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Washington Post Admits Keystone XL Jobs are a Pipe Dream
Tar Sands Action / News Analysis
Published: Sunday 6 November 2011
With the job benefits up in smoke, pipeline opponents are confident that if the President sticks to his calculus, the only plausible option is to deny the pipeline permit.
In an explosive story posted online in the Washington Post this afternoon, pipeline company TransCanada admitted that it has grossly misrepresented the number of jobs the controversial Keystone XL project would create.
The 20,000 jobs involved in pipeline construction? A fabrication supported by misleading mathematics. The 250,000 indirect jobs? A number based on one oil-industry funded study that counted jobs for “dancers, choreographers and speech therapists,” according to the Post.
“Thank heavens some reporter actually questioned this jobs number, instead of just repeating it,” said Bill McKibben, who is leading a major protest against Keystone XL this Sunday at the White House. “The only study not paid for by the pipeline company makes clear that there are no net jobs from this pipeline because it will kill as many as it will create.”
Lawmakers, Republican presidential candidates, and the media have repeated TransCanada’s claim that the Keystone XL project would create 20,000 new jobs if approved–13,000 from direct construction and 7,000 from supply manufacturers. The Post shows both numbers to be inaccurate, quoting TransCanada chief executive Russ Girling: “Girling said Friday that the 13,000 figure was ‘one person, one year,’ meaning that if the construction jobs lasted two years, the number of people employed would be only 6,500.”
The manufacturing jobs are also misleading. The company has already purchased $1.9 billion on pipe and other materials. Of the money still to be spent, the Post and Cornell report both concluded that the majority would go overseas. At least $1.7 billion worth of steel will be purchased from a Russian-owned mill in Canada. TransCanada claims the remainder will be produced in Arkansas. The company’s first Keystone pipeline was built almost entirely with foreign steel imported from India and Canada.
In fact, in the only jobs study not funded by TransCanada, the Cornell Global Labor Institute concluded that any jobs stemming from the pipeline’s construction were likely be outweighed by the environmental damage it caused, along with a possible rise in Midwest gasoline prices because a new pipeline would divert that region’s current oversupply of oil to the Gulf Coast.
President Obama told a Nebraska TV station Tuesday that he would make the final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline by balancing the potential job benefits against health and environmental concerns. “I think folks in Nebraska, like all across the country, aren’t going to say to themselves, ‘we’ll take a few thousand jobs’ if it means that our kids are potentially drinking water that would damage their health or if … rich land that is so important to agriculture in Nebraska ends up being adversely affected,” he said.
With the job benefits up in smoke, pipeline opponents are confident that if the President sticks to his calculus, the only plausible option is to deny the pipeline permit. This Sunday, over 10,000 people are expected to encircle the White House to show the President Obama he has the support he needs to stand up to Big Oil and say no to Keystone XL.
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12 comments on "Washington Post Admits Keystone XL Jobs are a Pipe Dream"
ckpgmjk
November 08, 2011 7:01pm
Jobs? After reading Perryman and Cornell's reports I am amazed one so sugar coated my teeth hurt after reading it. The other tells me their definitely against the line. Problem is there will be 1100 people employed full time once the pipe is in, if approved. Construction jobs yes, but they are always temporary. The big question for me is, what about the refinery jobs? With the loss of Mexican and Venezuelan crude how many jobs go away with the closure of 6.5million barrels a day of refineries?
November 07, 2011 2:56pm
For MYCOS: you're absolutely correct. I wasn't really understanding the whole Afghanistan thing either, since they don't have oil. But finally read that a PIPELINE to deliver oil across the country is what everyone (US) is after. ... As ever. Lies, lies and more lies. While the taxpayers making under $200,000 pay, pay, pay.
November 07, 2011 2:54pm
O.K. Let's have a show of hands of all those out there who are surprised that another large corporation and congress has LIED. ?? None?? Right. I fear totally that Obama has been putting the off until he can come up with another "it was the best we could do" excuse when he signs it. He's the Repugs best representative.
November 06, 2011 6:03pm
Canada will sell this filthy oil to anyone with the $$dough$$
We already know the refined product will be exported
And that We are addicted to oil
when all that crashes they can use the pipe to send water to TX for more money
November 06, 2011 4:28pm
As with the collaboration between the Pentagon and US aerospace/arms manufacturers who have long supported each other's claims asking for additional funding from Congress, so too has there been a relationship between Big Oil and the US military. Seldom mentioned as the reason behind US military interventions overseas, is the fact that many decades ago, oil, and access to it, was declared a *vital* US national security issue.
As such, the claims that terrorism and ridding the world of evil tyrants is the reason behind the constant string of US military interventions in the Middle-East and elsewhere, these wars are, in fact, nothing more than the enforcement of US corporate desires at the point of a gun.
And without Soviet ICBMs to use as justification for all the military expenditures coming from Congress that remains the sole source of support for most of the companies specializing in the production of military hardware, their need to find a new replacement threat commensurate with the old, has been a crucial objective for the Pentagon, as witnessed by it's own 1992 DPG (Defense Planning Guidance ) directive the Pentagon typically sends out to the heads of other military industries and agencies so they can plan their own direction accordingly.
The very first DPG issued after the collapse of the USSR made the case for a continuance of US global military capabilities commensurate with its Cold War posture. Leaked to the NYTimes, the stir it caused meant that all the generals, soldiers, their families, and corollary business interests that had long grown dependant on the largess of the US taxpayer would have to wait for some other excuse besides oil to justify the PAx Americana already being dreamed of there in 1992's DPG. Whether they say it or not, it's their own job security that is foremost in the minds of those who either joined in or remained quiet while the Pentagon, Big Oil, Halliburton, Raytheon, PNAC, AEI, et al engaged in the sort of hyperbole they hoped would keep them all relevant. With the 1998 attack on the WTC, the very same people who drafted much of the 1992 DPG began their efforts to elevate terrorism into a threat that goes well beyond what it any reasonable person would think possible. However the 2001 attack was sufficiently violent and traumatic to view they were able to take a threat consisting of nothing more than whatever several thousand (at their height!) extremely conservative religious kooks using only the most basic of technologies are capable of mustering against the last remaining superpower on the planet.
Nevertheless, the GOP-Pentagon campaign that was begun immediately after the close of the Cold War to find something - anything! - to replace it, used 9/11 to frighten those same "patriotic" American taxpayers into continuing their support of them by donating their hard-earned cash toward what has long been a parasitic military-industrial complex. Through equal parts fear of AQ, and hatred of foreigners, they have actually been able to blame the poor and desperate for the loss of jobs and social security now troubling the US middle class.
November 06, 2011 3:12pm
I hope I am wrong, but it looks to me like the approval for the Keystone XL pipeline is already bought and paid for. The State Department knows this, that's why their environmental impact study was a sham. Obama's biggest problem now is how to justify, in an election year, his approval of the project.
November 06, 2011 2:26pm
The truth will be told, shortly. Either Obama stands up for "WE, the people" and says no way to big oil, AND congress, Or he will show he doesn't have the guts to stand up for what WE believe.
Trouble is, this is only the first of many environmental battles upcoming. GOP and those that pay them, want the clean air and clean water regulations - that have taken 40 years to get where they are - deregulated.
November 06, 2011 2:16pm
Are you surprised? The "jobs" hype was suspicious from the start, and connected with "Koch Brothers" and "oil industry", you should pay attention. Valero claimed the goal of "boosting exports" (why else would the pipeline end in a tax free export zone?). Wake up, pay attention, we live in an Oligarchy. Look it up if you don't know what it means!
November 06, 2011 1:10pm
Thank God for those who really care, by keeping the TRUTH out there. THE LIES ABOUT NEEDED CUTS are not because President Obama. I still remember the quote of Rev. Sharpton and pass it on "It's not about Obama, it's about your Mama." Many mama's will suffer the loss of needed services because the their lazy -NO VOTING- children. Please write, call and email every politician (including the turn-coat Democates in Washington TO SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT'S JOB'S BILL and HEALTH CARE. The Republicans who claim they are for these cuts can start by DOING THE RIGHT thing and cutting all those TAX BREAKS FOR THE RICH!
November 06, 2011 10:12am
If Obama approves this, we will know that he, too, is on the Koch's payroll. This plan is a total assault on the intelligence of the American people. It will be the biggest ruse since 9/11. Don't get fooled again, Obama.
November 07, 2011 3:01pm
The ONLY thing that pipeline will do for the U.S. is assure more money into political coffers. We won't get any of the oil; it's one of the most corrosive forms of oil there is - thru increasing the wear time on a pipline exponentially - and thereby virtually guaranteeing the next big spill will be on land. I don't for a minute think Obama has the cajones to stop it. That's why he's procrastinating. Just like the health bill. Just like TARP and prosecuting those who committed crimes. Just like all of it. He lied to get the progressives behind him, and all since then has been empty rhetoric. He comes up with crap like the "new student loan bill" that does nothing for the millions who are being crushed by that debt now - mostly to private banks that the government guaranteed. He doesn't have the 99% in mind at all.