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The controversial Keystone XL pipeline cleared one hurdle on Friday, when the House approved plans to build the pipeline, with thirty one Democrats breaking ranks with their caucus in support.

Now the controversial pipeline project moves over to the Senate with a vote likely this week, but President Obama has state repeatedly he will veto the pipeline project if it reaches his desk.

Republicans have long supported the Keystone XL pipeline as a job creator and its potential to create over 40,000 jobs, plus it would continue to revitalize the energy sector in this country which has been one of reasons fuels prices have dropped considerably.

Democrats have long argued this projects contributes to climate change and the increase of more greenhouse gases, and secondly it would it would be done at the worst possible time just as the president and China agreed to limit greenhouse gas emissions.  This would send the worst possible message to China that the U.S. is not committed to reducing carbon emissions.

If the president does in fact veto the Keystone XL pipeline the real winner will be billionaire investor and Obama supporter Warren Buffett.

Buffett owns BNSF Railroad, and incidentally the railroad tracks as reported by Bloomberg News, sits on top of North Dakota’s Bakken formation, where energy producers are using fracking and other extraction methods to pull crude from the ground in unprecedented volumes. Because pipeline capacity is limited in the area, oil companies have turned to BNSF to ship their product to refineries.

Bloomberg news continued to report the expansion of crude shipments has also created risks for the industry. Derailments of oil tank cars in the U.S. and Canada have led to fires, spills and the bankruptcy of smaller carrier Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd. after a derailment in Quebec last year that killed 47 people.

BNSF has worked to allay concerns about oil shipments by agreeing to buy 5,000 safer tank cars. It has also announced plans to apply a surcharge on an older generation of cars that have been involved in some of the worst accidents.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Buffets multinational conglomerate bought BNSF Railroad and is now reaping the benefits, but part of Bloomberg’s report is that buying BNSF’s was pure luck on Buffett’s part as stated by James Armstrong, who oversees Berkshire shares as president of Henry H. Armstrong Associates. Very little crude was being shipped by rail when Buffett bought the company and it wasn’t widely known that BNSF would play such a big role in transporting oil from where it was produced.

Luck aside, there’s little upside for Buffett in bragging, said Armstrong. Berkshire is always looking to buy other businesses and it needs to have a reputation for paying fair prices, he said.

It may have been luck or Buffett may have known he was tapping into something greater, I cannot imagine Buffett doing anything by pure luck.  Any major investor does considerable amount of research before making a major purchase and Buffett is no different.

If the Keystone XL pipeline is vetoed by the president, the real winner will be Warren Buffett, as the energy has only one way to get to the refineries in Texas and Louisiana; that is by rail which Warren Buffett owns.