A recent vote in the U.S. House of Representatives calling for the building of the Keystone XL pipeline passed 241-175. Since supporters of the bill received six times as much in campaign contributions from the oil industry as opponents, $56 million total, that outcome should come as no surprise.
Six times anything is a lot. Try playing baseball with six times fewer players than the other team. That's basically you and a guy without legs against nine other players. (Additional baseball metaphors come to mind but the cats need feeding.)
Fox News once trumpeted the XL as providing over a million jobs. Then the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said "Well, actually, it's more like 250,000." But before the vote on the bill last week House Republicans claimed it's really more like 20,000. What's the real number? Who knows. Probably a lot less that 20,000, which is really moot as all the oil flowing through the pipe is destined for China. All of it, that is, that doesn't inevitably leak and poison the groundwater that the fracking industry hasn't already ruined.