Topic: CNSNews.com
Penny Starr writes in a Jan. 6 CNSNews.com article:
Jack Gerard, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, says President Barack Obama is “factually incorrect” to say that the Keystone XL Pipeline will not benefit Americans.
At the press conference in Washington Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Gerard about Obama’s remarks in November about the pipeline, which, if approved, would transport crude oil from Canada and from two U.S. states to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
Obama said at the time that the pipeline would only benefit Canada and would not have any impact on domestic gasoline prices.
CNSNews.com asked Gerard: “In November, President Obama said at a press conference – he was asked about the Keystone Pipeline and he said, quote, 'Understand what this project is. It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land down to the Gulf where it will be sold everywhere else.' Quote: 'It doesn’t have an impact on U.S. gas prices.'"
“Let me say first and foremost, what the president said is factually incorrect,” Gerard responded, citing the U.S. State Department’s report on the pipeline, which states that, among other benefits, the project would generate more than 42,000 jobs in the U.S. during the estimated two-year construction time frame.
Actually, Gerard is the one who's being "factually incorrect" -- and Starr is too busy shilling for the oil industry to call him out on it.
As we've documented the last time Starr peddled oil industry propaganda, the Keystone pipeline will not "generate" 42,000 jobs -- the vast majority of those jobs are temporary and would last only as long as the pipeline is being constructed, and a number of them already exist. The operation and maintenance of the pipeline after construction will create only about 50 jobs.
Starr also let Gerard misleadingly suggest that Canadian oil shipped through the pipeline will stay in the U.S. -- and, thus, lower U.S. oil prices -- because "all crude oil in the U.S. – including that from Canada – is banned from export." But neither Gerard nor Starr mention that there are no limits on the export of refined oil products.
Starr is also silent on the fact that Gerard's insistence that "crude oil exports will actually lower the cost of domestic price of gasoline" flies in the face of experience with natural gas exports, which have not lowered the price of natural gas in the U.S.
We know that CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, receives funding from the fossil fuel industry, but would it kill Starr to do a little actual reporting instead of serving as a stenographer, even if that what she's being paid to do?
