LINCOLN — A researcher from Cornell University told state lawmakers Tuesday that TransCanada has exaggerated the number of jobs its Keystone XL pipeline will create.
Lara Skinner of the Cornell Global Labor Institute said she was unable to verify TransCanada's advertised claims that 20,000 direct construction and manufacturing jobs would be created by the 1,700-mile-long pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada's tar-sands region to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.
Skinner said utilizing figures the company submitted to the State Department suggests that 2,500 to 4,600 jobs would be created during the two years of construction.
And there are indications that TransCanada will obtain half of its 36-inch pipe from overseas, thus calling into doubt the 7,000 manufacturing jobs the project will create.
"Their claims are unsubstantiated and misleading," she told members of two committees of the Nebraska Legislature.
Part of the exaggeration is due to the use of "job years" to describe the jobs created, Skinner said.
That means that one job that lasts two years — the expected span of construction for the pipeline — is counted as two job years.
She said TransCanada, in its report to the State Department, said the project would create about one-third of the jobs it has claimed in advertising.
Asked to respond, TransCanada Vice President Robert Jones said: "You can have all the studies you want . . .you're looking at the guy who is doing the hiring" for the project.
Jones said it will require 3,000 construction workers to build the pipeline from Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast, then another 5,500 over two years to build the Canada to Nebraska portion.
That doesn't include the inspectors, project managers and planners, of which about 400 are already working.
He said "a small amount" of the thick specialized pipe will be manufactured overseas, but that most will be produced at a plant in Little Rock, Ark.
Motors are being built in Ohio and pumps manufactured in Oregon, Jones added.
Skinner said steel is being produced in India, then shipped to Little Rock to be rolled into pipe.
Some members of the Legislature's Natural Resources Committee questioned Skinner's credentials and whether the Cornell institute opposes the project.
They also asked about the Goodman Group, a co-producer of the study, and its ties to two of its other clients, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.
Skinner, whose doctorate is in sociology, said the institute was neutral on the pipeline project.
The study was done because of the opposing views within organized labor about the Keystone XL, she said, and to test the job assertions made by TransCanada.
Skinner said the Goodman Group had "no opinion" on the pipeline, which a pro-pipeline group, Nebraskans for Jobs and Energy Independence, claimed later was a misleading answer.
About 40 labor unions have signed agreements to work on the pipeline and support it, Skinner said, and another four oppose it.
Some unions in Canada oppose the pipeline because they want new oil refineries built in Alberta so jobs are created there.
Skinner said the Cornell study concluded that gasoline prices could rise 10 to 20 cents a gallon in the Midwest because Canadian crude oil now being sold at a discount to Midwest refineries would be allowed to bypass them to the Gulf Coast, where it could be sold for a higher price.
But officials from TransCanada and the Consumer Energy Alliance disputed that claim.
They said that increasing the supply of oil to the United States would keep gasoline prices down. Skinner acknowledged that there is a dispute about the gas-price findings.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9584, paul.hammel@owh.com
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