The Melfort Journal reports:
The energy infrastructure giant behind the Keystone XL pipeline says U.S. President Barack Obama has got his facts wrong on the project.
Calgary-based TransCanada is rejecting comments Obama made to the New York Times over the weekend, with the president raising doubts over the project’s employment potential.
On Sunday, TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard said, “We have and can factually rebut each point the President has made.”
“We have dealt with criticism of our job number totals for over two years and we stand by them. It is not logical to think a $7.6 billion infrastructure project stretching across the entire breadth of the continental U.S. wouldn’t employ thousands of workers both in the manufacturing sector and in constructing the pipeline.”
It’s true that, after construction, the XL will employ fewer people. That’s supposed to happen; once the Empire State Building was complete, the construction crews went to other jobs and a much smaller team of crafters managed the building. A pipeline is expected to run with a small team after the build. What’s wrong with that?
It was not a blunder. Obama’s lie made the front page of the Sunday NYT, and was surely referenced on TV & radio news on Sunday as gospel. Neither TransCanada nor common sense will counter the lie in time. In subsequent coverage of XL by old media, Obama’s false number will be quoted ad nausem. Obama is a horrible president but he is skilled propagandist for his leftist delusions.