Obama loses credibility on infrastructure jobs with his position on Keystone XL

Bloomberg/Fuel Fix:

Congressional Republicans criticized comments by President Barack Obama about the number of jobs the Keystone XL pipeline would create, saying the remarks undercut his own efforts to highlight policies to boost the U.S. economy.

Representative Lee Terry, a Nebraska Republican, said Obama, in a New York Times interview published July 28, ignored estimates from the U.S. State Department about the direct and indirect jobs the $5.3 billion project proposed by Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. would create.

“The president now has zero credibility when he speaks about infrastructure projects creating jobs,” Terry, whose home state would be crossed by Keystone, said in a statement.

In the interview with the Times, Obama said there was no evidence to back up claims that Keystone would be a “big jobs generator.”

He said “the most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline — which might take a year or two — and then after that we’re talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 jobs in a economy of 150 million working people.”

The Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee posted a blog on its website saying, “President Obama has resorted to a curious tactic in the administration’s latest pivot back to jobs and the economy — disparage and dismiss jobs.”

The criticism turned a discussion about Keystone from its impact on climate change to a debate over its economic merits as Obama makes a renewed push for policies he says will speed the U.S. recovery, including more infrastructure spending.
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The State Department said in its draft analysis that Keystone would potentially support 42,100 jobs in the U.S. over the one to two years it would take to build. That figure includes 3,900 people directly employed in construction.

After completion, the project would support about 35 permanent jobs, according to the State Department.
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Business groups said Obama was underestimating the jobs Keystone would create. “Manufacturers are extremely disappointed by the president’s dismissal of the jobs-creating potential of the construction of this important project,” Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, wrote in a blog posting.

“It is not logical to think a $7.6 billion infrastructure project stretching across the entire breadth of the continental U.S. wouldn’t employ thousands of workers both in the manufacturing sector and in constructing the pipeline,” James Millar, a spokesman for TransCanada, in an e-mail.
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What is becoming clear is the anti energy left is also the anti jobs left.  They have tried to claim that alternative energy is a job creator, but the facts are inefficient energy like solar and wind is too costly to be a real jkobs creator.  This is demonstrated by the numerous failures of those projects.