TARnished!
The Keystone XL pipeline is coming up for a vote in the Senate. When Tea Partied Republican Senators are pushing for a SPEEDY delivery of the pipeline based on DISCREDITED FOX NEWS claims to state their case, YOU KNOW there’s got to be MAJOR problems with the project.
An npr.org article reported on FOX Anchor Martha MacCallum’s claims that “the keystone pipeline would be private-funded; that “it would carry oil from Canada all the way down to the Gulf Coast giving us a massive new resource of energy in this country, and “20,000 jobs would be created, that’s the low-end estimate”.
Here are the FACTS:
1. In a 2010 press release by TransCanada, the company funding the Keystone XL pipeline, TransCanada claimed that they would “create over seven million hours of labor and over 13,000 new jobs for American workers.” A November 5 article in The Washington Post reported that “the 13,000 figure was actually NOT a TRUE job number, but actually accounted for “one person, one year.” The Washington Post article added that “if the construction jobs lasted two years, the number of people employed in EACH of the two years would be 6,500.”
2. The US Department of State’s Final Environmental Impact Statement for the pipeline stated that a “construction work force would consist of approximately 5,000 – 6,000 workers.
3. A Cornell University Global Labor Institute report stated that “based on TransCanada’s numbers, the project will create NO MORE than 2,500-4,600 TEMPORARY direct construction jobs”.
4. The Cornell University Global Labor Institute report states that “the effects of KXL construction could very well lead to MORE JOBS BEING LOST than are created.”
5. The Cornell University Global Labor Institute reported that “KXL’S job creation potential is relatively SMALL, and could be completely outweighed by the project’s potential to DESTROY JOBS through rising fuel costs, spill damage and clean up operations, air pollution and increased GHG emissions.”
6. ThinkProgress revealed a chart that demonstrates “TransCanada’s WILDLY INFLATED jobs promises.”
7. According to tarsandsaction.org research, “tar sand will NOT reduce dependence on foreign oil”.
8. Tarsandsaction.org reported that Keystone XL “will INCREASE gas prices for Americans –especially farmers”.
9. Tarsandsaction.org reported that “a rupture in the Keystone XL pipeline could cause a BP style oil spill in America’s heartland, over the source of fresh drinking water for 2 MILLION people.
10. Corporate Ethics International stated that “tar sands oil means high gas prices”.
11. The National Wildlife Federation reported that “TransCanada predicted that Keystone I pipeline would see one spill in 7 years. In fact, there HAVE BEEN 12 spills in 1 year further stating that “the agency was not adequately accounting for threats to wildlife, increased pollution in distressed communities where the crude may be refined, or increases in carbon emissions that would exacerbate climate change, and a variety of other issues.”
Contact US Senate members and tell them - “DON’T pass the Keystone XL Pipeline bill” at
www.senate.gov
www.congress.gov