The Biden administration is really good at lying, but not so good about covering it up.
When Joe Biden put the kibosh on the Keystone XL Pipeline, they brushed off any possible job creation and economic impact it could have had because it was not yet open.
Then guess what happened? The Department of Energy (DOE) went ahead and did a study that showed just how much this project not moving forward hurt the country.
Crushing
So, as it turns out, this had a much larger impact than we initially thought.
The DOE completed the study in December, but never said a word, as though we would never find out about it.
When the DOE was pressed about the study, it cherry-picked the numbers, stating, "The U.S. Department of Energy released a report evaluating existing analysis on economic and job effects of the XL portion of Keystone pipeline.
"It concluded there were limited job impacts, with approximately 50 permanent jobs estimated to have been created were the pipeline operational."
It failed to report the jobs during the construction phase of the project, which is where the real money was going to be made. The benefit once it was up and running was in helping the United States become more energy independent.
From what I can remember, estimates were that there would have been about 20,000 jobs including the ancillary jobs that would have been created. Well, that was a lowball number, as the study found it would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs during the construction phase of the project.
The economic impact was far worse, robbing our economy of somewhere between $3.4 billion and, wait for it, $9.6 billion. I guess that would explain why the DOE never said anything about the study.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) jumped all over the report.
He stated, "The Biden administration finally owned up to what we have known all along — killing the Keystone XL Pipeline cost good-paying jobs, hurt Montana's economy and was the first step in the Biden administration's war on oil and gas production in the United States.
"Unfortunately, the administration continues to pursue energy production anywhere but the United States."
He continued, "These policies may appeal to the woke left but hurt Montana's working families. I'll keep fighting back against Biden's anti-energy agenda and supporting Montana energy projects and jobs."
The report was forced because Daines and Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) added the study to Biden's big infrastructure bill in November.
Source: Fox News