Did order really cut jobs on pipeline?
The claim: “By revoking the Keystone pipeline permit, Biden is destroying 11,000 jobs and roughly $2 billion in wages.” — Post flagged by Facebook as part of its efforts to combat false news and misinformation.
PolitiFact rating: Half True. TC Energy said more than 1,000 people are out of work because of Biden’s executive order. In October, the company said it expected to employ more than 11,000 Americans in 2021 and generate more than $1.6 billion in gross wages.
But both TC Energy and the State Department have said the majority of those jobs would be temporary. A 2014 report found that the company would need only 50 employees to maintain the Keystone XL pipeline once it’s finished, 35 of them permanent.
Discussion
President Joe Biden spent his first day in the White House signing a spate of executive orders aimed at undoing the policies of the Trump administration. One of them sparked outrage on Facebook over its effect on American jobs.
On Jan. 20, Biden signed an order that revoked the permit for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In a Facebook post published the same day, one user said the move would cost thousands of jobs. “Democrats couldn’t even get through Day 1 without killing jobs for middle class Americans,” it concludes.
The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
Figures circulating on Facebook on potential job losses ranged from 12,000 to 83,000.
TC Energy Corp., the Canadian company that owns the Keystone XL pipeline with the Alberta government, has said more than 1,000 people are out of work because of Biden’s executive order. The 11,000 and $2 billion figures cited in the Facebook post are estimates published by the company, but most of the jobs would be temporary.
The Keystone XL pipeline is an international project years in the making. Without support from the U.S. government, it’s effectively halted.
The 875-mile pipeline would carry a heavy
crude oil mixture from Western Canada to Steele City, Neb., where it would connect with another leg stretching to Gulf Coast refineries.
Biden’s order revokes the permit that was granted March 29, 2019, by then-President Donald Trump on the grounds that it is harmful to the environment.
While an 11-volume State Department report on the Keystone XL pipeline found in 2014 that it would not significantly contribute to carbon pollution, critics say the project threatens Alberta’s rivers and forests. And the project has become a symbol for the political debate over fossil fuels.
The Obama-era State Department had denied TC Energy’s request for a permit in 2015. Trump revived hopes for the project once he took office, ultimately approving it with an executive order. Construction began in April 2020, but that same month, a federal court said that the project had to go through a full endangered species review. TC Energy appealed the ruling, but the Supreme Court upheld it in July.
Before Biden signed his executive order, only a 1.2-mile section of the pipeline had been completed in Montana near the U.S.-Canada border.
In a Jan. 20 statement, TC Energy said Biden’s order “would directly lead to the layoff of thousands of union workers.” It did not specify exactly how many jobs would be lost.
President Richard Prior told the Associated Press that the layoffs would number more than 1,000.
The 11,000 figure in the Facebook post appears to stem from an Oct. 28 press release on the pipeline’s website.
In October, TC Energy awarded contracts to six American union contractors to build the Keystone XL pipeline in three states in 2021. Those contractors were “responsible for hiring 7,000 union workers.”
“When combined with additional 2021 contracts to be announced later, the total number of American union workers constructing Keystone XL in 2021 will exceed 8,000 and $900 million in gross wages,” the release said. “In total, Keystone XL is expected to employ more than 11,000 Americans in 2021, creating more than $1.6 billion in gross wages.”
That’s close to what the State Department found in its 2014 report.
The agency wrote that 10,400 estimated positions would be for seasonal construction work lasting for four- to eightmonth periods. Since the State Department defines “job” as “one position that is filled for 1 year,” that would equate to about 3,900 jobs over a two-year period.