MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Outgoing U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson yesterday expressed skepticism about job creation estimates for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

Speaking at Microsoft's Silicon Valley campus here, Jackson said she did not know what the Obama administration would decide on the TransCanada Corp. project, which would bring crude extracted from Alberta's oil sands to refineries in Texas.

To an audience question on the pipeline, Jackson's interviewer, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D), added her own query: "I read an article that you might be leaving before that decision is made, and I was wondering if that was any indication of where the decision was going." Jackson announced on Dec. 27 that she would be stepping down after four years in office.

"I will almost certainly be gone before that decision is made, and I don't know where that decision's going to come down," Jackson said.

The administration has signaled that a final decision could come within the next three months (E&E Daily, Jan. 4).

"I think through all of that process will come really important information about what the impacts of this are on groundwater quality, on potential pollution pathways, on real-life estimates of what it means from an economic perspective for our country, because proponents of the pipeline want to talk a lot about jobs and there's been a lot of, I think, inflation in terms of job estimates around this pipeline and what it needs."

Pressure has been building on President Obama on both sides of the issue. Activists opposing the pipeline stormed TransCanada's Houston offices this week (EnergyWire, Jan. 8). Industry leaders are expressing optimism that the pipeline will be approved. American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard this week said Obama could create thousands of new jobs immediately by approving Keystone (E&ENews PM, Jan. 8).

Jackson said the decision needs to follow the proper regulatory procedure. "I think it is too soon in the process," she said. "People don't like process around government, but on cases like this, I think a public process is absolutely vital and is really the only way to allow the public to believe that its government is acting in its interest."

On hydraulic fracturing, Jackson urged more study of the environmental effects, as EPA is currently doing. "I won't go so far as to whether we should import or export," she said in response to a question from Granholm. "I will say hydraulic fracking in my mind could be done safely, but the way to do it safely is not to walk away and say, 'Please don't hassle us because we need to get this done.'"

Oil companies are coming around to the idea of regulations on fracking, she said. "I think they're starting to realize that the American people have a long history with drilling and production activities and they're smart enough to be able to realize how intrusive they are and that they're not going to get the social license they need to operate by keeping regulation and governments at bay," she said. "So now the big debate has been: Should that be a federal-level regulation or a state-level regulation?"