Obama vetoes Keystone XL bill!

Wow!

Under the Obama administration's environmental policy, each win for environmentalists has usually been paired with a win for the fossil fuel industry - as if there's some sort of equivalence between the two. But this story is a victory not just for the environment but also for separation of powers.

Today, President Obama vetoed a right-wing bill passed by a rogue Congress that would have authorized construction of the unpopular, job-killing Keystone XL oil pipeline. This is Obama's first veto since 2010.

This veto doesn't mean the project is dead for good. But even if the pipeline itself is perfectly justifiable (which it isn't), Obama is right to veto the bill - because it's not Congress's job to approve the pipeline. The bill was a power grab by Congress trying to claim executive authority.

The real winner today is our constitutional republic.