Tar sands extraction in Alberta (Environment Canada)
Over the past year, Republicans, TransCanada and a compliant megamedia have persuaded a majority of Americans, including many union members, that the Keystone XL pipeline will produce a significant number of jobs despite a study by both the State Department and an independent
study showing otherwise.
With the 1,700-mile, Alberta-to-Texas pipeline now at least temporarily rejected by the Obama administration, the GOP can be expected to use the decision as a cudgel in the election campaign. As House Speaker John Boehner said at the Republicans' lobbyist-packed annual retreat in Baltimore two weeks ago:
The Keystone pipeline—which is part of our jobs plan—has put us back on offense. This is an opportunity to get back to what we know works. […] You’ll see me holding up my jobs card, talking about our plan, asking ‘Where are the jobs?’ Have you heard me say all that before? Hell, yes. I’ll be doing it again because it works. And it only works if we do it over and over and over again.”
It works in part because, as Media Matters has shown, the megamedia have served as a conduit for the propaganda of the pipeline proponents and given short shrift to its opponents.
Even that barrage of disinformation has not done quite as persuasive a job as Boehner suggests. A GOP poll taken in December two weeks before Obama's decision was announced did find that 78 percent of respondents said they believe the pipeline would create "a significant amount of jobs." But the same contentiously worded poll showed 48 percent saying time should be taken to fully understand the environmental implications of the pipeline versus 45 percent who said delay is costing jobs and is politically motivated. Increasing the percentage of those who believe the delay is harmful will depend on just how aggressive a campaign the pipeline's advocates will mount. Very aggressive would be an excellent guess.
As David Wilkins, the U.S. ambassador to Canada in the George W. Bush administration, told an Edmonton, Alberta, reporter Monday, we'll be seeing a lot more about the pipeline "as the campaign for president unfolds." Wilkins conceded that if Obama is reelected, the pipeline may be approved in 2013. If he isn't, however, "the pipeline will absolutely get approved because all of the Republican candidates have indicated they are very much in favor of it.”
Wilkins, who was in Canada for energy-related discussions, works for a U.S.-based law firm that represents the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in Washington.
As conventional oil becomes harder to find, the move to sources like shale oil and tar-sands oil will increase. Already more than 50 U.S. refineries in 16 states process nearly 2 million barrels of Canadian tar-sands oil a day, 15 percent of U.S. crude-oil imports. This source is vastly more environmentally destructive than other sources of oil. Among other things, hundreds of thousands of acres of boreal forest must be cut down to get at the sulfurous, molasses-like, heavy metal-filled bitumen that the oil is derived from.
What the ultimate decision on the pipeline is really about is not jobs, but the agenda of the multinational oil and gas corporations with their hooks planted deep in the political system of both parties and represented by Wilkins's firms and scores just like his. The fight is not merely about the pipeline, but rather the whole energy regime of the planet. Do we stick with what we already have, maintaining the gargantuan profits of corporations that for decades have controlled our energy direction to our detriment?
Or do we break with the past so we can have a prosperous and environmentally sound future?