With the Senate nearing a vote on legislation to authorize construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, Business Roundtable President John Engler appeared on Neil Cavuto's program on Fox Business, making the case for the project to bring Canadian oil to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.

Cavuto set up the segment by asking about President Obama's recent comments from Asia, in which he more or less dismissed the jobs the project would create while arguing that the pipeline would only benefit Canada.

BRT's Engler observed that the State Department itself had estimated the pipeline project would create thousands of U.S. jobs, starting with the construction phase but also through the increased economic activity it would generate throughout the country. And as for Canada:

"Canada -- long-standing, great neighbor. Our largest source of petroleum, our greatest market, and we ought to be treating them better. And we ought to be getting the pipeline built, and we ought to be moving on to the other important energy issues. This is a great opportunity for North America. We ought to seize it."

Indeed, Business Roundtable believes that North America should be seen as a continental energy market, one that could potentially achieve real energy independence thanks to new technology -- hydrofracturing and horizontal drilling -- Canada's aggressive energy development and Mexico's recent reforms of its energy sector.

The Council on Foreign Relations devoted great attention to energy in its recent report, "North America: Time for a New Focus."

"It is time to put North America at the forefront of U.S. policy," the report says. "The development and implementation of a strategy for U.S. economic, energy, security, environmental, and societal cooperation with its two neighbors can strengthen the United States at home and enhance its influence abroad.

TransCanada CEO Russ Girling also detailed the economic benefits of the project to the United States in an interview on ABC's This Week. From the transcript, an exchange with the program's host, Martha Raddatz:

RADDATZ: Mr. Girling, I want your reaction to what President Obama said on Friday. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Understand what this project is, it is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land down to the Gulf where it will be sold everywhere else. It doesn't have an impact on U.S. gas prices...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RADDATZ: Your reaction to that, sir.

GIRLING: Well, I think that the State Department is quite clear on that. After six years and some thousands and thousands of pages, it comes to the conclusion that all of this oil will be used in the Gulf Coast. 100 percent of our shippers continue to say that the oil will come out of Canada and be delivered to the Gulf Coast. It will create 9,000 jobs. I know that it's going -- I'm going to hire those people to actually construct the pipeline. And the Department of State's own report says that it'll create 42,000 jobs, $3.5 billion of GDP increase in the U.S. economy, $2 billion in wages.

And critics cast the economic and employment benefits in the narrowest of terms, a tactic that Girling bracingly corrects:

I mean, just think about think about things like property tax, for example. We'll pay probably in the neighborhood of $50 million in property tax in those communities across which we traverse. There's about 29 counties we traverse, probably taxes will increase by 10 percent. At $50 million a year, will go to creating jobs...

The Senate vote, as we write, is up in the air. But on the economic merits, the Keystone XL pipeline's construction is a winner.