WASHINGTON— House Small Business Committee Chairman Sam Graves today issued the following statement on the Obama administration’s decision to deny a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline project:

“With an unemployment rate above 8 percent and an underemployment rate of 15 percent, I am completely bewildered at why this administration has decided to reject a true shovel-ready project that will create 20,000 direct jobs and about 118,000 spin-off jobs, many of them through small businesses. Of the 20,000 new direct jobs the Keystone pipeline would create for our starving economy, about 13,000 would be in construction and 7,000 more Americans would be hired to manufacture materials for the pipeline. This is not a partisan issue—both Republicans and Democrats alike support this job creation initiative. At a time of record unemployment, with 35 consecutive months of unemployment at or above 8 percent, our nation needs robust job creation projects like this Keystone pipeline. The President says that ‘we can’t wait’ to act on jobs, well… that’s not what his actions convey to the millions of unemployed Americans looking for work and small businesses that are struggling to stay open.”

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