During Bill Clinton's first US presidential campaign in 1992—or so the story goes—workers at its headquarters kept their focus by periodically glancing at a poster which proclaimed: "It's the economy, stupid."
Fast forward to the spring of 2013—and the debate over the proposed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline, which is rapidly turning into a spectacle—and the message would only be slightly different. This time, it's the jobs.
Officials from environmental organization have tried for years to minimize the number of jobs that would result if the project was built. They contend the number of permanent jobs would actually be quite small, and any others would simply be temporary.
At an Apr. 10 US House Energy and Commerce Committee Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing on Rep. Lee Terry's (R-Neb.) bill to congressionally approve the project, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), the subcommittee's ranking minority member, produced a mild surprise when he pushed back on the environmentalists' jobs argument.
"I represent a district that is struggling economically with multigenerational unemployment," he said. "There doesn't seem to be any concern within the environmental community about problems my constituents are having."
One witness—Anthony Swift, an energy policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council—said the US Department of State estimated only 35 permanent and 3,900 construction jobs would result from constructing Keystone XL. Developing clean energy alternatives would offer significant employment prospects, he added.
Another Keystone XL opponent who testified—Mark Jaccard, a professor at Simon Fraser University's School of Resource and Environmental Management in Vancouver, BC—said he did not represent the environmental community. "I actually believe fossil fuels are a valuable resource for the economy, but I refuse to close my eyes to climate change problems," he said.
'Too much evidence'
But when a subcommittee Republican subsequently questioned the idea of dismissing potential jobs resulting from Keystone XL to pursue possible employment opportunities from alternatives, Jaccard responded, "I'm sorry. I've seen too much evidence that we create jobs when we develop clean energy technologies."
A third witness—David Mallino Jr., legislative director for the Laborers International Union of North America—strongly protested opponents minimizing Keystone XL's potential jobs.
"Some of them have chosen to attack the nature of our members' work," Mallino maintained. "They call these jobs temporary because they will come to an end…. For laborers in America, this isn't just a pipeline. It's a lifeline."
When he spoke several hours later at the American Energy Freedom Center's Hard Question discussion on Keystone XL, Swift seemed to have modified his stance somewhat. "Every job matters," he conceded. "So does saving the planet."
