The pressure continues to mount on President Obama to give his approval to move ahead on the Keystone XL oil  pipeline project.

The New York Times reported on Jan. 9 that after the U.S. House of Representatives voted 266 to 153 in favor to move ahead with the pipeline project this past week, the measure will now move on to the U.S. Senate, which is likely to pass the bill in the coming weeks. The Nebraska ruling eliminates Obama’s chief reason for delaying his decision on whether the pipeline should be built, since he had said repeatedly that he would wait until the state court weighed in.

The ruling also strengthens demands from Republicans and some Democrats that Obama approve the pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels of oil per day from the oil sands of western Canada to the ports and refineries of the Gulf Coast.

“He’s out of time and excuses,” said Brigham McCown, an administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration during the George W. Bush administration. “It puts the ball fully in his court.”

According to the New York Times, as debate on the Keystone bill began on the House floor just hours after the court’s decision, Speaker John A. Boehner said Mr. Obama had to act. “Finally, it’s time to start building,” he said.

Republicans and some Democrats support the pipeline because they say it will create jobs and promote economic growth, while environmentalists and other Democrats oppose the project, saying the process for extracting the oil sands petroleum creates significantly more planet-warming carbon emissions than the process for conventional oil.

Obama has vowed to veto a bill from the U.S. Congress approving the pipeline, and a White House spokesman said Friday that the veto threat still stood. But White House officials said that Mr. Obama would veto the measure not out of opposition to the pipeline itself, but because it would remove the president’s authority to make the decision and instead transfer that power to Congress.