Experts: Keystone XL May Create Fewer Jobs Than Most Expect
Call it the jobs gap.
While most Americans support the construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline expansion, many more believe it would create “a significant number of jobs," a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found.
About 65 percent of those surveyed said President Barack Obama should sign off on the $5.4 billion pipeline, which would help carry oil from the tar sands, or oil sands, in western Canada to refineries in the American Midwest and Gulf Coast. By comparison, 85 percent said they thought the 1,200-mile pipeline would help fuel job growth, regardless of their opinion on whether it should be built.
An independent review by the State Department, made public Jan. 31, found that while the project would create about 2,000 short-term construction jobs over two years (or 3,900 if construction took only a year), actually running the pipeline would provide just 50 long-term positions. It also would support another 40,000 "indirect" or "induced" jobs across the country during construction, ranging from canteen cars serving food along the pipeline route to factories manufacturing construction equipment for the project.
“That’s a similar amount of construction work to what’s necessary to build a medium-size mall, and after it’s built, far fewer permanent positions,” says Anthony Swift, staff attorney for the National Resources Defense Council, which has vocally opposed the pipeline. “Keystone XL has been pushed as this national jobs creator. It’s not.”
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/03/10/experts-keystone-xl-pipeline-may-create-fewer-jobs-than-most-expect