With Keystone in limbo, VFW helps vets get work on Canada's section

[WillowTree]

U.S. veterans looking for jobs have a new employment opportunity -- in Canada, working on that country’s section of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Though the push to start building the Canada-to-Texas oil route has been delayed in the United States amid political and environmental disputes, the Veterans of Foreign Wars is part of a deal that would send veterans and active-duty soldiers across the border to fill as many as 114,000 skilled-labor jobs. The jobs include work on the crude-oil pipeline as well as work on infrastructure and even skyscrapers.

The deal is being negotiated by the Edmonton Economic Development Corp. and VetJobs, a job-placement company in which the VFW has a stake.


Read more: With Keystone in limbo, VFW helps vets get work on Canada's section | Fox News













obama,, sending jobs to foreign lands. gobama gobama.

 

[Dot Com]

Willow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InqIerHjgek

 

[waltky]

Don't sound like Obama gonna come out in favor of it...

Obama: Keystone XL pipeline not major jobs creator
Mar 13,`13 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Jobs numbers and other benefits touted by supporters of the Keystone XL oil pipeline are probably exaggerated, President Barack Obama told House Republicans on Wednesday, according to lawmakers who attended the closed-door meeting.

But Obama did not rule out a decision to approve the $7 billion pipeline, according to participants. Obama told Republicans at the Capitol that he's still weighing a decision on the pipeline, which would carry oil from western Canada to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., said Obama appeared "conflicted" on the pipeline, saying that many of the promised jobs would be temporary and that much of the oil produced likely would be exported. But Terry said Obama also indicated that dire environmental consequences predicted by pipeline opponents were exaggerated. "He said there were no permanent jobs, and that the oil will be put on ships and exported and that the only ones who are going to get wealthy are the Canadians," Terry said. A White House spokesman said Wednesday no decision on the pipeline has been made.

Terry, who supports the long-delayed pipeline, said he wished Obama's comments were less negative, but said he was still hopeful the project would be approved, a view echoed by Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., another pipeline supporter. Scalise, who asked Obama about Keystone at the GOP meeting, said the president "made light" of jobs numbers predicted by supporters, including some who have predicted that the project could create as many as 100,000 direct and indirect jobs. Obama said the pipeline "is not going to create as many jobs as you (Republicans) hope," Scalise said.

Calgary-based TransCanada, which is proposing the pipeline, initially said it could create at least 20,000 jobs, including 13,000 construction jobs and 7,000 jobs among suppliers and manufacturers. The company later clarified that the figures were for one person per year, based on a two-year construction timetable. The State Department has estimated the project would create about 5,000 to 6,000 jobs.

A draft environmental report released by the State Department this month said there would be no significant environmental impact to most resources along the proposed pipeline route, which goes through Montana, South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. The report also said other options to get the oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries are worse for climate change. State Department approval is needed because the project crosses a U.S. border. On at least one aspect of the pipeline, Obama is "flat-out-wrong," Terry said. While some oil is likely to be exported, the total is far less than a majority, Terry said. "That was disturbing to me," he said.

Source

 

[Dot Com]

all the steel is imported & once its built, all they'll need is some on-call maintenance people for the inevitable leaks (the first keystone leaked 10+ times in the first year)

Oil pipelines: As the Yellowstone spill shows, oil pipelines carry environmental risks - Los Angeles Times

Jul 14, 2011 – Its first pipeline, Keystone I, has already sprung more than a dozen leaks in its first year of operation.

 

[waltky]

Granny says with dis economy, we need more jobs - not more tree-huggers...

Keystone XL project could harm wildlife, Interior Department says
August 19, 2013 WASHINGTON — A letter contradicts the State Department's draft environmental assessment of the pipeline, saying animals could suffer lasting damage.

The Interior Department has warned that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline could have long-term, damaging effects on wildlife near its route, contradicting the State Department's March draft environmental assessment, which concluded the project would have only a temporary, indirect impact. In a 12-page letter sent as part of the public comment on the draft assessment, the Interior Department repeatedly labels as inaccurate its sister agency's conclusions that Keystone XL would have short-lived effects on wildlife and only during the project's construction. "Given that the project includes not only constructing a pipeline but also related infrastructure, access roads, and power lines and substations, impacts to wildlife are not just related to project construction. Impacts to wildlife from this infrastructure will occur throughout the life of the project (i.e. operation and maintenance phases)," the letter says.

Extending 1,700 miles from Canada's oil sands to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast, Keystone XL needs a presidential permit from the State Department because it crosses a U.S. border. The draft assessment focuses on the 875-mile section from the border in Montana through South Dakota to a pipeline hub in Nebraska. The letter from the Interior Department grimly catalogs many ways Keystone XL could harm wildlife: "species displacement, increased predation rates and predator travel lanes, increased nest parasitism, vehicle collisions with wildlife … invasive plant species, increased wildfire risk, lower wildlife density, increase in collisions with power lines and electrocutions on power poles … and increase in poaching."

Activists in Washington protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. An Interior Department letter warns the project could have lasting, harmful effects on wildlife along its route.

The Interior Department is the second major federal agency to criticize the State Department's draft environmental impact statement, a detailed look at the potential effects of the proposed pipeline on air, water, endangered species, communities and the economy. In April, the Environmental Protection Agency slammed the assessment, saying it failed to account for what could be considerable greenhouse gas emissions from the project and risks to aquifers along its route. The Interior Department declined to comment on the letter, referring inquiries to the State Department.

The letter was sent April 29. But the State Department posted it to a website only last week, along with 100,000 other comments received at the same time. "We look forward to continuing to work with the Department of Interior on the issues described in its letter," a State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss differences within the administration. "The Department of State continues to review the presidential permit application for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline in a rigorous, transparent and efficient manner."

More Keystone XL project could harm wildlife, Interior Department says - latimes.com

See also:

Jobs in Colorado's oil and gas fields swell to nearly 30,000
8/20/2013 > Oil-industry employment is up in Colorado even as total economic output has fallen, underscoring the industry's volatile nature, according to a University of Colorado analysis.

The number of people working in the state's oil and gas fields has swelled to 29,254 — a 34 percent increase in four years, according to the report. The assessment of the industry's contribution to the Colorado economy in 2012 was done by CU's Leeds School of Business. "The sector is very labor-intensive, and it is all happening here in Colorado because it is tied to the resource in Colorado ground," said Brian Lewandowski, the report's co-author. "It isn't as if part of this can't be done in a factory someplace else," he said.

Workers tend to a wellhead during a hydraulic fracturing operation at an Encana Oil & Gas (USA) well outside Rifle, in western Colorado.

While activity has increased significantly, particularly along the Front Range, the industry's total economic output fell 7 percent to $29.6 billion compared with 2010. "A lot of this has to do with energy prices — they can be very volatile," Lewandowski said. The report calculated that between 2000 and 2012, oil and gas prices were more volatile than gold prices.

While total economic output was down, public revenues from the industry — such as taxes, public leases and royalties — rose 45 percent to $1.6 billion compared with 2010, according to the study. "Governments across Colorado depend on the oil and gas industry to pay for much-needed public services," Douglas Flanders, director of policy for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, a trade group, said in a statement.

The sector employed a total of 51,000 people — including those working at gas stations and convenience stores with gas pumps, the study said.

Jobs in Colorado's oil and gas fields swell to nearly 30,000 - The Denver Post

 

[waltky]

Kickin' the can down the road - again...

US puts off decision on Keystone XL pipeline
Apr 18,`14 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is putting off its decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, likely until after the November elections, by extending its review of the controversial project indefinitely.

In a surprise announcement Friday as Washington was winding down for Easter, the State Department said federal agencies will have more time to weigh in on the politically fraught decision - but declined to say how much longer. Officials said the decision will have to wait for the dust to settle in Nebraska, where a judge in February overturned a state law that allowed the pipeline's path through the state. Nebraska's Supreme Court isn't expected to hear an appeal to that ruling until September or October, and there could be more legal maneuvering after the high court rules. So President Barack Obama will almost surely have until after the November congressional elections to make the final call about whether the pipeline carrying oil from Canada should be built.

Approving the pipeline before the election would rankle Obama's allies and donors in the environmental community, but nixing it could be politically damaging to vulnerable Democrats running this year in conservative-leaning areas. "This decision is irresponsible, unnecessary and unacceptable," said Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, who faces a difficult re-election in oil-rich Louisiana. Landrieu said Obama was signaling that a small minority can tie up the process in the courts, sacrificing 42,000 jobs and billions in economic activity. In an ironic show of bipartisanship, Republicans joined Landrieu and other Democrats like Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska in immediately condemning the announcement - the latest in a string of delays in a review process that has dragged on for more than five years.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., accused Obama of kowtowing to "radical activists" from the environmental community, while House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the decision "shameful" and said there were no credible reasons for further delay. "This job-creating project has cleared every environmental hurdle and overwhelmingly passed the test of public opinion, yet it's been blocked for more than 2,000 days," Boehner said in a statement. But environmental groups fighting the pipeline hailed the delay, arguing that it shows the State Department is taking the arguments against the pipeline seriously. "This is definitely great news," said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president for the League of Conservation Voters. "We are very confident as they continue to examine the issues with the lack of legal route in Nebraska and the terrible climate impacts, at the end of the day the pipeline will be rejected."

Keystone XL would carry oil from western Canada's tar sands to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast. The project requires State Department approval because it crosses an international border. The State Department vowed to move forward with other aspects of its review even while the situation in Nebraska remains in limbo. "The agency consultation process is not starting over," the State Department said in a statement.

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[Mr. H.]

WORK is a 4-letter word, to the anti-industrial petrophobic Left.