I think the numbers have become inflated...
In 2011,
Russ Girling, president and CEO of
TransCanada, touted the positive impact of the project by "putting 20,000 US workers to work and spending $7 billion stimulating the US economy". These numbers come from a 2010 report written by The Perryman Group, a financial analysis firm based in Texas that was hired by TransCanada to evaluate Keystone XL.The Perryman Group numbers have been disputed by an independent study conducted by the
Cornell ILR Global Labor Institute, which found that while the Keystone XL would result in 2,500 to 4,650 temporary construction jobs, the impact will be reduced by higher oil prices in the Midwest, which will likely reduce national employment. However, the State Department estimated that the pipeline would create about 5,000 to 6,000 temporary jobs in the US during the two-year construction period, would increase gasoline availability to the Northeast and expand the Gulf refining industry.
In January 2012,
Greenpeace Executive Director
Phil Radford appealed to the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to review TransCanada's claims that the Keystone Pipeline would create 20,000 jobs. Stating that the company had "consistently used public statements and information it knows are false in a concerted effort to secure permitting approval" of the pipeline, Radford argued that TransCanada had "misled investors, U.S. and Canadian officials, the media, and the public at large in order to bolster its balance sheets and share price".
In July 2013, President Obama stated "The most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline, which might take a year or two, and then after that we're talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 jobs in an economy of 150 million working people." The estimate of 2,000 during construction came under heavy attack, while the long-term, permanent job estimates did not receive as much criticism. According to the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), the pipeline will only create 35 permanent jobs.
[223] The Associated Press noted that it was unclear where the president's figure of 2,000 jobs came from. The U.S. State Department's Preliminary Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, issued in March 2013, estimated 3,900 direct jobs and 42,000 direct and indirect jobs during construction.
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