A look back at Obama’s vetoes so far

The White House said Tuesday that President Obama would veto a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline on the grounds that the legislation would interfere with the "well-established" executive process for reviewing the pipeline. If he has occasion to carry out his threat, the veto would be only the third of his presidency, as Democrats in Congress have been able to block bills he has opposed until now. That is fewer than any other president in the 20th century. Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower each vetoed bills in the triple digits.

At the end of his first year in office, Congress passed a temporary funding measure for the Pentagon along with a regular appropriations bill. Obama signed the regular bill, making the stopgap unnecessary, so he vetoed it.

He killed a second bill the following year, this one dealing with mortgages. The proposal would have required states to recognize notarizations of documents from other states. After Congress passed the bill without fanfare, several major banks were accused of forging documents in order to foreclose on homeowners more easily. Advocates for consumers persuaded the White House that the legislation would have made it easier for banks to evade rules designed to protect borrowers.

Unlike interstate notarizations and defense stopgaps, the Keystone XL pipeline is widely popular, so this would be Obama's first veto involving any political risk. But it probably wouldn't be his last, either.