Republicans today fell deeper into an intra-party schism as their Senate leader urged his House colleagues to relent and pass an upper-chamber tax-cut bill that fast-tracks a White House ruling on the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline.

After staying largely silent following House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) rejection of a deal that would force President Obama to make a pre-election call on the Canada-to-U.S. pipeline, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) today entered the fray over the payroll tax-cut extension that he helped to win passage.

The House GOP's push for a yearlong payroll tax cut, rather than the two-month stopgap passed by the Senate, can move forward while giving both parties "more time to negotiate the terms," McConnell said in a statement.

The Kentuckian, a veteran of high-stakes dealmaking who hailed his chamber's pipeline-linked plan as a victory for his party before Boehner blasted it, urged House Republicans to "pass an extension that locks in the thousands of Keystone XL pipeline jobs, prevents any disruption in the payroll tax holiday or other expiring provisions, and allows Congress to work on a solution for the longer extensions."

The loss of McConnell's support leaves Boehner with nearly every other corner of the GOP urging him to view the pipeline provision as a plus and relent on the Senate's payroll tax-cut package. Republicans view that bill's 60-day deadline for an Obama administration decision on Keystone XL as a valuable chance to get the president on record spurning a sector of his base before his re-election -- either environmentalists who oppose the $7 billion project or labor unions who back it.

Greens who have campaigned to take down the 1,700-mile pipeline, citing the emissions and safety risk generated by the 800,000-plus barrels of Canadian oil sands crude it would carry each day to the Gulf Coast, are hoping that the White House seizes on the Republican effort to deny a permit for the pipeline (E&E Daily, Dec. 19).

Yet the Keystone XL provision remains caught in the tussle over the broader payroll tax-cut bill, on which Boehner showed no signs of relenting today.

As the speaker and his chosen negotiators reiterated their position at a morning news conference, Boehner called Obama to ask that White House economic advisers come to Capitol Hill for discussions on a yearlong extension of the tax cut. "The president declined the speaker's offer," Boehner's office said in a summary of the phone call.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his lieutenants say they would begin formal talks on Boehner's preferred yearlong extension as soon as he agrees to the two-month stopgap bill tied to Keystone XL, a major priority of the oil and gas industry. If no agreement is reached before Jan. 1, most working Americans would see their taxes go up.