Senate vote on Keystone XL oil pipeline fails to pass.

I just watched this thing crash and burn on MSNBC.

It would not have made any difference anyway, as it is almost a certainty that the President would have vetoed it once it came to his desk.

You don't get the Chinese to buy into reducing fossil fuel emissions and then immediately sign off on a big oil pipeline project designed to transport some of the nastiest dirtiest oil on the planet across the country.

Here is more from the New York Times: 

The battle over approving the pipeline, which will carry petroleum from the oil sands of Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas, ultimately became a proxy war for the Louisiana Senate seat, where Ms. Landrieu and Republican Representative Bill Cassidy are locked in fight for votes in their oil-rich state ahead of the Dec. 6 runoff election. 

Ms. Landrieu — who, if re-elected, will lose her coveted position as chairwoman of the energy committee when Republicans take the Senate majority next year — spent the past few days working furiously to round up Democratic support for her bill, which she had hoped would be her last, best chance of holding on to her Senate seat. 

On Tuesday morning, she was at least one vote short of the filibuster-proof 60 votes she needed. And despite cajoling, persuading, browbeating, and making an impassioned plea to her colleagues during a closed-door lunch — which one attendee described as “civilized but pretty contentious” — Ms. Landrieu, who has so often bulldozed her way to success through sheer force of will, came up just short.

I feel badly for Senator Landrieu, I really do. However I really do not think the passage of this bill would have made one bit of difference in her runoff with Cassidy.

And to be honest I would rather lose another Senate seat than see this project go forward.