The folks at FuelingJobs.com have created a petition urging President Obama to approve the project and with it a fantastic infographic which explains the importance of innovation in oil and gas. The information reminded me of when a union laborer family friend of ours who attends our church approached me about the topic. He listens to my program from time to time and recently thanked me for supporting the Keystone XL pipeline.

“People don’t understand just how many jobs this would create,” he explained, frustrated. “I would have employment out of this for the next several years, maybe even longer. Beats being laid off all the time.”

That’s just it: the popular Keystone XL pipeline is a jobs boon: think of the industry needed to create, build, sustain it and the ripple effect on businesses that also stand to benefit — not to mention an estimated gain of $172 billion to the our GDP. Canada is beating on our door, begging to give us free money and jobs, all Publisher’s Clearinghouse-like. Approving the Keystone XL pipeline would make President Obama honest as it is a shovel-ready, privately financed enterprise. Yes, unlike the failed stimulus, this stimulus requires no federal subsidy, taxpayers aren’t shouldering the burden, and it actually creates jobs. What’s more, the unions want it. (Democrats are in an odd position of deciding whom to offend: the squeaky wheel environmentalists whose concern is out-weighed by actual science, or the unions whose members are grumbling over high unemployment?) The oil will be extracted. The Keystone project is an innovative approach to addressing the problems which exist with current infrastructure: remote shutoff valves, thicker pipe, increased inspections, et al.

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