A revised report at The Hill newspaper after a 12:52 pm EST update makes the move by Boehner and others look like a generous measure to save the payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance extension. The earlier report made it much more obvious that the XL pipeline was put into the bill to pass pipeline approval by Congress. The earlier report also said the final decision on the XL would be taken from the State Department and given to FERC.
That second claim doesn't seem to appear in this report.
The copious amount of blatant anti Obama propaganda in the new Hill piece seems to indicate that someone let GOP staffers direct their writing quite a bit.
The article also mentions that some EPA decisions will be shot down if the measures survive, which is likely since all the Big Energy money will be going into the campaign coffers of those Congressionals who vote the way the energy industry likes.
My guess is that the orange faced drunk Speaker of the House is furious over how Obama outwitted him by using the Super Committee (which was basically guaranteed to fail) to get military cuts without having to give away entitlements.
The XL Pipeline gambit could be payback as well as a way to attract even more oil money to his party.
See current report at The Hill (mobile): http://bit.ly/sgHIzu
