So what's the deal with the Keystone XL pipeline project?

Does that mean the project is back on or not?

 

TransCanada is also being encouraged by the Obama Administration to re-apply. I support construction of the pipeline. As it stands now Obama has thrown the environmentalist a bone allowing a claim of victory and the project can go forward based on the new application without much fanfare. Or the Republicans can continue to play hardball politics with the issue increasing the odds of killing the project altogether.

 

Requesting the president to act is hardly playing hardball. I would call it expecting the president to lead......unless this issue is above his paygrade too.

 

I must be missing something here. The EPA blessed the project (that is BO's EPA, not Bush's), the unions are for it, the Democrats are for it, the oil companies are for it, the states are for it, the Republicans are for it, the public is for it, etc., but somehow because the the House and the Senate (both Democrats and Republicans) passed a bill telling BO to get off the pot, it is the Republicans who you accuse of playing hardball politics. You wouldn't care to explain that to me, would you?

BTW, and interesting side bit to this discussion. Today, before Keystone, there exists 25,000 mile of oil pipeline running through and over the sand dunes of Nebraska - the source of the Ogallala Aquifer.

 

BO is pandering for those eco-dollars at the expense of US jobs

 

So much for the jobs this project is supposed to create.

(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.

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.

 

I know that the veto of the pipeline bill will help to eliminate at least one job. Obama's.

 

Are you really this stupid?
Not only will engineering & construction jobs be created but the ripple effect would be massive. Think about it for a moment- food, entertainment, retail and everything else that comes from money being earned & spent.
Geesh.

 

So, moen, your reasoning for us not to be upset at the jobs BO has canceled (or, at best, delayed) is because there were not as many jobs as was initially reported (or at least as recalculated by the left extremists). Yet, BO spending our money at a rate of $250,000 per job saved (yeah, right) is good, but creating jobs that will reduce our oil imports is bad. I am sorry, but I am just not following that logic.

 

You can really squeeze a lot of very dumb assumptions into a very short post. It must be your special talent. Good for you.

For instance, I really don't care what upsets you and my reasoning for posting the article was to dispel the false and highly inflated job creation claims so often cited by the Right-wing. And then there is the fact that importing oil from Canada is NOT actually reducing imports, it is actually importing more oil.....FROM CANADA! Nor is this pipeline likely to have any effect on oil consumption or oil prices since the end product will simply be put on the world oil market with all the rest of the oil from other oil producing countries. As you say, "I am sorry, but I am just not following that logic."

 

I must actually agree with you there. I blew it.. I should have said that it would help reduce our balance of payments. After all, it was you who pointed out that some of this oil would be exported. (I just had to explain to you why.) Funny how you avoided comment on the rest of my post.

 

Maybe it was because your other comments were so tangential that they didn't really seem to be all that important to the current topic. You do that a lot.

 

Or more likely because it was the truth.

 

Tangentially.

 

Tangentially the truth. I will accept that especially from you.

 

Tangentially the sky is blue and the ocean is wet. So what?

 

An INCONVENIENT TRUTH perhaps?

 

Wonder how BO is going to explain to the people why he killed tens of thousands of jobs just to gain support from the eco-lobby?

 

Simple! Just think of all those green jobs he was trying to save at Solyndra, Fisker, etc.

BTW, damn it is hard to find these stories in the news. The lamestreet media is sure doing a good job of not covering them.

 

Maybe he'll address it in his campaign speech tonight?