Speaker: Will keep pipeline language in tax bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans will stick to their insistence that a bill extending a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits include language speeding work on a controversial oil pipeline, Speaker John Boehner said Friday.

The remarks by Boehner added a contentious backdrop to negotiations over a compromise payroll tax cut measure. With President Barack Obama and many congressional Democrats opposed to accelerating work on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would run for 1,700 miles from western Canada to Texas, that conflict has been one of the major hurdles to a bipartisan deal on the payroll tax package.