Democrat: 20,000 Jobs Is Not That Many

I'm sure the jobless pipeline workers and others who would have been connected to the Keystone XL pipeline project are comforted by that:

Chicago Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Ill.) drew fire from Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) on Wednesday when she dismissed the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, suggesting the 20,000 jobs it could create were relatively insignificant in the scheme of the greater economy.

“Twenty thousand jobs is really not that many jobs, and investing in green technologies will produce that and more,” she said on Chicago’s WLS Radio Don Wade and Roma Show on Wednesday morning. “But I’ll tell you what, you know it seems to me that the Republicans would rather have an issue than a pipeline.”

Coats, a vocal proponent of the project, which would transport oil from Alberta, Canada, to America’s Gulf Coast, swiftly responded in a separate interview on the same show later on Wednesday morning, suggesting Schakowsky has spoken insensitively.

“Tell that to the 20,000 people that woke up this morning and didn’t have a job to go to,” said Coats. “ ‘Well, these don’t really matter’ — I mean, this not only is jobs, this is less dependence on Middle East oil.”

“And here we have, you know, the president talking about becoming energy independent, but he turns down the easiest way to do that,” the freshman senator continued.

Gasoline has risen over 25 cents a gallon in So Cal the last few weeks and is now on a steady rise toward $4 (or perhaps $5). Canceling the Keystone pipeline is contributing to the market feeling that supplies will become ever shorter in the U.S. because this nation is no longer serious about dealing with its energy problems, but instead wants to focus on mythical "green" jobs.