I predict that BEFORE the General Election, President Obama will OK the Keystone XL pipeline...

[cherokeeprogressive]

I also predict that in doing so, he'll make the claim that tens of thousands of jobs will be created, it will ease gasoline prices sooner than any other option, and that it's the right thing to do.

I ALSO predict that environmentalist groups who now oppose its construction will sign off on it.

Just a feeling I get... We'll see.

[golfguru]

1. Why wait if will CREATE NEW jobs?

People are hurting. No need to prolong the pain.

[cherokeeprogressive]

2. Politics.

If he does it weeks before the election, the republicans won't have time to prove him wrong on any count. They're using the jobs issue right now to beat him over the head with the pipeline... how will they be able to say it WON'T create jobs once he OK's it?

The labor unions that are mildly unhappy now will be ecstatic once he makes the announcement.

Environmentalists of all stripes would have voted for him anyway.

It's his "ace in the hole".

As a caveat, I'd say that should the polls show him ahead by double-digits at the end of August; I retract my prediction.

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. So you bought the oil company's Job creation spil

Lugar and McConnell have good reason to know it is false. The Keystone XL Pipeline, the centerpiece of the latest standoff in Washington, will not produce 20,000 shovel-ready jobs. Even TransCanada, the company pushing the pipeline’s construction, now acknowledges that it is false.

The number that the company likes to throw around is now 13,000 direct construction jobs, but that too is misleading. When challenged, the company acknowledges that it is counting what you might call “job years.” In other words, TransCanada believes the project will produce 6,500 jobs that last for two years.

Six thousand five hundred jobs is a far cry from 20,000. And even the 6,500-job estimate is much too high. According to an independent assessment by Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, the project would produce between 2,500 and 4,650 construction jobs, and could even end up costing the country jobs, for reasons that we’ll get to below.

TransCanada is basing its job estimates on a report that it commissioned from the Perryman Group. However, the Perryman Group has refused to release important data behind its estimate, claiming it to be proprietary information. The folks at Cornell nevertheless took what data Perryman did make available and found several major, fundamental flaws in its approach.

For example, a $1 billion portion of the Keystone XL pipeline has already been built and is up and operating. The Perryman study nonetheless pretends that section of the project is still on the drawing boards and, when built, will provide thousands of new jobs.

In addition, Keystone supporters ignore the fact that large quantities of Canadian tar-sands oil are already being imported into the United States and are being refined and used in the American Midwest. As the Cornell study points out:

“According to TransCanada, KXL will increase the price of heavy crude oil in the Midwest by almost $2 to $4 billion annually, and escalating for several years. It will do this by diverting major volumes of tar sands oil now supplying the Midwest refineries, so it can be sold at higher prices to the Gulf Coast and export markets. As a result, consumers in the Midwest could be paying 10 to 20 cents more per gallon for gasoline and diesel fuel, adding up to $5 billion to the annual US fuel bill.”

As the Cornell study concludes, those higher fuel prices for the Midwest could cost that region thousands of jobs. So while the pipeline construction would certainly help the Canadian tar-sands investors — many of them Chinese — get a higher price for their product by moving it to the Gulf, it could prove to be a wash or even a net negative in terms of jobs for American workers.

As the Cornell study concludes:

“It is unfortunate that the numbers generated by TransCanada, the industry, and the Perryman study have been subject to so little scrutiny, because they clearly inflate the projections for the numbers of direct, indirect, and long-term induced jobs that KXL might expect to create. What is being offered by the proponents is advocacy to build support for KXL, rather than serious research aimed to inform public debate and responsible decision making. By repeating inflated numbers, the supporters of KXL approval are doing an injustice to the American public in that expectations are raised for jobs that simply cannot be met. These numbers — hundreds of thousands of jobs! — then get packaged as if KXL were a major jobs program capable of registering some kind of significant impact on unemployment levels and the overall economy. This is plainly untrue.”


http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2011/12/14/the-keystone-pipeline-will-not-create-20000-new-jobs/

[TheWraith]

3. Given the fact that he's already refused it...

I'm going to put your prediction in the "highly unlikely" file.

[cherokeeprogressive]

5. I don't have a problem with that...

and as I stated, should the polls show a double-digit lead with two months to go, it's a non-starter.

If it's looking like a close election though? The closer we get, the more likely he is to change his mind in order to gain votes. Given his Christian beliefs, he will have had a change of heart, or an epiphany, as it were.

As I said; most environmentalists couldn't see themselves voting for a republican on a BET, and they're not likely to stay home... so they're already in his pocket.

[Historic NY]

4. Even Canadians are against it...along with the EU countries....

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/19/world/la-fg-canada-pipeline-20120220

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/20/canada-eu-tar-sands

[cherokeeprogressive]

6. Why aren't either of your links from Canadian sources? n/t

[EFerrari]

8. What tripped your trigger?

I've been watching these really bad love stories on the Hallmark Channel and they just switched their ad from Ron Paul on OBAMACARE to Herman Cain and the pipeline.

Did you know we have greater oil reserves than Saudi Arabia?

lol

[demosincebirth]

9. I hope he does Ok it. It will create, most likely, good paying union jobs

[coffee snob]

13. Yeah and if it totally destroys the environment?

Who cares!

[truebrit71]

10. I highly doubt that. And there is NO WAY that environmentalist groups will suddenly okay it..

...

[SidDithers]

11. Bookmarking...nt

Sid

[Oilwellian]

12. Why are you quoting the right wing propaganda numbers?

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.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57361212/keystone-pipeline-how-many-jobs-really-at-stake/