It turns out Republicans and Democrats truly can work together to craft a bipartisan pipeline safety bill that satisfies both parties! And then they can accidentally pass the old version instead.

The bill, which laid out new penalties for pipeline safety violations following a deadly explosion last year, was laboriously hashed out in a bipartisan committee. Then the House went ahead and passed the old version anyway.

Reader support makes our work possible. Donate today to keep our site free. All donations TRIPLED!

Due to human error, the House on Monday and Senate on Tuesday both passed a pipeline safety bill all right, but an earlier version of the bill — not the final bipartisan, bicameral compromise.

“There was a House clerical error and we expect the correcting resolution to be approved in the House and Senate without issue,” said Caley Gray, a spokesman for Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who was a lead author of Senate pipeline safety legislation this year. The Senate was the one that discovered the error, Gray added.

They've already started fixing it — the House passed the correct bill yesterday — but this isn't doing anything to help legislators shed their Keystone Kongress image.