On President Joe Biden's first day in office, he issued an executive order that revoked the presidential permit necessary for the cross-border construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline extension from Canada into the U.S. through which up to 830,000 additional barrels of oil per day would flow once the project was completed.

Now, thanks to the efforts of a pair of Republican senators, Biden's Department of Energy has quietly acknowledged the estimated numbers of lost jobs and lost revenue due to the permit revocation and ultimate cancelation of the proposed and partially built Keystone XL Pipeline extension, Fox News reported.

Energy Department compelled to issue Keystone XL report

As part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 that President Biden signed into law that year, there was a provision inserted by Sens. Steve Daines (R-MT) and Jim Risch (R-ID) that required the Department of Energy to issue a report with estimates of the lost jobs and revenue due to the permit revocation for the pipeline project.

That report was supposed to have been issued within 90 days of the law going into effect in November 2021 but was ultimately released more than a year later without any publicity just days before Christmas 2022.

The belated DOE report, which drew ranged estimates from four separate prior studies on the economic and labor impacts of the Keystone XL Pipeline extension project, attempted throughout to downplay said impacts as insignificant and unsubstantial, but the numbers tell a somewhat different story.

Lost jobs and revenue

In terms of jobs, the report suggested that only around 50 permanent jobs would be necessary to keep the completed pipeline extension project operational.

As for the two-year-plus construction period for the project, though, one estimate ranged from 3,900 direct jobs and 21,050 total jobs while a separate estimate suggested anywhere from 16,149 to 59,000 direct and indirect jobs would be created, though the report cautioned that the higher end of that estimate included jobs in Canada and on parts of the Keystone XL Pipeline network that were not part of the extension project in question.

With regard to the anticipated economic impact of the completed project, estimates ranged from $3.12 to $9.61 billion in additional revenue for the nation's gross domestic product, as well as an estimate of $6.01 to $20.93 billion in business sales from which an unspecified amount of tax revenue would be derived.

Furthermore, the report denoted that lost personal income from the anticipated jobs that were never realized were estimated to range from $1.36 to $6.5 billion, while the estimated lost personal income per job was pegged between $42,047 and $54,651 annually.

Negative impact of Biden's decision has finally been admitted

Nearly two weeks after that DOE report was quietly released just before Christmas, Sens. Daines and Risch issued joint statements on the admission from the Biden administration that the president's actions on Day One had cost America a non-trivial amount in lost revenue and good-paying jobs -- to say nothing of the negative impact his decision has had on American energy independence and domestic energy production and refinement.

"The Biden administration finally owned up to what we have known all along -- killing the Keystone XL pipeline cost good-paying jobs, hurt Montana’s economy and was the first step in the Biden administration’s war on oil and gas production in the United States," Daines said. "Unfortunately, the administration continues to pursue energy production anywhere but the United States."

The Montana senator added, "These policies may appeal to the woke Left, but hurt Montana’s working families. I’ll keep fighting back against Biden’s anti-energy agenda and supporting Montana energy projects and jobs."

Risch said, "The Department of Energy finally admitted to the worst kept secret about the Keystone Pipeline: President Biden’s decision to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline sacrificed thousands of American jobs."

"To make matters worse, his decision moved the U.S. further away from energy independence and lower gas prices at a time when inflation and gas prices are drastically impacting Americans’ pocketbooks," the Idaho senator added. "The President must turn to American-made energy and jobs rather than dictators and despots to fix the energy crisis he created on his first day in office."