POLITIFACT
Fact-check:
Is Biden 'destroying 11,000 jobs' by revoking Keystone pipeline?
By
Daniel Funke, PolitiFact.com
January
22nd 2021
Fact
check: How many jobs lost on Keystone pipeline after Biden order?
(statesman.com)
1st
thing to remember my friends and followers is the fact that the pipeline is not
completed so everything stated is 'only a guess'!
I,
with my 40 years under my belt, in the Oil &Gas Business as a service
technician, have been reporting on this disgusting pipeline from the beginning!
2nd;
The Canadian Pipeline would be worked, for the most part, by Canadians!
3rd;
when I first reported on this years ago, the crude, caustic sludge oil was to
be shipped to the Arab countries to be refined and shipped back to the USA and
sold to you!
A Facebook post: Says that "By revoking the
Keystone pipeline permit, Biden is destroying 11,000 jobs.”
PolitiFact's ruling: Half True
Here's why: President Joe Biden spent his first
day in the White House signing a spate of executive orders aimed at
undoing the policies of the Trump administration. One of them sparked outrage
on Facebook over its effect on American jobs.
On
Jan. 20, Biden signed an order that revoked the permit for the
construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In a Facebook
post published the same day, one user said the move would cost thousands
of jobs.
"By
revoking the Keystone pipeline permit, Biden is destroying 11,000 jobs and
roughly $2 billion in wages," the post says. "Democrats couldn’t even
get through Day 1 without killing jobs for middle class Americans."
The
post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and
misinformation on its News Feed.
We’ve
seen several similar posts offer other figures for how many jobs
were lost as a result of Biden’s executive order, ranging from 12,000
to 83,000. So we wanted to take a closer look.
TC
Energy Corp., the Canadian company that owns the Keystone XL pipeline with
the Alberta government, has said more than 1,000 people are out of work because
of Biden’s executive order. The 11,000 and $2 billion figures cited in the
Facebook post are estimates published by the company, but most of the jobs
would be temporary.
We
reached out to the user
who published the post
for their evidence,
but we
didn’t hear back.
What
Biden’s order does
The
Keystone XL pipeline is an international project years in the making.
Without support from the U.S. government, it’s effectively halted.
The
875-mile pipeline would carry a heavy crude oil mixture from Western Canada to
Steele City, Neb., where it would connect with another leg stretching to Gulf
Coast refineries.
Biden’s
order revokes the permit that was granted March 29, 2019, by
then-President Donald Trump on the grounds that it is harmful to the
environment.
While an
11-volume State Department report on the Keystone XL pipeline found in
2014 that it would not significantly contribute to carbon
pollution, critics say the project threatens Alberta’s rivers and
forests. And the project has become a symbol for the political debate over
fossil fuels.
The
Obama-era State Department had denied TC Energy’s request for a permit in 2015.
Trump revived hopes for the project once he took office, ultimately approving
it with an executive order. Construction began in April 2020, but
that same month, a federal court said that the project had to go
through a full endangered species review. TC Energy appealed the ruling, but
the Supreme Court upheld it in July.
Before
Biden signed his executive order,
only a 1.2-mile section of the
pipeline
had been completed in Montana
near the U.S.-Canada border.
Fact-check:Will
the Paris accord 'cost the U.S. economy 6.5 million jobs and $3 trillion'?
‘Thousands’
of lost jobs, but most are temporary.
Over
the past several years, we’ve fact-checked many claims
that
the Keystone XL pipeline would create thousands of American jobs.
Several of
them lack context about the duration and nature of these positions, and
this Facebook post is similar.
In
a Jan. 20 statement, TC Energy said Biden’s order "would directly lead to
the layoff of thousands of union workers." It did not specify exactly how
many jobs would be lost.
President
Richard Prior told the Associated Press that the layoffs would number
more than 1,000. We reached out to TC Energy for more information, but we haven’t
heard back.
The
11,000 figure in the Facebook post appears to stem from an Oct. 28 press
release on the pipeline’s website.
In
October, TC Energy awarded contracts to six American union contractors to build
the Keystone XL pipeline in three states in 2021. Those contractors were
"responsible for hiring 7,000 union workers."
"When
combined with additional 2021 contracts to be announced later, the total number
of American union workers constructing Keystone XL in 2021 will exceed 8,000
and $900 million in gross wages," the release said. "In total,
Keystone XL is expected to employ more than 11,000 Americans in 2021, creating
more than $1.6 billion in gross wages."
That’s
close to what the State Department found in its 2014 report.
In
the report, the agency wrote that 10,400 estimated positions would be for
seasonal construction work lasting four to eight-month periods. Since the State
Department defines "job" as "one position that is filled for 1
year," that would equate to approximately 3,900 jobs over a two-year
period.
In
short: Most of the estimated jobs were temporary.
The
State Department forecasted that no more than 50 jobs, some of which could be
located in Canada, would be required to maintain the pipeline. Thirty-five of
them would be permanent, while 15 would be temporary contractors.
