After more than five years of claims and counter-claims about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, President Barack Obama is expected to make his final decision soon.
Building the pipeline will create jobs in the U.S., but not as many as supporters have claimed, and only for a year or two. The U.S. State Department's analysis said 3,900 would be employed directly if the job is done in one year, or 1,950 per year if work is spread over two. The State Department also estimates that 42,100 jobs would be added during construction, but that only 50 workers would be required to operate the pipeline. These would be additional, "indirect" work for companies supplying goods and services, including concrete, fuel, surveying, welding materials and earth-moving equipment required for the project, and "induced" jobs.
Oil from Canadian bitumen deposits - which the Keystone would carry from Alberta to the U.S. for refining - results in 14 percent to 20 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than oil typically consumed in the U.S. at present. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service estimated that oil flowing through the Keystone pipeline would result in an increase in U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases equivalent to adding somewhere between 770,800 and 4.3 million passenger vehicles. Stopping the pipeline would not prevent Canadians from extracting their crude and getting it to market. In fact, much of that oil is reaching the U.S. already - by rail - and more tank-car capacity is being added quickly. Canadians also are proposing two other pipelines to tanker ports on the Pacific coast, and a third project to nearly double the effective capacity of an existing line to the U.S. Pipelines can be hazardous.
An average of 97,376 barrels (4.1 million gallons) of petroleum and other "hazardous liquids" have been spilled each year in pipeline incidents over the last decade, but tanker cars are more so. Rail accidents spilled more oil in the U.S. last year than in all the previous years on record combined. In Canada last year, 1.5 million gallons of crude spilled or burned and 47 people died in one fiery tanker-train disaster in Quebec.
Proponents claim the Keystone project would reduce prices for U.S. motorists, while foes have claimed that it would increase prices. The State Department's analysis concluded that either way, the Keystone project would have "little impact either way for refined products such as gasoline." That's because Gulf Coast refineries would continue to process heavy crude from Venezuela or the Middle East. There's simply no evidence that it would have any noticeable effect on prices at the pump, either up or down. But building the pipeline would undoubtedly provide consumers with some measure of insurance against supply interruptions.
Foes of the pipeline say the State Department report reflects a pro-industry bias because of an alleged conflict of interest by a firm Environmental Resources Management hired to assist in its preparation. The Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth accused the consultant, ESR, of having ties to the oil industry and hiding a previous connection to TransCanada. The Inspector General found this didn't violate any conflict of interest rules, and cleared the State Department of any wrongdoing. The Inspector General said the department had substantially followed all regulations for vetting consultants for conflicts of interest, and at times had been even "more rigorous" than required. Overall, the Inspector General found that "the Department's conflict of interest review was effective and that the review's conclusions were reasonable."
Chip Tuthill lives in Mancos. Content from www.factcheck.org.