Story highlights
The Senate is voting Tuesday on whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline
The House passed the Keystone bill last Friday
Sen. Mary Landrieu said she has secured the 60 votes needed to secure passage
House Speaker John Boehner might have taken a cue from Jonathan Gruber.
In a Republican press conference Tuesday on the Hill, Boehner made a jab at the President, saying that a Keystone veto would “be equivalent to calling the American people stupid.”
“Vetoing an overwhelmingly popular bill would be a clear indication that he doesn’t care about the American people’s priorities,” he said. “It would be equivalent to calling the American people stupid.”
Boehner was making an apparent reference to Gruber, an MIT economist, who recently drew criticism for his comments that the “stupidity of the American voter” was crucial to passing the President’s health care law.
The House passed the bill authorizing the Keystone pipeline Friday 252-161. Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu, who is pushing for the bill’s passage in an effort to save her seat, said she has the 60 votes the Senate needs to pass the bill later Tuesday.
If it does, the Keystone legislation would land on the president’s desk, but the White House has hinted that the president is likely to veto the bill.
“Our dim view of these kinds of proposals has not changed,” Josh Earnest said in a press conference earlier this month.
Tiane Austin contributed to this report.
