Last week we provided a look at the somewhat clueless questioning in Congress over the Keystone XL pipeline by Congressman Edward Markey. (D-Mass) His line of questioning about the role of Canadian companies in oil transportation and the untapped potential for jobs coming from it here in the United States was … unusual, to say the least. This week, Jack Gerard, the President and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, made a valiant effort to provide a lifeline to Markey, or at least give him a chance to phone a friend.

“Some people still don’t get it. And some have resorted to various antics to distort the facts about our industry’s ability to create jobs, to provide an economic stimulus to our economy, and increase revenues to the federal government. We’re here today to clear up any confusion that was raised recently in a letter to API by Congressman Edward Markey. … His letter illustrates the typical misunderstandings about important industry facts and how that misunderstanding can lead to public policies that hinder, rather than help, job creation and economic growth.”

“Congressman Markey and other critics now appear to be calling into question the very use of multipliers to project job impacts. Not only is this concept accepted by almost all mainstream economists, but Dr. Wassily Leontief won a Nobel Prize for developing the input/output methodology that includes this effect. In fact, most recent estimates of jobs impacts, including estimates of the administration’s recent jobs proposal, include direct, indirect and induced effects in their calculations. The critical point is that indirect and induced jobs created by the oil and natural gas sector are real jobs that will employ real Americans.”

It’s curious that the people arguing against the job potential of domestic energy production would choose to cite the “inaccurate” practice of using multipliers (which take into account downstream jobs created by related industries who benefit from development) when the President’s own office used precisely the same tool to pitch job creation from The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Further, if you read through the rest of the linked API article, Markey sent a list of questions to API which demonstrate that he seems to have very little understanding of the tax structure as it applies to the energy industry or the full scope of precisely how many Americans work in related activities which all benefit from such development.

Seriously… this is who is helping to define our energy policy? Start saving up dried animal dung. You may have to start burning it this winter.