Keystone pipeline: How many jobs really at stake?

(MoneyWatch) 

President Obama's move Wednesday to reject a permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline drew fire from supporters of the project, with a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner telling CBS that the decision threatens to "destroy tens of thousands of American jobs."

Yet exactly how much work Keystone, a proposed 1,700-mile pipeline that would transport oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Texas Gulf Coast, would generate remains in dispute. Transcanada (TRP), the energy giant bidding to build the pipeline, projects the undertaking would create 20,000 jobs in the U.S., including 13,000 positions in construction and 7,000 in manufacturing.

That figure, based on a report by a consulting firm hired by Transcanada to assess the project's economic impact, has been widely cited by Keystone backers on Capitol Hill. Other estimates advanced by supporters of the pipeline have been even more optimistic, with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claiming it could create 250,000 permanent U.S. jobs. 

Obama denies Keystone XL permit
Official: White House to nix US-Canada pipeline
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But subsequent analysis suggests that Keystone's job-creating potential is more modest. The U.S. State Department calculated last year that the underground pipeline would add 5,000 to 6,000 U.S. jobs. One independent review of Keystone puts that number even lower, with the Cornell University Global Labor Institute finding that the pipeline would add only 500 to 1,400 temporary construction jobs. The authors of the September report also said that much of the new employment stemming from Keystone would be outside the U.S.

Transcanada itself cast doubt on its employment forecast when a vice president for the company told CNN last fall that the 20,000 jobs Keystone would create were temporary and that the project would likely yield only "hundreds" of permanent positions.

Another reason for the discrepancy appears to stem from what that 20,000 figure really means. As Transcanada has conceded, its estimate counted up "job years" spent on the project, not jobs. In other words, the company was counting a single construction worker who worked for two years on Keystone as two jobs, lending fuel to critics who said advocates of the pipeline were overstating its benefits.

The Cornell researchers concluded:

The construction of KXL will create far fewer jobs in the U.S. than its proponents have claimed and may actually destroy more jobs than it generates....

The claim that KXL will create 20,000 direct construction and manufacturing jobs in the U.S. is unsubstantiated. There is strong evidence to suggest that a large portion of the primary material input for KXL -- steel pipe -- will not even be produced in the U.S.

In a statement, President Obama attributed the decision to block construction of the pipeline to "the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans," saying it "prevented a full assessment of the pipeline's impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment."

The furor is likely to continue, highlighting the intense election-year politics around Keystone. In urging Obama to approve the project, for instance, Boehner said on Wednesday that the pipeline would create 100,000 new jobs.

[HowardJanet]

A coworker of mine recently published an article about why people should oppose the keystone pipeline and how it will affect the country. You can read it here. http://myadvo.us/z2OUSu

[HowardJanet]

Once again, the President has placed our true national interest—the health and safety of citizens, our drinking water, our air, and our lands—above the interests of Big Oil. The decision also affirms the President's commitment to a cleaner and more secure energy future.

Those of us living in DC and key electoral battleground states know just how much Big Oil cared about this decision. We were inundated in the last few weeks with more than $600,000 worth of American Petroleum Institute ads declaring that the pipeline is in the country's national interest.

[SirGareth]

How is the national interests of the USA preseved by reverting to a pre-industrail society?

As I recall, before we had affordable energy (which is of no concern to the leftist politcal tryants who buy all of the oil they want and bill it to the taxpayer); is Moochele Obama worried that the taxpayera might not pay for her scores of taxpayer funded megaton oil consuming vacation junkets?

In the pre-industrial age the Indians had no cheap enegy and could not process their wastes so they fouled their water and moved on.

Is this Obama's plan?

The average life span of a pre-industrial man was about 40 years; the only place its lower than this in the USA today is in the ruins of the Democrat control wastland cities like Detriot and Philly.

Those of you living in Washington DC are part of the parasite society who have no idea of how the money you steal from productive America is generated. You are the enemy within - If Iran nuked you it would be doing the nation a favor - Washington the city that takes half of our cash but produced the most vile BS to ever destroy a nation - this is the real pollution

[rbindc]

ATAW,

Your call for us to develop our oil resources implies that somehow American citizens will benefit from this. Not likely and not much.

When an oil company (whether US or foreign-owned) produces oil on US land it sells that oil at the world price, which is set by the OPEC cartel. American motorists don't benefit from that oil production, just because it is US-sourced, because the price of gasoline and other refined products are determined by the world oil price. The oil company makes huge profits while the US citizens are left with a smaller resource base of oil for future development.

What we could do is make US citizens a silent partner with any oil company producing our oil. We could do this by including in the auctions for oil tracts a requirement for the purchasing company to rebate to the federal government 50% of the profits it earns from that tract. That's about the only way to align oil company profits with the interests of average Americans who are not sitting on big stock portfolios like to top one percent fat cats.

And before you launch into a knee-jerk diatribe, let me just say that if doing something that benefits ALL of our citizens is labeled SOCIALISM, so be it.

[SirGareth]

Wow great plan - Mexico did this in the 1930's and thats why their economy really has had the jump on us ever since.

There they have an avalance of stupid peasants that beleive communism kinda works - Our goverment union schools are trying their best to duplicate the stupidity of the Mexican peasants - we're well on our way now.

[Darr247]

If you saw the mess the Enbridge pipeline made in Michigan when they dumped 1.5+ million gallons of crude into the Kalamazoo River (of course, Enbridge claims it was "only" 750,000 gallons), you would question their ability to safely put/run a pipeline ANYwhere.

I would much rather see a pipeline run across Canada to bring natural gas down to the USA from our North Slope wells, instead of just flaring it off like they do now (completely wasting it) while the oil companies pump out crude from the same wells to load onto tankers. A natural gas pipeliine would create just as many jobs as Keystone XL, and would eliminate the alleged "need" to risk polluting our aquifers by 'fracking' for NG, while simultaneously helping to lower the price of a fuel that's cleaner-burning-than-coal (most non-renewables electric-generating plants built in the last 20 years burn NG, not coal).

The false threat to export the oil-sands elsewhere is a red herring, because actually the pipeline to Canada's west coast was planned to be built BEFORE Keystone XL anyway, and would be required for the Keystone XL pipeline to even function. The Alberta-to-BC pipeline will be a twin run, with the westbound pipe carrying diluted oil-sands, and the eastbound pipe carrying water to dilute the oil-sands, making the sludge pumpable. Part of that water was also going to dilute the Keystone XL's oil-sands, so not building Keystone XL will just mean they don't have to pump as much water east.

The anti-liberals (they are _not_ "conservatives" and couldn't accurately define what a conservative is if you provided them with a dictionary) should learn to do a little data-mining of their own on a subject before blindly parroting the FauxNewz-foreign-national-meddler's, and/or the oxycontin-addict's, anti-social propaganda.

[bestplaceonearth]

I agree Darr, we absolutely should build the natural gas pipeline, in addition to the Keystone. And thx for confirming that pipelines are "allowed" in western Canada, helping correct the nonsense below. The average US failure rate is 0.13 per 1000 miles per year. Taken across our 500,000 miles of pipelines the falure rate is still a very small number, especially considering that much of our collective wealth and ability to afford the great society we live in is based on a hydrocarbon economy. And before you go there, alternate energy is decades away from replacing our hydrocarbon-based economy, believe me I've worked in traditional and alternate energy for much of my career, primarily in R&D, and know what's feasible. BTW -- could have done without the name-calling at the end...

[SirGareth]

If you really want to see the most vile pollution to ever destroy a state look to the leftist political pollution that has destroyed the entire rust belt (every decaying city a monument to leftist causes).

The red states have no rust belts, no vile political pollution. Why are they thriving while the rust belt Democrats states are toxic

[tsigili]

Perhaps the issue is.....not only are a significant number of jobs involved, but it is a step towards energy independence, where we stop buying oil from the middle east, and funding our enemies!

[sjc_1]

We buy less than 10% of our oil from the middle east. If we started building and operating synthetic fuel plants turning natural gas into gasoline, we could eliminate 10% of our imported oil altogether.

[sjc_1]

The Canadian west coast will not allow pipelines nor refineries, so they want to bisect the U.S. with a leaking pipe, leave the refinery pollution in the Gulf and ship the final product around the world from our shores.

The Republicans want you to believe that this is all in the best interests of the American people with no provisions that ANY of the fuel will stay in the U.S. What a con job and people keep falling for all of this bull.

[bestplaceonearth]

Sorry SJC British Columbia has 2 oil refiners: Burnaby Refinery, Burnaby, (Chevron Corporation), 52,000 bbl/d and Prince George Refinery, Prince George, (Husky Energy), 12,000 bbl/d. You might try some facts to persuade people but then again maybe you're satisfied with simply serving as a repeating station for nonsensical blowback from your liberal fellow travelers...

[charliediana]

You talk of the jobs created from the building of the Keystone XL, saying that the jobs would be only in the construction field, I beg to differ with you.

When a pipeline construction company moves into an area to start laying pipe:
They have to rent an area for their warehouse, equipment yards, and pipe yards. They then use as many local businesses as possible to stock their warehouse. (Pipelaying is not just big equipment but the thousands of items used daily by their employees) I know not all of these items are made in America but a very large portion are. Here you need to contact a Parts Man for one of the major contractors and they can give you a very good ides.
The people who are employeed by the construction company move into the area: they pay rent, they buy groceries, they eat out, they have to have all the necessities that everyone else does, they are usually still paying bills for their homes where they actually live. You are looking at anywhere from 200 to 500 people moving into an area. Looks like extra income for somebody to me.

You say they are only temporary jobs, tell that to a family that has no income and can go to work even temporarly and put food on their table or pay their rent.

[bestplaceonearth]

One additional thought... President Obama said "The rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline's impact..." If he felt rushed by the end-February deadline, why didn't he at least take the extra 5-6 weeks time to "assess" and then annoucne he didn't have time? Seems like he had his mind made up and didn't even bother taking the 2 months he had to consider this important jobs creating project.

[bestplaceonearth]

I am not registered with any political party - I think for myself thank you. This article seems like an apology for a poor administration decision. Rather than run back and forth between Republican congressman and liberals for sound bites for this story, how about a little simple legwork? Simply look at the number of current people employed in oil and gas and the significant increase in production and refining this pipepline would represent and common sense alone says that there are a large number of sorely needed jobs across the employment spectrum from temp construction work, to permanent refining and engineering jobs that were lost with this decision. I believe this was a poor decision given the low environmental risks and was likely a calculated politcal move on the President's part. Just wish CBS and the other respectable new agencies would do a little more legwork and report the facts rather than simply repeat biased opinions from both the left and right which is just frustrating...

[costaricabob]

As a registered republican, although I vote for the best person for the president, I am with Obama on this one, John Boehner and the house republicans that support this pipeling are wrong. Next they will want to construct the 6 lane highway from Mexico to Canada and call our country the united states of north america. We need to develop our own resources within country where we have large deposits of oil and take care of ourselves first.

[4truthjusticeATAW]

Bob, I agree that we need to develop our own resources. Obama does not. And will not. He stopped offshore drilling by us, but allows it for foreign countries. In March 2011, he gave Gulf Oil Drilling Permit to Brazil, $2 million to Brazil to develop their oil, and more money to Brazil by purchasing oil from the Brazilian government. He really does not have our best interest in his actions. We could do the pipeline, which even if it only creates 2 year temporary positions, that is two years of people earning their living rather than becoming perennial leaches to the government entitlement programs. And as stated above Transcanada calculated 20,000 job years which means 10,000 2 year temporary jobs. And also "only hundreds" of permanent jobs. Are you employed? If you weren't, wouldn't you want a shot at one of these jobs? This administration claims that extending unemployment benefits creates jobs through the recipients of benefits spending money. Then, likewise, if people are employed even temporarily, their spending creates jobs, and this without government spending our tax dollars to do it. In fact, in this case, the government gets to collect more tax dollars from those employed. A body in motion tends to stay in motion, and a body at rest tends to stay at rest. Obama wants us to stay at rest, rely on him for our welfare checks so we vote for him and others like him that will continue to pay us to not work. DO YOU SEE WHERE THIS LEADS? Not to a 6 lane highway and us changing our country's name. How non sequitur. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE SOCIALISM.

[sjc_1]

They DID want a highway from Mexico to Canada that would have cost a fortune. It amazes me what GALL the Republicans have to keep trying to con the American people and make us believe that their evil greedy plans are in the best interest of us all, when it just makes the rich richer and more contributions for the GOP.