Business Group Condemns Pipeline Approvals

The pipelines will primarily benefit the bottom line of the fossil fuel industry.

Image: Social Venture Network

(WASHINGTON D.C.) - Businesses are speaking out against President Donald Trump's actions allowing the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines to go forward.

Trump signed executive orders on Tuesday clearing the way for pipeline construction to proceed under terms his administration will negotiate.

David Levine, CEO and co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council - representing more than 250,000 business owners, executives and investors - says the move will harm businesses by accelerating carbon pollution and climate change.

"Polling that we've done of businesses across political alignment has shown us that they've already been impacted by climate change," said Levine.

"Therefore, it's having a tremendous business and economic impact."

Trump said the Keystone XL pipeline, carrying tar sand oil from Canada to refineries in Texas, would create 28,000 jobs. But according to Levine, those jobs will do little to help local economies over the long term.

"These are short-term jobs that will disappear within several years," he said. "And what we know is that this does not sustain strong economic growth."

He maintains that the pipelines will primarily benefit the bottom line of the fossil fuel industry.

Levine points out that investments in energy-efficiency and renewable-energy technologies now are creating three to four times more jobs than oil and gas.

"And these jobs are sustained over the longer term, not in this 'boom and bust' economy that moving forward with the Keystone pipeline or other fossil-fuel pipeline projects will get us," he added.

In December, the World Economic Forum announced that renewable energy is now as affordable or even cheaper than fossil fuels in more than 30 countries.

Source: Social Venture Network