Rep. Terry, TransCanada knock Obama’s Keystone jobs claims

{mosads}“The president conveniently chooses to ignore the construction jobs from steel, fabrication, and the rest of the jobs that would be created by our nation of builders if he would just approve the Keystone pipeline,” said Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) in a statement Sunday.

“He also conveniently chooses to ignore the March draft [Environmental Impact Statement] from his own State Department that said Keystone could create upwards of 42,000 jobs,” Terry added.

Here’s how the State Department put it in a March draft report that Terry cites:

Including direct, indirect, and induced effects, the proposed Project would potentially support approximately 42,100 average annual jobs across the United States over a 1- to 2- year construction period (of which, approximately 3,900 would be directly employed in construction activities).

Republicans and industry groups have for years made often-disputed claims that the proposed project, which remains under Obama administration review, would be a much bigger jobs engine.

For instance, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) office, ahead of Obama’s speeches on the economy, last week said Obama’s failure to green-light Keystone thus far has cost 20,000 direct jobs and 100,000 spin-off jobs.

TransCanada estimates that Keystone would create around 13,000 construction jobs, 7,000 in manufacturing, and on Saturday circulated a previously issued breakdown of various jobs connected to laying each pipeline segment, building pump stations, and other parts of the project.

A TransCanada-commissioned report in 2010 estimated around 120,000 jobs, which includes estimated spin-off jobs in hotels, restaurants, transportation, apparel and so forth.