Fox Revives Debunked Myth To Inflate Number Of Sustainable Jobs Created By Keystone XL 

Happening Now: Keystone XL Will Create Over 40,000 Long-Term Jobs. On the November 12 edition of Fox News' Happening Now, host Heather Nauert and guest Kyle Harrington hyped the number of long-term sustainable jobs that would be created by the Keystone XL. Harrington called the Keystone XL pipeline “an opportunity for the country to create arguably over 40,000 jobs in the U.S. economy, and I'm talking about long-term, sustainable jobs.” [Fox News, Happening Now, 11/12/14]

Fox Host: Keystone XL Will Create “Tens Of Thousands Of Jobs.” On the November 6 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Anna Kooiman highlighted a Wall Street Journal op-ed penned by Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and applauded their plan to “approve the Keystone XL pipeline,” because it “would bring about tens of thousands of jobs.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 11/6/14]  

Fox's Wildly Inflated Sustainable Jobs Estimates Have Been Roundly Debunked 

PolitiFact Rates Fox's Claims Of “Tens Of Thousands” Of Keystone Jobs “Mostly False.” PolitiFact fact-checked Fox's claims that the Keystone XL pipeline would create “tens of thousands of jobs,” and rated the claims mostly false. Pointing out that although the State Department reported the pipeline could support 42,100 jobs, PolitiFact noted it would not necessarily create that many and that “more than 99 percent are temporary” jobs. PolitiFact also noted that the State Department's estimates show the pipeline would “only create 35 permanent, full-time jobs and 15 temporary contractors.” [PolitiFact, 11/11/14]

Cornell University Report: Permanent U.S. Jobs Could Be “As Few As 50.” A report by the Cornell University Global Labor Institute stated that the pipeline “will create no more than 2,500-4,650 temporary direct construction jobs for two years, according to TransCanada's own data supplied to the State Department.” It estimated that “the new permanent US pipeline jobs in the US number as few as 50.” [Media Matters, 2/14/13]