In a sign of continued gridlock in Washington in the lame-duck session, the Senate voted Tuesday to block two separate bills approving construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and reforming the nation's domestic surveillance programs.
The Senate voted 59 to 41 in favor of a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, falling one vote short of the 60 needed for passage.
All forty-five Senate Republicans voted to approve construction of the pipeline, joined by fourteen Senate Democrats.
Facing a tough runoff election next month, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., had been looking to build support for the bill but was unable to get fourteen other Democrats on board.
Republicans generally support construction of the pipeline, while the issue has divided Democrats amid concerns about the environmental impact and potential oil spills.
President Barack Obama stopped short of threatening to veto the bill but called on Congress to allow the State Department to complete its review of the project.
The pipeline is projected to ship up to 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Canada and Montana to Cushing, Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast area.
The project is expected to create about 2,000 jobs during a two-year construction period but only about 50 permanent jobs.
Earlier in the week, the Republican-controlled House voted 252 to 161 in favor of a bill to approve the pipeline. Just thirty-one Democrats joined with nearly all of the chamber's Republicans to pass the legislation.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., expressed disappointment in the Senate's failure to pass the bill but noted that the legislation will be brought back up when Republicans control the chamber next year.
Meanwhile, the Senate also fell short of the 60 votes needed to begin debate on a bill reforming the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records.
The Senate voted 58 to 42 to begin debate on the NSA reform bill, with the vote largely coming down along party lines.
Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., Dean Heller, R-Nev., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Ak., were the only Republicans to vote in favor of the motion.
The bill, known as the USA Freedom Act, would prohibit the government from directly collecting bulk telephone metadata.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who introduced the bill, said, "Tonight, Senate Republicans have failed to answer the call of the American people who elected them, and all of us, to stand up and to work across the aisle."
"Once again, they reverted to scare tactics rather than to working productively to protect Americans' basic privacy rights and our national security," he added.
Earlier this year, House voted 303 to 121 in favor of a watered down version of the NSA reform bill, with 179 Republicans joining with 124 Democrats in voting to approve the legislation.
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