The Economic Grip by Drastic Green Policies

While President Joe Biden was on the 2020 campaign trail in the United States, he made it very clear and specific that his administration would kill the Keystone XL Pipeline, which in turn would end up leaving many Americans without a job. The Keystone XL Pipeline was responsible for transporting around 830,000 barrels of crude oil every day from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska in the United States. The pipeline served as a safe way of transportation versus transporting it by way of rail or trucks. In the United States, 70% of petroleum products are transported by pipeline, but when it comes to transportation by rail or trucks, it only comes to 7%. One would assume that if this were indeed about environmentalism, why would President Biden take away the safest method of transporting crude oil? The transportation of oil by rail and trucks is the more significant contender for accidents involving oil even though it is a small fraction of oil transportation than pipelines. A study indicated that from 2005 to 2009 that roadway transportation was averaging 19.5 accidents per billion-ton miles every year and 2.08 accidents a year when being transported by rail. Therefore, only 0.58 accidents were caused by pipelines.

According to the U.S. State Department, 26,100 indirect and direct jobs would have been the Keystone XL Pipeline project's employment outcomes had it continued through the construction process. Likewise, according to the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts, the U.S. oil industry is expected to contract by 20% in the next decade, including by 95% between 2031-2050. A continuation of extreme climate policies has had a harsh outcome to many economies around the world. For instance, Spain has been deemed to be a leading force for renewable energy. Which former U.S. President Obama singled out as an example in a 2009 speech, "We have enormous commercial ties between our two countries, and we pledged to work diligently to strengthen them, particularly around key issues like renewable energy and transportation, where Spain has been a worldwide leader and the United States, I think has enormous potential to move forward."

However, since 2000, Spain had spent 571,138 euros for every green job in addition to more than one million euros per job in the environmental wind industry. Thus, the programs in which were designed to create those green jobs, ended up killing at least 110,500 jobs in other areas of Spain’s economy. Likewise, for every green job created, 2.2 jobs in other areas of the economy were destroyed. The same as Spain, Italy has also experienced the same level of corruption in the green sector, Luciano Lavecchia and Carlo Stagnaro of the Bruno Leoni Institute completed a study that revealed that the average stock of capital per worker in the Renewable Energy Systems with an average stock capital per worker in the industry and the whole economy, found that an average ratio of 6.9 and 4.8. Hence, the same quantity of capital that generates one green job, would produce 6.9 or 4.8 in the overall economy. In Germany, wind and solar power have caused household prices to experience energy prices that have risen by 7.5%, which has caused Germany to have the highest electricity prices in the European Union. Whether here in the United States or in Europe, politicians have done more harm with climate policies than good, when it comes to a nation’s economy. An average of 11,000 people were expected to be employed due to the Keystone XL Pipeline, in which had the potential of adding $3.4 billion to the gross product market. But in the process of the pipeline’s cancelation, the Biden administration defeated the whole purpose of protecting the environment in doing so. As mentioned above, with this transportation method, transportation by rail or truck makes the environment more susceptible to the risk of oil spills and accidents.