GOP advances bills on pipeline and health care

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

In command and ready for a fight, defiant Republicans ignored two White House veto threats and advanced bills in Congress Thursday curbing President Barack Obama’s cherished health care overhaul and forcing construction on a proposed oil pipeline. The top House Democrat predicted her party would uphold both vetoes.

On the new Congress’ third day of work, a Senate committee approved a measure dismantling Obama’s ability to block the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which has become a flashpoint pitting the GOP’s jobs agenda against Democrats’ environmental concerns. The Senate planned to begin debate next week, and passage there seemed likely, while the House was poised to approve its version today.

Meanwhile, the House approved legislation narrowing the definition of full-time workers who must be offered employer-provided health care from those working 30 hours weekly to a 40-hour minimum. The vote was a mostly party-line 252-172 — short of the 290 needed, assuming all members voted, for the two-thirds majority required to override a veto.

On both bills, GOP leaders would face uphill fights mustering the two-thirds House and Senate majorities needed to override vetoes. But both measures had some support from Democrats, and Republicans could use them to portray themselves as championing bipartisan legislation, only to be thwarted by Obama and his Democratic allies.

“Given the chance to start with a burst of bipartisan productivity, the president turned his back on the American people’s priorities,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters Thursday, adding: “We were taking our oath of office when they were issuing veto threats. Come on.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Democrats would sustain Obama’s vetoes on both bills and said it was Republicans who have blocked progress.

“The president has always extended the hand of friendship. Some say too much,” she told reporters.