Fix Decaying Pipelines First for Jobs, Health and Safety

With the Keystone XL pipeline stalled again, now perhaps we can look ahead and consider more promising ways to rebuild our energy system, creating many more jobs than that controversial project ever would. No matter where we look, the far larger issue that still confronts Americans is decaying infrastructure — which emphatically includes the enormous web of oil and gas pipelines crisscrossing the continental United States in every direction.When TransCanada CEO Russ Girling touted Keystone as an engine of employment on ABC News' "This Week" last Sunday, he insisted that its construction would create 42,000 jobs. Not only would his venture create those 42,000 "direct and indirect" jobs, boasted Girling, but also those positions would be "ongoing and enduring" rather than temporary like most construction jobs; he cited a State Department study that drew no such conclusions. A company spokesman later tempered Girling's pronouncements, more or less acknowledging that they had been grossly exaggerated. The number of permanent jobs after the construction would top out at about 50. With or without Keystone, the national economy already produces about 42,000 jobs every week, so it just wouldn't matter much.Read More.Source: Creators.Com/Joe Conason