Keystone Addendum

Here is an addendum to my recent post on Keystone XL. It is taken from my next column for South Dakota Magazine.

Once the pipeline is in operation, it will provide much needed relief to governments in the form of state and local taxes.

According to the State Department's Final Environmental Impact Statement, the pipeline project would add an additional $15.4 million to the annual property tax revenues of nine South Dakota counties.

Meade, Lyman, and Perkins counties would see annual revenue increases ranging from 38 to 48%.

Tripp County would see an increase of 150%.

Haakon and Jones Counties would enjoy three times the annual property tax revenues that they brought in over 2006.

The grand prize winner will be Harding County. Its revenues would nearly quadruple, from $876,254 to $3,346,244!

Nor is Pierre left out. The state will rake in about eight and a half million from the project development.

 

Comments

[Donald Pay]

These figures are 25 percent lower than other figures calculated by others out there, which brings up the questions as to how all these so-called benefits to this project are calculated. Have you considered what some of the costs might be? Do you realize there are road damages and other costs associated with this project?

My experience in South Dakota (starting with the Oahe Project and going through heap leach gold mining) has been that there is a massive overselling of the benefits of large-scale projects, and a massive understatement of the costs of these projects. The power elite in South Dakota love these projects because they profit off them, and never end up paying the costs. What will be the cost to provide massive electricity increases to this project? There will have to be a lot of infrastructure built to service the building and operation of this project. This is crony capitalism writ large.

[George Mason]

Donald; Is that the type of overselling of a trillion dollars worth of "stimulus?" Or perhaps half a billion given to someones campaign contributors to create jobs in the solar business? Keystone will actually produce benefits unlike flushing money down the rat hole of solar, wind and obama contributors. You want to decry crony capitalism you better examine whose capital (the taxpayers) is going to whose cronies.

[Donald Pay]

Yes, Keystone will provide benefits (oil to China) and cause fuel costs to rise in the Midwest. The pitiful amount that might be provided in property taxes are pocket change compared to the higher fuels costs people in the Midwest will pay because the oil carried to the Gulf by Keystone XL will be exported, not used here.

I don't see KB or George talking much about the costs of this project. You mouth the propaganda of the corporate elite and the South Dakota power elite who are always at the ready to sell out South Dakota for a few bucks in their pocket. They don't care what the costs are to average South Dakotans, as long as they get paid off. That's always been the case, and always will be. Prove me wrong. Assess the benefit/cost ratio for South Dakota.

[George Mason]

OK Donald please provide us with the costs. This is a private company not the government (you seem to have a problem making the distinction). Any costs will be born by them. The benefits will be in increased employment. This will put pressure on the labor market and increase wages. This will benefit everyone (except you of course). You still have yet to explain the logic of your friends sending $500 million public dollars down the rat hole at solyndra( your beloved solar).

[Donald Pay]

I'm no expert on this project, but just from what I've been reading it's really not going to provide much economic boast to South Dakota. Increased employment? How many permanent jobs will be created in South Dakota? I would guess about 5-10. Sure there will be some construction jobs, which the State Department estimated at between 121-303. Only 10-15 percent of these will come from the local pool of employees, because building pipelines requires special skills not available in South Dakota. The State Department's jobs multiplier appears to be unrealistic.

http://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Global%20Warming/Tar-Sands/Keystone_XL_Jobs_11-09-10.ashx

Costs would include, of course, the price increase in gasoline as a result of transferring the oil from the captive Midwest market to the export market. Estimates of this increased price is 20 cents per gallon.

http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Policy-Solutions/Drilling-and-Mining/%7E/media/78572E0A993F4E298F8BC7569B357D14.ashx

We haven't even gotten to the costs associated with spills of the product transported through the pipeline. Here is a publication on some of those issues. If you think all those costs are borne by the pipeline company, guess again.

http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Policy-Solutions/Drilling-and-Mining/%7E/media/78572E0A993F4E298F8BC7569B357D14.ashx

[George Mason]

Donald; haven't you anything besides notoriously dishonest left-wing web sites? If the luddites would face up to reality refineries could be built and expanded in the miwest (and elsewhere) providing well paying jobs for construction and O&M. But of course expanding employment (and lower energy costs)is not what the professionl malcontents have any interest in. Destroying the national economy is their goal so they can create the dictatorship of the proletariat (which unfortunately means people who thnk(?) like you). The ultimate end is to drive everyone into poverty except for the annointed. Those of us who are sane and rational are thankful that January of 2013 is only 15 months away.

[Donald Pay]

George, read the links. The information in them comes from many sources, not all of which are from "left-wing websites." By the way, the National Wildlife Federation is not a part of the left in any sense of the word.

Yes, Keystone XL will lower energy prices---in China!!! I really don't care that much about the price of oil here, but I thought appealing to the righties limitless self-interested greed might cause them to rethink their nearly reflexive slavery to the oil industry. I guess this is just one more example where George, KB and the other bought-off righties put the fossil fuel industry above agriculture and other Midwest interests.

From my perspective, higher energy prices in the Midwest and the inevitable leaks from the pipeline will make alternative sources of energy all that more appealing, which is really where we should be going with our energy policy. So, one of the likely results of the Keystone XL project will be the increasing attractiveness of alternative energy sources, and the increasing disgust with the righties who foist such ill-advised projects on the public.

[KB]

Donald: I have sympathy for your self-imposed stupidity with regard to basic economics, but when you refer to me as a "bought off righty", that is another thing. That makes you a liar.