>> How many jobs after construction is completed?
Maybe in the hundreds, maybe a thousand, I don't know. Not 40,000. But not 35, either.
As I tried to point out, however, the jobs created aren't the only reason it ought to be done. Environmental safety, diversity of energy supply, jobs, etc., are all parts of a good reason.
>> The alternative is the existing pipeline. How is adding to the existing pipeline environmentally safer?
There is some pipeline capacity, but not enough. The remainder would have to be moved by rail, which is far more dangerous environmentally. This is just an ideological argument between left and right, much like the health care law -- not based on fact, but based on demagoguery.
The reality is that new pipeline is always better than old pipeline, and any pipeline is going to be better than moving it by rail. These are just irrefutable facts. So it is dumb to oppose it just because this person or that doesn't like petroleum as an energy source. Every drop of that oil is eventually going to be used, and most of it is going to be hauled through the United States. We might as well do it in the safest, most efficient way possible. |
