL proponents will not give up until the pipeline is built.

“As disappointing as it was to fall just shy of the 60 votes needed, it would have been more disappointing to me to have not led the fight at all,” she said. “The American people should not give up until this pipeline is built and America is energy secure.”(MGNonline)