MSNBC's Joe Scarborough Pushes Keystone Jobs Myth

Scarborough on Keystone

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough peddled the myth that building the Keystone XL pipeline would “create 50,000 new jobs,” even though independent fact checkers have called that figure false. The pipeline is projected to create as few as 50 permanent jobs.

The House of Representatives passed a bill to fast-track approval of the Keystone XL pipeline for the ninth time on Friday. A parallel measure will be considered in the Senate on Tuesday. The administration has indicated that it plans to delay approval of the pipeline while a legal challenge to the proposed route proceeds and suggested that President Obama would veto the effort to accelerate the process.

Scarborough questioned any decision to delay the pipeline on the November 17 edition of Morning Joe and wrongly claimed that the project would “create 50,000 new jobs.”

The implication that building the pipeline would create 50,000 jobs that don't currently exist is not true. As PolitiFact noted in calling similar job creation estimates false, many of the jobs that would be supported by the pipeline already exist, and the majority of the construction jobs that would be supported are short term.

“A State Department review found the project could support -- not create -- 42,100 jobs. But that number needs considerable explanation and does not amount to tens of thousands of full-time jobs in the most common sense of employment,” PolitiFact noted. “The figure represents the project's estimated direct, indirect and induced jobs over two years of construction, and all but 50 are temporary.”