350.org: Oil pipeline project won’t create as many jobs as solar

350.org: Oil pipeline project won’t create as many jobs as solarThe recently passed House payroll tax bill, which included an effort to force through the Keystone XL oil pipeline project—as a jobs creator—was greeted by a human oil spill.

Yet it is likely to create far less jobs than an extension of 1603 Treasury Grant would.

The spill was the work of 350.org and the Occupy Cincinnati movement, who were protesting jobs claims and political donations made to House speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and others who voted for the bill.

Boehner has been quoted as saying the project would create “Tens of thousands of jobs.”

A study undertaken by the project developer TransCanada Corp., said that the project could create as many as 250,000 jobs.

The numbers were debunked by The Washington Post’s “The Fact Checker,” which found that the project is expected to produce 13,000 direct one-year, one-person jobs.

“What we’ve said all along is a there are not 20,000 jobs,” said 350.org founder and environmental advocate Bill McKibben. “The Fact Checker made clear those numbers are complete nonsense. Everybody knows where the jobs really are.”

The most likely place for new jobs is in renewables, according to McKibben.

“It's clear that if you're looking for serious growth in jobs in our economy, it's the only thing anyone can think of that might have the potential for real, big growth in the years to come,” he said. “Because the energy sector is so huge. It's 10 times bigger than IT, for instance. So there are real possibilities there.”

Growth in renewables has been huge in the past few years.

“There are already more people working in the solar industry than in the coal mines in this country,” McKibben said. “That's where the future is, but big oil is doing its best—big oil and dirty energy in general—is doing its best to hold back the future. And right now one of the ways they're holding back is trying to get a new artery for the dirtiest oil on earth out of Canada.”

The number of real, U.S. jobs the project is likely to create is likely much less than some estimates, and less than projected gains in the solar and other renewable energy industry could create in 2012. The extension of 1603 could create 37,000 more solar jobs in 2012 alone.

Protesters targeted Beohner because his reelection campaign has taken a lot of contributions from the industry, according to McKibben.

“The whole point is just to say, John Boehner's taken a lot of money from dirty energy—more than anybody in Congress,” he said. “And now he's carrying their water for them.”

The industry has put significant resources into the campaign.

“They've had 42 different lobbying firms working on it. When they took the vote in the House, the guys that voted in favor of Keystone, collectively, had taken $42 million in dirty energy money for their campaigns. That's the most relevant number in the whole thing,” McKibben said.

Image courtesy of Tar Sands Action by Josh Lopez.