A grassroots group called the Ports-To-Plains Alliance has weighed in today on the Keystone XL Pipeline controversy. Despite widespread public support for the pipeline, which would move oil from Canada’s tar sands region to the US for refining and add to the overall world supply of oil, President Barack Obama scuttled the pipeline earlier this year. That move probably destroyed an estimated 20,000 jobs and tilted Canada toward selling its oil to China.
Obama put off final decision on the pipeline until after the 2012 elections. He has not reopened discussion of the pipeline since he was narrowly re-elected.
But TransCanada has proposed a new route for the pipeline that avoids the Nebraska Sandhills, and the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality is seeking comment before it drafts its report on the new route. Port-To-Plains Alliance, which is made up of more than 100 local elected officials and community leaders, has today offered its “strong support” for the Keystone XL Pipeline.
In their letter, the Alliance cites the pipeline’s impact on jobs and the local and US economy.
Keystone XL will provide significant economic benefits for our region. The pipeline is expected to create approximately 20,000 manufacturing and construction jobs in the United States. It could also generate more than $5.2 billion in tax revenue to the Keystone XL corridor states. At a time when state and local governments across the country are struggling to balance their budgets, these employment and revenue benefits are critical to our region. Specific benefits for Nebraska include:
- More than $465 million in new spending for the Nebraska economy
- More than 7,500 person years of employment
- Increased personal income by $314 million
- Additional state and local tax revenues of more than $11 million
- $390 million in increased Gross State Product
The letter also notes that the pipeline is “critical to our country’s efforts to reduce dependence on Middle East and Venezuelan oil, by increasing our access to supplies from Canada, our neighbor and loyal ally, as well as domestic supplies from the Bakken Formation of Montana and North Dakota.”
President Obama campaigned promising an “all of the above” approach to energy, but has yet to state whether he will instruct the US State Department to approve or deny TransCanada’s permits to construct the pipeline. The State Department has to approve the construction because the pipeline crosses an international boundary.
The Ports-To-Plains Alliance letter supporting the pipeline is embedded below.
Ports to Planes Alliance Letter
Good for jobs, you say?
Good for America, you say?
Well then. Obama will F’ it. Read more Stanley Kurtz. At least we all should be aware of the plan at work.
The ObamaRx campaign team correctly determined the advanatage in placating young skulls full of environmental mush would out-weigh more sensible voters in the election. He has no good reason to approve the pipeline now after the election – he doesn’t give a cold turd in a milk bucket how many jobs it would create, or how much revenue it would generate. He hates capitalism.
Dig the map outline on top of that letterhead. You see the borders of a new republic that may eventually emerge on the North American continent. It will be called Breadbasket or Pipelineistan. I suspect that Saskatchewan will eventually join as there is a great deal of oil-sands activity going on there as well right now.
Can’t Congress do something?? My goodness, is Obama an emperor now?
The letter is signed by people from all over, not just from Nebraska.
I’d like to say that I’d add my name on this list, too, and I don’t live anywhere near this proposed pipeline path. I do, however, benefit from the influx of workers going to MT and ND from my state who need “mobile housing” to effect their labors.
Of course, our current executive leadership doesn’t give a flying flip about us, either.
Is there a good business case for building a pipeline from the Bakken Shale to Cushing, OK? That would get most of the project built without need for Obama administration approval.