Keystone XL opponents need a jobs program

By Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith

Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline are taking a well-deserved victory lap. The Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada’s pipeline proposal — at least for now — represents an historic win for the environmental movement, and reveals the potency of the emerging alignment between the environmental, anti-corporate, Occupy, and other movements.

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But the Keystone campaign also exposed the perennial Achilles’ heel of those who are fighting against climate change: We are often painted by our opponents and perceived by the public as caring more about the environment than about jobs. In a press release titled “U.S. Chamber Calls Politically-Charged Decision to Deny Keystone a Job Killer,” the Chamber of Commerce said President Obama’s denial of the KXL permit was “sacrificing tens of thousands of good-paying American jobs in the short term, and many more than that in the long term.” And its messaging worked, with the media repeating the jobs vs. environment frame again and again. NPR’s headline was typical of many: “Pipeline Decision Pits Jobs Against Environment.”

This frame also resonated with the public....the promise of several thousand well-paying jobs represents a glimmer of hope in a dismal economy...Environmentalists often respond to charges that their policies are “job killers” with research demonstrating that investment in solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energy and conservation creates far more jobs than equivalent investment in fossil fuels. This is a well-documented fact, but a hypothetical future job doesn’t put food on an empty table today...There are a host of reasons to oppose the pipeline, from protecting native people in the tar-sands region to avoiding spills into a critical aquifer to preventing a catastrophic increase in climate-changing carbon emissions. But none of them will cut much ice with people who start from the assumption that jobs are simply more important right now than the environment.

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Where should those proposals come from? As the six labor unions that opposed the KXL pipeline permit pointed out, one source can be the jobs programs that Republican politicians are currently blocking in Congress, like the Restore the American Dream for the 99% Act, which would boost employment by almost 2.3 million jobs in 2012 and almost 3.1 million jobs in 2013; the extension of the Highway Trust Fund, which would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and provide for critical infrastructure repair; and initiatives to fund jobs for teachers, firefighters, and police. It’s time for the environmental movement to put the spotlight on the way climate-denying politicians are crying crocodile tears over a few hundred or thousand jobs while blocking millions of jobs unemployed American workers could be hired to do right now.

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http://grist.org/green-jobs/keystone-xl-opponents-need-a-jobs-program/