House Speaker Boehner to Tie Keystone XL to Infrastructure Jobs Act

Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Challenges. Discussion »

50 US Pipeline Jobs

WASHINGTON - House Speaker John Boehner is at it again. Dissatisfied he could not get President Obama to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline after having a provision attached to the payroll extension he now wants to attach to tie the approval to a new jobs bill being introduced next week.

"All options are on the table. If it's not enacted before we take up the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, it'll be part of it,"

Boehner said of TransCanada's Keystone XL project, a 1,700 mile pipeline from Alberta in Canada to Texas in the United States on "ABC News This Week with George Stephanopoulos" program.

President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline on January 18 when he concurred with the US State Department it is not to serve the national interest to approve the pipeline without adequate time to fully analyze the environmental impact.

The pipeline would carry between 700,000 to 900,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

The proposed pipeline coming down through the Plains states has caused great concern, particularly among the Lakota in South Dakota because it would have crossed in two different locations the Mink Wiconi Rural Water pipeline. The Mink Wiconi Rural pipeline provides drinking water from the Missouri River to the Rosebud, Oglala and Lower Brule Lakota Nations.

The National Congress of American Indians opposes the Keystone XL pipeline.

Environmentalists oppose the project because of the greenhouse gas emissions and potential contamination of water supplies along the route.

The estimated total jobs that will be created from the proposed Keystone XL pipeline are in dispute. Congressional Republicans maintain the total number will be over 20,000. The Cornell University Global Labor Institute estimates the number of permanent US pipeline jobs to be as few as 50.

posted January 31, 2012 6:00 am est