Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t rhs; A congressionally mandated report has revealed the hit on Montana’s economy and the lost jobs and income caused by President Biden canceling the Keystone Pipeline.
Biden admin quietly admits canceling Keystone XL Pipeline cost thousands of jobs, billions of dollars
President Biden’s decision to revoke pipeline’s permits hurt ‘working families,’ Montana senator says
By Thomas Catenacci | Fox News
January 5, 2023 2:39pm ESTThe Biden administration published a congressionally mandated report highlighting the positive economic benefits the Keystone XL Pipeline would have had if President Biden didn’t revoke its federal permits.
The report, which the Department of Energy (DOE) completed in late December without any public announcement, says the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had a positive economic impact of between $3.4-9.6 billion, citing various studies. A previous report from the federal government published in 2014 determined 3,900 direct jobs and 21,050 total jobs would be created during construction which was expected to take two years.
But immediately after taking office in January 2021, Biden canceled the pipeline’s permits, effectively shutting the project down.
“The Biden administration finally owned up to what we have known all along — killing the Keystone XL Pipeline cost good-paying jobs, hurt Montana’s economy and was the first step in the Biden administration’s war on oil and gas production in the United States,” Sen. Steve Daines. R-Mont., said Thursday in a statement. “Unfortunately, the administration continues to pursue energy production anywhere but the United States.”
…
Read more: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-quietly-admits-canceling-keystone-xl-pipeline-cost-thousands-jobs-billions-dollars
The report is available here.
From the report;
… The 2014 Final SEIS estimated that about 42,100 total jobs, or 21,050 jobs annually, would be created if construction were to take two years (direct, indirect, and induced), as well as $2.05 billion in earnings in the United States. About 3,900 of these jobs would be direct construction jobs in Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. The project was expected to support 50 jobs during the operation. The SEIS estimated that the construction of the KXL pipeline would contribute $3.4 Billion (or 0.02 percent) to the United States Gross Domestic Product.
At the time the KXL was cancelled, TC Energy announced that approximately 1,000 workers “on both sides of the border” were impacted. To the extent that some U.S. employment had already occurred, the numbers of jobs lost as a consequence of KXL’s cancellation would likely be less than these job estimates as they cover the total projected employment from the construction and operation of KXL. …
Read more: https://www.daines.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/12.23.22-KXL-Pipeline-Job-Loss-and-Impacts-on-Consumer-Energy-Costs-001245.pdf
The consequences go far beyond financial losses and lost jobs. The cancellation sent a message to the industry, that petroleum investment is not welcome in Biden’s America.
Every day Americans pay for that lack of petroleum investment, through inflated gasoline pump prices.
When Biden canceled Keystone XL on Inauguration Day, I said, “We’ll never see $3 gas again, inflation in general will ramp up, and the country as a whole will weaken. It’s the 1970s all over again.”
I’m no better at predicting the future than anyone else, nor do I like to gloat. But I wasn’t wrong on the main points in January 2021.
What is it with left wing politicians stopping energy developments in their own countries when they are elected to power ?
Do they make these decisions that can only hurt their countries well being while the people who voted for them are applauding the victory at the ballot box and their supporters will go along with dumb decisions .
Why would any leader of any country kill energy infrastructure and development in their own country unless they are deliberately trying to damage their countries standard of living ?
All countries need energy to function and surely using your own energy or at least a friendly neighbors gas makes economic and also conserves fuel shipping gas from elsewhere .
We had exactly the same autocratic gesture when our left wing -communist Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was elected in New Zealand .
She declared that there was to be no more oil and gas exploration and development off shore.
Why are these two so called leaders both infected with a loathing of their peoples welfare ?
Their salaries need to be directly linked to the performance of the economy and salaries of ordinary workers: when these go down their salaries should likewise be reduced.
As we just noted, the Left has given themselves a HUGE payraise, while the ordinary taxpayer is still trying to mange how to pay their bills and feed their families! Nancy Pelosi just sits their, gloating, with a shiit eating grin on her face!
I think Peloser botoxed that grin into place…
Graham,
The true Progressive, or neo-Marxist, leader is characterized by no love of country, disdain or hatred for it’s people, and a firm belief in their own rectitude! Their long sought Nirvana is society where they can rule by fiat, over a compliant and obsequious population of peons and serfs. They will still require a small elite to assist them in their efforts, but it will only include those with the proper diplomas, degrees, thoughts and feelings; smelly Walmart shoppers need not apply!
I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are sincere, and “see” the positive (albeit Utopian) benefits of a Progressive, powerful central government that can drive policies for the “common good”. They also see the next phase, Globalism, where equity reigns at a country and individual level.
(Didn’t all that seem great when you were a sophomore at 2AM?)
They are also supremely egotistical, “I know they had problems in the past, but I know how to do it right this time.
I’m an eccentric dreamer at the other extreme. If we focus on protecting the individual and let the free market prevail (within reason) the 3rd world nations will eventually prosper; like developed countries their birth rate will fall (so there Paul Ehrlich) and they will have the the economies to start addressing the extreme weather they have experienced since history has been recorded.
The slight increase in CO2 will increase plant growth and help humanity. The slight increase in temperature over my lifetime as well as my grandchildren’s will make life more pleasant.
George I have written here on WUWT exactly what you have said .
Help the third world to prosper and that should lead to lower birth rates in those countries .
Just look at the soaring population in Somalia which had 2.5 million people in 1950 the same as New Zealand .Now Somalia has over 17 million people and New Zealand has 5 million with a lot of immigration.
If the UN was at all efective they would be trying to help these third world countries instead of putting on clown shows COP out 26 and pushing climate change as if there was no tomorrow .
“It’s the 1970s all over again.”
All we need now is a Greenie false flag attack that causes Israel to go to war with the Arab nation of [take your pick]. Biden’s support of Israel will cause another Arab Oil Embargo and it really WILL be like the 70s.
Jacking up energy prices is a feature, not a bug. The Green New Deal is still their goal.
Something nefarious is their goal. The Green Winie New Deal applauds this mess, but remember, the oil just went elsewhere and was refined and sold, no evil carbon reduction of any kind.
Don’t you like your planet? Be ready to freeze for it .. starve for it ..
Of course! This is a way to win the argument that windmills are the cheapest source of energy. Use policy to force fossil fuels prices up 10x. Woke climatology makes an alarming warming forecast and then fiddles ‘data’ and moves the goal posts to ‘correct’ the forecasts.
If you are in any doubt about what the Wokey WEF has planned for us, here is the big ‘tell’: they are busy working to subvert economic data, and effect massive starvation to rehabilitate the completely failed forecasts of end-of-world doomster Paul Ehrlich in his ridiculous 1970 misanthropic, dystopian “Population Bomb”. This is woke science. This is what they do. Truth is what they want it to be.
Inflation is theft.
This one is even worse. The destruction of the global economy, industries, agriculture, energy supply … is 100% Climate-Policy-Caused-Disaster. Ordinary inflation is due to rapid economic growth – the old idea of too much money chasing too few goods.
Proper policy is to cool the economy off by raising interest rates on borrowing for investment. These clowns have raised interest rates with a situation where we are in a deepening depression in which no one is trying to borrow for investment. All this does is kill off the the foundering economy quicker! Ask yourself. Do you have too many dollars to chase too few goods. Think groceries for example.
Effectively inflation is a disguised tax. Printing money is the same as raiding your bank account, except it does more damage, and the numbers on your account stay the same. They are raiding the value of your money rather than being upfront and just taking the money.
Murray Rothbard specified three ways governments fund themselves: The least harmful alternative is taxation, which obviously requires coercion. Next is the issuance of debt, which simply imposes greater taxation at a later date in order to cover the additional burden of interest. And finally, there’s the issuance of debt that is purchased by the government’s central bank. This method imposes the same burdens as the prior method, but also imposes an immediate loss of purchasing power due to inflation of the money supply.
Inflation is racist
Job creation is a myth of the Left. To create moire jobs, employ men to dig holes and fill them in again.
What really counts is how to maximise wealth creation and minimise labour. Then let the left work out how to distribute that wealth. Which usually means to themselves
Job creation is FAR from a myth for leftists. CRT, Trans, Gender, etc. ALL are used as excuses to require any business doing business with the federal government to hire otherwise useless, and still useless, liberal indoctrinators to train ALL employees in the correct way to think and act. Just look at all the jobs in industry, government and academia held by radical leftist running these “equality” programs.
I, for one, am quite weary of hearing about the “failures” of the Obiden Administration! The soaring price of energy, the wide open southern border, and a severely weakened military are NOT failures, they are the successes of the anti-Western, anti-human, anti-freedom cabal that pulls the strings on the Senile-in-Chief; and uses him as a beard to distract the opposition!
Until more of the sheeple are woken from their slumbers, the intentional destruction of the US, and the hopes and dreams it represents, will continue unabated!
I’m close to finishing re-reading an America Heritage book on WW1. (It’d been on my shelf for years.)
Something that jumped out at me was that when Lenin heard of Wilson’s “14 Points”, he jumped for joy.
(It was also during Wilson’s administration that the amendment was passed that robbed the induvial state Governments of a say in the Federal Government as originally intended.
PS The 14 Points led to The League of Nations.
The US Senate voted against joining.
A WW2 later, we’re stuck with the UN which the individual State Governments had no say in whether they wanted to join or not.
Treaties are still required to be approved by the “mob rule” Senate.
But they’ve just skipped that step. Now a “Presidential Agreement” is enough to bypass a watered down “Senate” which no longer represents the Governments of the individual states.
The individual people of the US have their voice in the House.
Direct coercive taxation, direct election of Senators and the Federal reserve, all put in by “progressives” around the same time, a REALLY bad time for the US Constitution.
The original US Constitution, with the Bill of Rights, was to protect the individual citizens from Government while Government protected their individual rights. (The Declaration of Independence expressed the ideals that was the goal.)
With the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001, and Obama’s subsequent refocusing of it against US citizens, the Bill of Rights was essentially nullified. How much longer will the totalitarians running the Corporate Media Intelligence State keep wearing their happy Smiley Face mask? Will enough of the populous wake up to the dangerous state that our nation faces as virtually every institution begins to treat the patriotic citizen as the enemy?
I hope that I live long enough to see a peaceful resolution to our problems, but I fear that may not be possible for my generation, and possibly the next!
“If you behave like sheep the wolves will eat you ” – Benjamin Franklin.
Might be worth looking back at the works of your Founding Fathers for guidance.
Montana and Alberta workers and ongoing infrastructure jobs suffered, but the oil mostly moved by rail anyway at the expense of oil producers, and railway companies are big Dem supporters. So the Railcos made a ton of money, probably a couple of billion extra, and Biden’s and Obama’s anti-pipeline green virtue signalling “no economic advantage to build XL” was correct…..except for increased fuel costs to consumers across the board, which is a CO2 reduction strategy of theirs….so all round Biden long term dream win.
In 2022 Canada averaged approx 150 bbls/day by rail to the USA. Feb 2020 412k bbls/day & Jan 2020 404k bbls/day, the only 2 months ever over 400k. XL pipeline capacity was 830k bbls/day. btw 2019 avg by rail for the year approx 260k bbs/day (source Canada Energy Regulator)
btw Revenue not included each yr: Property taxes for each pumping station >$500k (a significant amount for a rural country), surface lease rentals, US suppliers to CDN oilsands operators (eg Caterpillar equip & parts), and the extra jobs for Alberta would have increased USA tourism.
Actually 2022 oil by rail to the USA averaged less than 150k bbls/day. (source Canada Energy Regulator). XL pipeline capacity would have been 830k bbls/day.
TOTAL oil by rail in the US, 500,000 BPD, Keystone XL pipeline 800,000 BPD from Canada to the US, so, no, it did not “mostly” mover by rail. Remember the the 500,000 referenced is not all from Canada to the US. I do not have those numbers.
I believe their “logic” goes something like this: If there’s no planet no one will have a job. Since they’re convinced pipelines will destroy the planet, they’re actually saving jobs by banning pipelines. 🙄
My nephew lost his job due to Biden’s actions. This led to a family with a wife, kids and now a husband who is in trouble with the law, drugs and alcohol. Environmentalism has become a psychopathic cult.
I’m so sorry to hear that jjs, I hope your nephew finds his way back to love and family.
Without the pipeline, how is the gas and oil moved?
By Rail.
Who profits from that?
Who is a big DNC donor who famously claimed his secretary paid more Income Tax than he did?
(He lived off of loans from his assets. Technically, a loan is not Income and so not taxed.)
The principal is just your own money being given back to you, so it is not income, the interest income
The cancellation of this pipeline was a direct blow to the reduction of carbon usage that the left keeps pushing in their propaganda. The Keystone XL pipeline was supposed to be powered by electrically driven pumps for its whole length. Trans Canada Energy had contracted for this electricity to be supplied by Renewable sources for 80% of the supply needed. Instead the oil is been moved by 90 ton train tank cars from the loading terminals in Edmonton and Hardisty Alberta to the Gulf coast refineries at Houston TX. That is a lot of Diesel fuel burned to move these 200 car trains the 3600 Km to Texas.There are about three trains a week making this trip full down to Texas and empty all the way back. Good Job Joe.
There is a glimmer of hope the Republican majority in the House may now start the clean up of many warped things, including climate alarmist bullying and indoctrination