What did Congress accomplish with Keystone vote?

Now that President Obama has vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline bill, the question is: What did this effort accomplish? Was it just a waste of everyone's time and energy?

In short, the answer is "no." All sides in the contentious debate over the extension of an existing oil pipeline that could increase U.S. oil imports from Canada, already the largest foreign oil supplier to the United States, have sent signals in the past few weeks and these will be politically potent in the months ahead.