In addition to the budget and debt ceiling showdowns expected to play out in the coming days, congressional Republicans are planning to make another public push for President Obama to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline to be built across the U.S.-Canadian border.
Backers of the plan say the project is a double win for the U.S. because they contend it will create jobs and decrease our dependence upon foreign energy. But opponents say the economic benefits are greatly exaggerated and the environmental risk is severe.
State Department estimates suggest the project would create about 20,000 construction jobs and advocates of the pipeline say another 20,000-plus jobs would be created in supporting roles. But Keystone critics aren’t buying it.
“The KXL Pipeline may create at the most 2,000 jobs during a year or two while it’s being constructed. In terms of long-term, permanent jobs it will be creating something between 50-100 jobs,” said Labor Network for Sustainability Co-Founder Jeremy Brecher. “So the idea that this is somehow a major part of the solution to our terrible unemployment problem, it’s hard to describe it as something other than a cruel hoax.”
Keystone supporters point back to the State Department estimate to back up their claim of 20,000 construction jobs. They also admit that the permanent jobs will be limited but that shouldn’t be a deterrent.
“The president is right. The same study at the State Department says 50-100 permanent jobs,” said Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry, in an interview with us last month. “Keep in mind this is a construction infrastructure job. So when the construction is done…there will be minimal permanent employees. But go on a bridge and tell me how many permanent employees are on that bridge that was finished right now.”
“The president, in his own stimulus package, was advocating for these type of projects to create jobs, but now when it’s the pipeline, he uses it to criticize,” said Terry.
For Brecher, not all construction projects are created equal and he says comparing Keystone to President Obama’s infrastructure goals is wrongheaded.
“What we get with infrastructure jobs are a reduction in our gas explosions and our water and sewer line breakage and we get something that’s good for us. With the pipeline, what we get is more devastating climate change,” he said.
Energy independence is also a divisive issue in this debate. Rep. Terry said the amount of oil coming from Canada would offset all imports from Venezuela. Brecher says that’s simply not true.
“There was a fascinating article in The Wall Street Journal whose headline was ‘U.S. Refiners Don’t Care If Keystone Gets Built.’ And it says, ‘There’s so much oil sloshing around the U.S. from its own wells that refiners don’t need lots more heavy crude from the north to keep busy,'” said Brecher, who also asserts that a lot of any additional crude would simply be refined in the U.S. and then exported overseas.
“The idea that this is somehow going to replace oil that’s coming from foreign countries just doesn’t fit with the facts as reported by The Wall Street Journal,” he said.
One feather in the cap of Keystone supporters is that several labor unions have embraced the pipeline and job-creating potential they believe it provides. Brecher says the labor community is split, since the nurses union and some transportation unions remain opposed.
“The labor movement is divided and I think you can tell who’s looking to the past and who is looking to the future,” he said.
The two sides of this debate agree on very little, except how Keystone became a focal point of the larger energy debate. Rep. Terry says environmental extremism that doesn’t match up with the science is pressuring President Obama to hold off on approving the pipeline. Brecher says environmental concerns are the trigger for this fight, but for good reason.
“People like world-leading climatologist Jim Hansen and a lot of other people threw it up and said, ‘This is really a place to draw the line with those who are destroying our climate, destroying our environment, and claiming that they’re doing so in the name of creating jobs when actually they’re just after more profits for the most rapacious energy corporations,” said Brecher.
Brecher says the fight is not just about the environment. He says shifting to different fuels will not only help our atmosphere but boost our economy. He says climate change is responsible for destructive storms like last October’s Superstorm Sandy and believes the damage will only get worse without meaningful change.
“Our whole economy is going to look like a place that was hit by Hurricane Sandy if we don’t start drawing the line against the greenhouse gases that are creating climate catastrophe and start building an alternate economy, which by the way will be a much more jobs-intensive economy,” he said.
