President Barack Obama 's veto of legislation that would have cleared the way for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline will test the question of whether the White House and Republican lawmakers can undertake battles on some issues and still push forward on shared interests.
Mr. Obama on Tuesday made good on his promise to veto a bill that he has said circumvents the State Department's review process for the pipeline project. While the rejection of the Keystone legislation was no surprise, it could herald an intensifying series of clashes between Congress and the president.
Mr. Obama has threatened to veto several other Republican bills, among them legislation to alter the Affordable Care Act and to impose new sanctions on Iran. The Keystone action also comes as a standoff over funding the Department of Homeland Security escalates, with Republicans trying to use the issue as leverage to block the president's executive actions on immigration.
Republican leaders in Congress and Mr. Obama have pledged in recent weeks to work together on shared priorities, such as legislation to ease trade deals and to overhaul tax laws. But Tuesday's veto, along with other emerging conflicts, has brought into focus the divisions that could impede efforts for a Democratic president and Republican-controlled Congress to forge deals.
White House officials repeatedly have said that disagreements over one issue shouldn't become obstacles to agreement on any issue. Mr. Obama's action on Keystone could test out that aspiration.
"The question is whether Congress and the administration will be able to pursue a two-track relationship, where they disagree where they must and agree where they can," said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton.
He added that "adult leadership" would be able to distinguish between the two sets of issues and wouldn't allow disappointment on one track bleed over and prevent progress on the other.
For the moment, though, many Republicans are frustrated with the president. In an op-ed published Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) deemed Mr. Obama's decision a political one and vowed to continue to push for the pipeline project.
"The president is sadly mistaken if he thinks vetoing this bill will end this fight," they wrote in USA Today. "Far from it. We are just getting started."
GOP lawmakers have pointed to polls showing strong public support for the Keystone XL pipeline and have suggested that it is the president, by vetoing legislation backed by Congress and much of the public, which could derail future cooperation. Mr. McConnell has said lawmakers and Mr. Obama could get a lot done "if the president puts his famous pen to use signing bills, rather than vetoing legislation his liberal allies don't like."
Cory Fritz, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, said the Keystone veto sent the message that Mr. Obama was putting politics over jobs and the economy.
"If the president vetoes a bipartisan bill supported so broadly by the American public, small businesses, and labor unions, you have to wonder if he really has any intention of getting anything done over his last two years," he said.
Write to Colleen McCain Nelson at colleen.nelson@wsj.com
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