Proponents of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project would like you to believe that, if approved, its construction will put hundreds of thousands of Americans to work. This is plainly untrue, according to a new report by the Cornell University Global Labor Institute.
TransCanada, the Canadian company behind the project, has spent the past few years making ambitious claims about the jobs that would be created by construction of the pipeline, which would carry diluted bitumen crude 1,700 miles across six Great Plains states, 1,904 waterways, and the nation’s largest freshwater aquifer.
These jobs claims have grown more optimistic as the project has found itself the subject of increased scrutiny. This National Wildlife Federation post rounds up TransCanada’s mysteriously rising jobs claims:
In 2008, a report included in TransCanada’s Presidential Permit application for Keystone XL to the State Department said they anticipate a peak workforce of approximately 3,500 to 4,200 construction personnel to build the pipeline. In 2010, TransCanada put out a press release that said, during construction, Keystone XL would create 13,000 jobs and further produce 118,000 spin off jobs. In 2011, TransCanada put out a fact sheet that said Keystone XL would create about 20,000 construction and manufacturing jobs.
In reality, according to the exhaustively researched Cornell report, even the earliest, most modest claims seem unrealistic.
In fact, in Pipe Dreams' Jobs Gained, Jobs Lost by the Construction of Keystone XL, the institute says more jobs could actually be destroyed than created by the pipeline.
The industry’s US jobs claims are linked to a USD 7 billion KXL project budget. However, the budget for KXL that will have a bearing on US jobs figures is dramatically lower only around USD 3 to USD 4 billion. A lower project budget means fewer jobs.
That USD 7 billion figure is everywhere in TransCanada's literature, but USD 1.6 billion of that is for the Canadian portion of the pipeline, which wouldn’t impact American jobs. Another USD 1.3 billion is already committed to be spent, whether or not the pipeline is approved. Only USD 3.9 billion in the project's budget for both the US and Canadian portions of the pipeline, according to TransCanada's own financial statements. The report calculates that only between USD 3 to USD 4 billion would be spent within the US.
The project will create no more than 2,500 to 4,650 temporary direct construction jobs for two years, according to TransCanada’s own data supplied to the State Department.
The company’s claim that KXL will create 20,000 direct construction and manufacturing jobs in the US is not substantiated.
Based on jobs information provided by the company for the Environmental Impact Statement, on site construction and inspection would create 5,060 to 9,250 person years of employment (labor terms for one person working full time for one year). This equals 2,500 to 4,650 jobs per year over two years.
More troubling are the numbers for local jobs. TransCanada and proponents of Keystone XL have been barnstorming in local communities along the pipeline's route with promises of jobs. But the Cornell report finds that just 500 to 900 workers are expected to be hired locally roughly 10% to 15% of the total workers hired.
(Sourced from www.onearth.org)
