It’s probably a safe bet that nearly everything this election year, including energy policy, is going to be viewed through the prism of jobs. And fair enough: the Great Recession cost us nearly 8.4 million of them, after a decade where America barely broke even on job growth. Surveys show the economy as the public’s overwhelming concern, beating out every environmental or international question.

No wonder, then, that proponents of the Keystone XL pipeline focused on its potential for creating jobs. No wonder also that clean energy advocates promote the potential of “green jobs” in a global economy that needs alternative energy sources. President Obama ended up endorsing an “all of the above” approach in the state of the