Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus has shown a willingness to buck leadership to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.
Rockefeller also added he would not support the Keystone language. “There probably would be a few,” the West Virginia Democrat said of colleagues who might support the project. “I will not be one of them.”
Of the 11 Senate Democrats who have voted in favor of the pipeline, only Baucus is on the conference committee.
As for the overall negotiations, sources were not clear on how long the process might take and were reluctant to handicap the chances for success without knowing whom House leaders were planning to appoint.
Congress is slated to be in recess next week, so talks on the Member level likely will not begin in earnest until they return, though staff-level negotiations probably will commence earlier.
The most significant question facing the panel, regardless of which Republicans Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) appoints, will be how to construct a package that can pass a House shaped by conservative Republicans eager to cut government spending.
Just because Senate Republicans largely supported the bill that cleared their chamber does not mean their House counterparts will be satisfied with a conference report that resembles it at the end of talks.
The Senate bill, championed by Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.), consolidated almost 200 federal transportation programs into about a dozen and maintained the current scope of transportation and infrastructure projects. Boxer and Inhofe are both conferees.
Aides from both parties suggested McConnell also would like to see a successful conference report. Senate Republicans were burned by their House counterparts at the end of 2011 when the House GOP backed off a two-month payroll tax cut agreement McConnell struck with Reid. Republicans were largely viewed as the losers after the intraparty snafu, and some suggested Senate Republicans especially would like to avoid a repeat occurrence.
Moreover, aides indicated that even if the GOP were to lose out on the addition of Keystone language in this round, it would not come out as a net loss for the party. Republicans could continue to use the Keystone project as a weapon against Democrats as the general election continues to heat up and the GOP tries to win back both the Senate and the White House.
Rep. Bill Cassidy has his blood drawn by Alesha Barbour during a free hepatitis screening in the Rayburn House Office Building hosted by the Congressional Viral Hepatitis Caucus to recognize "National Viral Hepatitis Testing Day."
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