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Update at 5 p.m. E.T.: The House of Representatives passed this legislation on Thursday afternoon. It now heads to the Senate.

Taking a swing at President Obama's biggest policy achievement, the Affordable Care Act, is at the top of the agenda for the new Republican Congressional majority.

The Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry crude oil from Canadian oil sands down to the U.S. Gulf Coast, isn't just an infrastructure project. It's also a symbol for the fight over the future of energy.

Producing oil from Alberta's tar sands emits more pollution than traditional oil drilling, so many environmentalists want that crude left in the ground. And more broadly, they want the world to turn away from climate-changing fossil fuels toward cleaner forms of energy, like wind and solar.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Copyright 2015 Minnesota Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.mpr.org/.

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Administering the oath of office to the U.S. Senate sounds like a mundane job. That task falls to the vice president.

But the current occupant of that office, Joe Biden, turns it into an event that's so joyful, and so lacking the partisan rancor that typically dominates American politics, that it's almost hard to believe that you're watching a scene from Washington.

Every two years, a third of the U.S. Senate is elected — and there's a formal oath-taking on the Senate floor. But then, right afterward, each senator takes his or her turn in a ceremonial swearing in.