Pipeline jobs are pipe dreams

The Keystone XL pipeline “will put tens of thousands of Americans to work immediately.” So says House Speaker John Boehner, to thunderous applause from Big Oil. The Wall Street Journal, no friend of labor, promises 13,000 union jobs. The website of the American Petroleum Institute proclaims: “Jobs for the 99 percent!” Not to be outdone, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce foresees the creation of “more than 250,000 permanent jobs!”

The U.S. State Department sings a different tune: Its sober estimate found that at most, the project would create 6,000 temporary construction jobs, very few of which would go to local hires. Similarly, a detailed study by the Cornell University Global Labor Institute, which had no axe to grind, concluded that the project would temporarily employ between 2,500 and 4,650 construction workers.

Working with data provided by TransCanada, the company with the pipeline contract, the Cornell institute said most jobs would be temporary and non-local. Workers capable of performing sophisticated pipeline tasks would be brought in from outside the region, the Cornell study predicted.

Even Robert Jones, TransCanada’s vice president for pipelines, could offer only a muted forecast of “hundreds” of permanent jobs.

The bottom line: The Cornell economists found that overall, the pipeline project would be a job killer, because it would kick down the road the infrastructure investment urgently needed to switch to clean and economical renewable energy. That’s where the real jobs are: Carpenters weatherizing homes in Ohio, steelworkers building wind turbines in Indiana, tool and die makers manufacturing parts for electric cars in Michigan, etc.

Let’s give the Cornell researchers the last word: “Keystone XL will not be a major source of U.S. jobs, nor will it play any substantial role at all in putting Americans back to work.”

Amen. And all the wind from Speaker Boehner won’t turn a single energy-producing turbine.

-- Rap Lewis