President Biden’s decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline will have a number of negative impacts on jobs, energy, and geopolitics. Here are five reasons why Biden’s decision to kill the Keystone XL pipeline is a terrible move.
- Thousands of American jobs killed. Keystone XL estimates that stopping the project will kill 11,000 jobs in 2021. This, in the midst of post-pandemic economic recovery. More specifically, the pipeline was on track to create thousands of construction jobs for rural and Indigenous communities, many touted by the company as “family-sustaining, middle-class jobs.” President Biden often touts the importance of union jobs, yet 8,000 of those jobs lost will be union ones.
- Transporting oil by pipeline is the safest, most efficient, and most environmentally friendly way of doing so. In fact, Keystone XL has committed to the pipeline being fully powered by renewable energy. Whether the pipeline project is halted or not, oil from Canada will continue to make its way over the border. Without the new pipeline, distributors will be forced to transport this oil by road and rail, methods both less safe and higher contributors of CO2 emissions. If the project were to go through, TC Energy Corporation estimates emissions level decreases equivalent to taking 650,000 cars out of commission. Ironically, President Biden cites environmental friendliness for the order anyway.
- The completion of the pipeline would introduce cheaper and more competitive energy. If completed, the Keystone XL Pipeline would carry 830,000 barrels of oil from Alberta, Canada through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, where it would eventually reach Texas oil refineries. It would be a significantly faster, cheaper, and more efficient way of doing so, introducing less expensive and more competitive oil into the energy sector, giving access to cheaper energy to Americans across the nation. Stopping the project will have Americans cheated out of more disposable income.
- Billions in wasted investment. Over a billion dollars of investments into the project would be for nothing, and over a billion of would-be investments will no longer happen. The reality is, there has already been a great deal of both private and public investment put into the project, and the idea of canceling it is unthinkable to public and private sector investors, and thousands of working and middle-class Americans employed and to be employed by the project. If completed, TC Energy Corporation estimates an investment of more than $1.7 billion into communities surrounding the project. That translates to $100 million in new property tax revenue and thousands of new middle-class jobs for both low and high-skilled workers.
- Harms the US-Canadian relationship while empowering our adversaries. Even Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a progressive environmentalist, supports the pipeline project. Alberta’s government recently pledged a $1.5 billion investment into the project, speeding up its construction, on track to be turned on by 2023. The reversal of the pipeline project will poke holes in the strong trade relationship between the United States and Canada, as they will be less confident in America’s word on trade agreements. The prime minister had been in talks with President Biden and those in high positions of his administration, urging him not to cancel the project. The discontinuation of the pipeline will increase America’s reliance on foreign oil, strengthening Russia and OPEC members in the middle east
The Keystone XL pipeline would have brought about substantial economic benefits to the American workers and consumers alike and sparked investment in various communities across the country. Americans for Tax Reform urges President Biden to reverse his executive order canceling the Keystone XL pipeline permit.