Russ Girling, TransCanada CEO, the company building the Keystone Pipeline, was on ABC's This Week this morning and Martha Raddatz actually ventured into the territory of real journalism--mostly. She pressed him on the issues articulated in Obama's statement that the Canadian oil would be offloaded in New Orleans and sent elsewhere, having no effect of the price of gas in the U.S.
“Understand what this project is,” President Barack Obama said Friday.
“It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf where it will be sent everywhere else. It doesn’t have an impact on U.S. gas prices.”
Citing the State Department's "thousands and thousands of pages" on the subject, Girling maintained that 100 per cent of the oil transported by Keystone would be "used in the Gulf Coast." He then adds "that 100% of our shippers continue to say that the oil will come out of Canada and be delivered to the Gulf Coast . . . "
Now this would have been a perfect time for Raddatz to ask the obvious question, "where in the Gulf Coast will it be used?--Louisiana, Florida, Belize, Mexico, Venezuela?" Here Raddatz, teetered on the precipice of a true journalistic moment which could have provided her audience with some valuable information straight from the source, instead she let this one get away and allowed him to move on and claim that the project would create 9,000 jobs in the U.S.
Raddatz redeems herself, however, and cuts him off to ask this:
"There are others who say that jobs will not be so great, going as low as 4,000 jobs and that the jobs will only be here for a couple of years; the State Department--you mentioned the State Department--says that once the proposed project enters service operations would require approximately fifty total employees in the U.S."Girling swallows hard and stutters his way into a response.
"Yeah, uh, the uh, the uh State Department report details every type of job, uh and yes the actual operating jobs are about fifty but that doesn’t include all of the other jobs that come with it. As I said, the State Department report concludes about 42,000 jobs including all the direct and indirect jobs, and that's a fairly in-depth chapter . . . ”Raddatz again cuts him off, "For about two years."
Girling disagrees and says the 42,000 jobs are "enduring, ongoing" citing property tax revenue as the reason.
She cuts him off for the last time when the time allotted for the interview expires. If there had been any time remaining I'd like to think she would have pressed him on what exactly was meant by "direct" and "indirect" jobs, how many were full-time jobs and why he first claims 9,000 jobs but then eagerly embraces the 42,000 number; but alas, this was not a PBS or NPR interview.
For more follow below.