House Republicans have managed to push a potentially contentious bill through but may not see it make it any further than that. The vote on the bill fell mainly along party lines but will soon face the Democrat controlled Senate. If the bill should make it through the Senate, it still might face veto from the White House. The bill will keep payroll tax cuts among other things but also tacked on the controversial oil pipeline which the White House had tried to delay until after the elections in the coming year.

Speaker of the House John Boehner said that the bill extends but reforms unemployment insurance as well as extending payroll tax relief that was set to expire. The bill is also designed to protect social security but does not increase taxes which would kill off job potential just as the economy is finally starting to recover. He also touted the pipeline as something of great value, a way to create thousands of jobs for Americans who have been out of work for far too long.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid disagreed with the assessment of the oil pipeline that would run from Canada to the Gulf Coast, saying that it is at best "ideological candy for the Tea Party Set."

President Barack Obama had pushed for much of the protections for the unemployed and their employers but had also asked Congress to have millionaires help to pay for many of these cuts. The White House and the Republicans have already clashed about the cost of the bill as written, which reportedly stands at over $180 billion. Obama also restated his concerns with the 1700 mile pipeline which will be built through some environmentally sensitive areas of the United States. He had requested a full study about the impact of that pipeline on the areas of Nebraska and Texas, especially before he would sign off on a permit for it's construction.

Republicans are accusing the President of stonewalling what could potentially be a huge job creator, but the numbers for job estimates vary wildly. The State Department estimates that only 6000 jobs or so would be created for the construction phase of the pipeline while the project manager has said that the number would be much higher, in the 20,000 range. Representative Dave Camp (R-MI) has put the number even higher than that, insisting that over 100,000 new jobs would be created by the pipeline's construction.