In a Congressionally mandated report on the reasons for rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, the Department of State concludes that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has little to do with energy security or the economy. The pipeline, of great interest to the foreign tar sands company TransCanada and its investors, would have little benefit for Americans and many risks. The Keystone XL pipeline just won’t change the economics of oil dependence in the United States:

Regarding economic, energy security, and trade factors, the economic analysis in the final EIS indicates that, over the remainder of this decade, even if no new cross-border pipelines were constructed, there is likely to be little difference in the amount of crude oil refined at U.S. refineries, the amount of crude oil and refined products such as gasoline imported to (or exported from) the United States, the cost of crude oil or refined products in the United States, or the amount of crude oil imported from Canada. . . .

The analysis from the final EIS, noted above, indicates that denying the permit at this time is unlikely to have a substantial impact on U.S. employment, economic activity, trade, energy security, or foreign policy over the longer term.

The State Department concludes that “it would not be reasonable to suggest the pipeline would cause an increase in employment or other economic activity by increasing crude oil imported into the United States.”

Instead of the 100,000 or more jobs that proponents like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Rep. John Boehner tout, there would only be the “approximately 5,000 to 6,000 direct construction jobs in the United States that would last for the two years that it would take to build the pipeline.”

Download the complete State Department document.

Approximately 75,000 jobs were created in the oil and gas sector under the Obama Administration between 2009 to 2011, according to analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That’s roughly 69,000 more jobs than would be created by construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

The figures, reviewed by the Center for American Progress, show that overall employment in oil and gas (extraction, field support, pipeline construction and transportation, and petroleum refineries) increased by 13% in the last two years.

The figures do not include categories such as gasoline stations, fuel dealers, asphalt paving, or lubrication production.

This strong increase in American fossil fuel jobs contradicts the arguments made by supporters of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, who have attacked the Obama Administration for denying the initial permit for the pipeline due to environmental concerns.

The oil and gas industry claims that Keystone XL will create up to 20,000 direct and indirect jobs. But more careful research of those jobs claims — analysis that is backed up by the State Department, Cornell University and TransCanada, the company building the pipeline — has shown that the number is closer to 6,000 jobs.

Armed with these inflated figures (which are still about 55,000 less than jobs created in the last two years), Keystone XL supporters have argued that the tar sands pipeline will be a panacea for job creation in America. In response to today’s news that the Obama Administration would reject the Keystone XL permit and ask TransCanada to file for another, Keystone supporters lined up to lambaste the President.

Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donahue said it proves “that creating jobs is not a high priority for this administration.”

And Republican Presidential front-runner Mitt Romney laid it on thick: “If Americans want to understand why unemployment in the United States has been stuck above 8 percent for the longest stretch since the Great Depression, decisions like this one are the place to begin.”

But here’s the deep, dirty little secret not mentioned by fossil fuel champions who falsely claim the Administration is killing oil and gas jobs: Since Obama took office, oil production has increased substantially — with more drilling rigs being deployed in America today than at any time since the mid 1980′s.

This increase in production has already resulted in 12 times the jobs that would be created to build the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Do you hear any mention of that from political candidates or the fossil fuel lobby? Absolutely not. And you never will.

These jobs figures prove once again that no matter how aggressively this Administration promotes oil and gas — alienating the environmental base in the process — political opponents will attack Obama in any way they can.

You can find the BLS figures here.

Zach Rybarczyk and Daniel J. Weiss contributed to this report.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources committee and the former chair of the disbanded Global Warming and Energy Security committee, has applauded the decision to drop the “bad idea” of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have made the United States a “middleman” for the “dirtiest oil on the planet”:

The Keystone pipeline was never and will never be a key part of U.S. energy policy, and has instead become a distraction from real attempts to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. This pipeline would have taken the dirtiest oil on the planet, sent it snaking across the Midwest in an already-leaky pipeline, only to be exported to foreign markets once it reached the Gulf Coast.

The United States shouldn’t be used as a middleman between the dirtiest Canadian oil and the thirstiest foreign markets, when what the American people get in return is environmental risk and higher gas prices. This pipeline was a bad idea from the start, and this is the correct decision in the end.

As Markey mentions, the main effect for Americans of the Keystone XL pipeline would have been higher gas prices as Canadian oil was diverted to the international market.

President Barack Obama issued a statement on the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, blaming the “rushed and arbitary deadline” for a decision set by Congressional Republicans. Obama touted his credentials as an all-of-the-above president, noting that “domestic oil and natural gas production is up” under his watch. Obama said that today’s decision is “not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline”:

Earlier today, I received the Secretary of State’s recommendation on the pending application for the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment. As a result, the Secretary of State has recommended that the application be denied. And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree.

This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people. I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil. Under my Administration, domestic oil and natural gas production is up, while imports of foreign oil are down. In the months ahead, we will continue to look for new ways to partner with the oil and gas industry to increase our energy security –including the potential development of an oil pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico – even as we set higher efficiency standards for cars and trucks and invest in alternatives like biofuels and natural gas. And we will do so in a way that benefits American workers and businesses without risking the health and safety of the American people and the environment.

President Obama has not yet addressed how it would be possible to lock in increased carbon pollution for decades from new fossil-fuel infrastructure “without risking the health and safety of the American people and the environment.”
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by David Roberts, cross-posted from Grist

In 2007, Newt Gingrich and Terry L. Maple wrote a book called A Contract with the Earth, outlining a “green conservatism” that takes problems like climate change seriously. Gingrich and Maple have been working on a follow-up, a collection of essays called Environmental Entrepreneurs, that tells the stories of private businesses innovating solutions.

The Los Angeles Times tells the tale: Maple reached out to atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech researcher who also happens to be an evangelical Christian (and wife to an evangelical minister). In an email he told her the book …

… requires a good opening chapter that lays out the facts on global climate change, but I would like this chapter to be framed with optimism, not gloom and doom. … All that is needed from you is to provide a sense of what needs to happen. What is the window of opportunity and what does the science tell us about our chances for remediation?

Hayhoe wrote and submitted the chapter in 2009, then was told by Maple last year that it was accepted. The next she heard about it was through this video:

She tweeted:

Media Matters chronicled what happened next:

Following the December 8 L.A. Times article identifying Hayhoe as a contributor to Gingrich’s book, Marc Morano, former spokesman for Senator Inhofe, spent the past month attacking her on his blog, Climate Depot. Morano also encouraged his readers to contact Hayhoe directly by repeatedly posting her email address.

Chris Horner’s American Tradition Institute also filed a request with Hayhoe’s employer, Texas Tech University, requesting any emails she sent or received about the book. …

Morano got a boost from his former boss Rush Limbaugh on December 19, when Limbaugh told his radio audience that “Newt’s new book has a chapter written by a babe named Hayhoe,” who “believes in man-made global warming.”

Needless to say, this attention unleashed the usual torrent of bile toward Hayhoe. (Kate Sheppard has more.)

I called to talk with Hayhoe earlier this month:

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Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich lambasted President Barack Obama today for rejecting a rush approval of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Appearing at a town hall in Warrenville, South Carolina, Gingrich departed from his prepared remarks to respond to the Keystone XL decision. It was a “stunningly stupid thing to do,” Gingrich said, to raucous applause. “These people are so out of touch with reality, it’s as if they were governing Mars!”

Gingrich then scornfully accused the president, whom he addressed as “this guy,” of “get[ting] away with things that are destructive to the United States”:

What Obama will have done is kill jobs, weakened American energy security, and driven Canada into the hands of China out of just sheer, utter, stupidity. Now, you know, I think the Congress frankly should just take him head on on this. This is such an inexcusably destructive decision that there ought to be a major effort in Congress to put into a bill requiring his signature. We need to quit letting this guy get away with things that are destructive to the United States.

Watch it:

The arguments Gingrich made in support of the Keystone XL pipeline — which put America’s future at risk for the sake of foreign oil profits — were out of touch with reality.

He falsely claimed the project would create “twenty to fifty thousand construction jobs.” Even TransCanada admits there would be no more than 6,000 temporary construction jobs. Expert analyses have found that increased Canadian tar sands development for foreign export will do nothing to reduce U.S. dependence on Middle East oil. Keystone XL has nothing to do with Canada’s drive to build a pipeline to export tar sands to China. In fact, the conservative Canadian government is pursuing both routes aggressively, trying to steamroll intense domestic opposition to the expansion of risky tar sands development.

Gingrich also denies the utterly destructive threat of global warming pollution that would be the result of burning Canada’s tar sands.

A top GE executive is calling the political battle between economy and environment “nonsense.”

In a video interview (featured below) at an international clean energy investment conference last week, Mark Vachon, vice president of GE’s successful Ecomagination program, hailed “environmental performance” as a key driver for business.

“There’s this theory that you have to pick one: economics or environmental performance. That’s nonsense. Innovation is the way you can have both,” said Vachon.

GE started the Ecomagination program in 2005 and has since invested more than $5 billion renewable energy, efficiency and smart grid technologies. The company saw such a powerful business case for clean technologies, it plans to double investments in the sector to $10 billion by 2015. According to Vachon, the $85 billion in revenue from cleantech has doubled the performance of the rest of the company’s portfolio.

“Companies that don’t get this, really risk becoming irrelevant to the marketplace. Whether you believe it for climate change or just the markets that are developing, it is our responsibility as businesses to be responsible to the design signal that the world is telling us,” he said.

One of the most important themes moving into America’s national elections is the perceived conflict between the economy and the environment. But leading investors from around the world representing a cumulative portfolio worth trillions of dollars gathered last week in New York City to explain why the two are inextricably linked — calling for strong, consistent government policies that help leverage private investment.

As the rhetorical bombs get tossed back and forth over energy issues in 2012, the business community is hoping to bring a little more sanity and perspective to the debate.

In 2011, global investments in clean energy amounted to $260 billion — bringing cumulative investments since 2004 to over one trillion dollars. Last year was also the first time that investment in renewable energy surpassed fossil fuels.

And this is only the beginning of a very long transition. The International Energy Agency issued a report in 2009 concluding that investments need to reach $37 trillion a year by 2030 in order to avert the worst of global warming. We’re not there yet, however. If we continue on our current path, Bloomberg New Energy Finance projects that we’ll reach about $400 billion in global investments per year by 2020 — still a very impressive figure.

Although leading investors consider clean energy one of the greatest wealth creation opportunities in history, some politicians in Washington — particularly those who think global warming is a hoax — don’t seem to be listening to what the private sector is telling them.

“Today, investors can deploy capital in a manner that brings them stable returns while also addressing the need for low carbon energy — and that is through the finance of renewable energy projects,” said Bill Green, senior managing director of Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets, an asset fund management firm.

“When investors deploy capital into renewable energy projects, they’re investing in proven technologies: solar PV, wind, biomass, geothermal. These technologies can be put to work today. Deals can be structured such so that investors can enjoy virtually bond-like, long-term returns with immediate yield,” said Green in a video interview at last week’s investor conference.

Political leaders like to pride themselves on acting more like business leaders than politicians. But if they actually listened to what the private sector was telling them, sustainability would be a top national priority, not a politically dirty word.

Watch the video below for more interviews from last week’s investor conference:

Related Post:

• One Trillionth Dollar Invested in Clean Energy in 2011: Will American Business Capture the Second Trillion?
• Investors Worth $20 Trillion Call For Urgent Action on Climate

by Joe Mendelson, reposted from the National Wildlife Federation

Yesterday, the House of Representatives returned with a 13% approval rating to start the 2012 legislative session. Before the gavel lands and the bills start flying, it is worth looking back at how the House dealt with the Clean Air Act in 2011.

Propelled by $111M oil and gas lobbying and $106M in electric utility lobbying, the House treated the Act like a piñata at its fourth consecutive birthday party.  In 2011, the House passed at least eight bills that sought to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from updating our air pollution standards to protect our health, environment, and wildlife.

Polluter Politics: The Influence Equation

$111M Oil and Gas Lobbying + $3.5M from Oil & Gas PAC Contributions + Million Dollar Oil Ad Campaign = Big Oil Votes for More Air Pollution.

$106M in Electric Utility Lobbying + $5M in Electric Utility PAC contributions + Million Dollar Coal Ad Campaign = Dirty Power Plant and Coal Votes for More Air Pollution.

The House set out on its pro-polluter path in February by passing H.R. 1 – a broad spending bill that served as a platform for an all out polluter attack. The bill sought to prevent EPA from controlling carbon pollution that causes climate change, stop revisions of standards that limit soot in the air, and halt efforts to curb mercury from cement plants. The bill passed, 235-189.

Here is a look at the rest of the House’s 2011 attempted assault on the air we breathe:

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After co-writing a breaking story early this afternoon on the Keystone XL decision, Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin tweeted:

From the Washington Post Story:

Some political observers said that the effort by Congress to pressure the president into making a quick decision might have backfired. Last week, John Engler, former Michigan governor who is now head of the Business Roundtable, said “no chief executive likes to be painted into a corner by anybody, whether another nation or a legislative body. There are a couple of ways to react and one of them is a negative way.” Engler and the Business Roundtable support the pipeline project.

Obama can say that the GOP forced his hand, requiring him to make a decision on the original pipeline route, which too many people, including those in Nebraska, objected to.  Obama can also say that the GOP required a decision before he could go through the rigorous process needed to develop a new pipeline route and do the environmental impact analysis of it.

This was Obama’s widely expected fudge.  And if you like fudge, it’s very tasty.  But is it really good for you?

With the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, The Oil Goes to China, the Permanent Jobs Go to Canada, We Get the Spills, and the World Gets Warmer.  Is the decision really that hard?

Some states have introduced education standards requiring teachers to defend the denial of man-made global warming. A national watchdog group says it will start monitoring classrooms.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green

Long a leader in the fight to defend the teaching of evolution in public schools, the National Center for Science Education now sees creationist-like tactics being used in the attack on climate education. A recent survey of science teachers found over half had encountered skepticism from parents, and a quarter dealt with climate-denying administrators. Climate deniers are increasingly sending hate mail to scientists and teachers. As the Los Angeles Times reports, state legislators are increasingly promoting climate denial in classrooms:

Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom.

After decades in which climate denial was driven primarily by industrial polluters, much in the way the tobacco industry lied about the dangers of smoking, the climate fight is becoming more intensely personal and political. As extreme weather disasters rise and the effects of global warming become unmistakable in daily life, right-wing climate deniers are trying to subvert the obvious moral and ethical necessity of action, trying to tie their fossil-fueled denial to religious faith.

“We consider climate change a critical issue in our own mission to protect the integrity of science education,” said Dr. Eugenie C. Scott, NCSE’s executive director, announcing the new initiative. She discussed the parallels and differences between creationism and climate denial in a podcast with Steve Mirsky.

Mark McCaffrey, a climate and environmental education expert, has joined the NCSE as its new climate change programs and policy director. Mark is a co-author of the Essential Principles of Climate Literacy and co-founder of the Climate Literacy Network. Pacific Institute hydroclimatologist Peter Gleick, one of the leading climate communicatiors in the nation, has joined their board of directors.

NCSE’s stellar Josh Rosenau has more details as his blog, Thoughts From Kansas.

Related Posts:

• Los Alamitos School Board orders global warming class to teach the controversy, push disinformation
• Attacks on Science Education Intensify: “There Seems To Be a Lynch-Mob Hate Against Any Teacher Trying to Teach Climate Change”

BP projects a stark future of civilization-threatening climate change, with increasing carbon pollution at least to 2030. This morning, BP released the Energy Outlook 2030 report, its forecast for global energy consumption and climate pollution, projecting that coal, oil, and natural gas use continue to rise for the foreseeable future.

The net result is a projected increase in global emissions of 28% by 2030. This leaves the world well above the required emissions path to stabilise the concentration of greenhouse gases at the level recommended by scientists (around 450 ppm).

BP’s projections are slightly less suicidal than the oil lobby writ large. To limit carbon pollution to sustainable levels requires a peak date before 2020.

“This is our view of the most likely outcome for world energy supply and demand to 2030,” CEO Bob Dudley writes in the introduction. “It is not necessarily the energy world we at BP wish to see.”

Chinese Scientists:  Climate Change Threatens Food Security

Other stories below: Valero Energy is working overtime to stop climate legislation; Sea Level rise poses big threat to Washington, DC

China report spells out “grim” climate change risks

Global warming threatens China’s march to prosperity by cutting crops, shrinking rivers and unleashing more droughts and floods, says the government’s latest assessment of climate change, projecting big shifts in how the nation feeds itself.

The warnings are carried in the government’s “Second National Assessment Report on Climate Change,” which sums up advancing scientific knowledge about the consequences and costs of global warming for China — the world’s second biggest economy and the biggest emitter of greenhouse gas pollution.

Global warming fed by greenhouse gases from industry, transport and shifting land-use poses a long-term threat to China’s prosperity, health and food output, says the report. With China’s economy likely to rival the United States’ in size in coming decades, that will trigger wider consequences.

“China faces extremely grim ecological and environmental conditions under the impact of continued global warming and changes to China’s regional environment,” says the 710-page report, officially published late last year but released for public sale only recently.

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