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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace that the GOP anticipated attaching demands to the upcoming debt ceiling vote scheduled for early February, potentially instigating another showdown of the type experienced last October that nearly triggered a default and resulted in disastrous poll numbers for Republicans.

“We ought to attach something significant for the country to [Obama's] request to increase the debt ceiling,” McConnell said.

“Any specific idea?” Wallace asked.

“Keystone Pipeline‚ a good example of something that would create jobs for the American people,” McConnell said. http://www.mediaite.com/tv/sen-mcconnell-gop-will-attach-demands-to-de
bt-ceiling-vote/

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Cornell GLI Study Finds Keystone XL Pipeline Will Create Few Jobs

Previous Studies Are Misleading; Project May Kill More Jobs Than It Creates

Cornell GLI’s new report, "Pipe Dreams? Jobs Gained, Jobs Lost by the Construction of Keystone XL" ( http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/globallaborinstitute/research/upload/GLI_Ke
ystoneXL_012312_FIN.pdf) examines the job impacts of TransCanada Corportation's Keystone XL Pipeline, the proposed pipeline that would transport tar sands oil almost 2,000 miles from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. The report reviews claims made by TransCanada and the American Petroleum Institute that the project will create 20,000 construction and manufacturing and 119,000 (direct, indirect and induced) jobs.

The report concludes that the job estimates put forward by TransCanada are unsubstantiated and the project will not only create fewer jobs than industry states, but that the project could actually kill more jobs than it creates. Main findings include:

--The project budget that has a direct impact on U.S. employment is between $3 and $4 billion or about half of what industry claims.

--50% or more of the steel pipe, the main material input used for Keystone XL, will be manufactured outside of the U.S.

--Jobs will be temporary and between 85-90% of the people hired to do the work will be non-local or from out of state.

--The Perryman study, which estimates around 119,000 (direct, indirect and induced) jobs is a poorly documented study commissioned by TransCanada.

--Job losses would be caused by additional fuel costs in the Midwest, pipeline spills, pollution and the rising costs of climate change. Even one year of fuel price increases as a result of Keystone XL could cancel out some or all of the jobs created by the project. http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/globallaborinstitute/research/keystonexl.ht
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