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‘Playing with our lives’: South Dakotans blast Biden nix of Keystone pipeline
Letters to the Editor — Feb. 1, 2021
Biden’s climate executive orders devastated these US workers in a day
WASHINGTON — White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Monday mocked a reporter who asked when workers on the cancelled Keystone XL pipeline would get “green jobs” promised by President Biden.
It’s expected that up to 11,000 jobs will be lost following Biden’s day-one decision to immediately shut down construction of the pipeline which was supposed to carry oil from Canada to Texas — leaving South Dakotans reeling and 1,000 people immediately out of work.
“Where is it that they can go for their green job?” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Psaki at her Monday afternoon press briefing, referring to Biden’s promise to create good-paying union jobs in the green energy sector as his administration attempts to end the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.
“That is something the administration has promised and there is now a gap so I’m just curious when that happens, when those people can count on that?” Doocy added.
“Well, I’d certainly welcome you to present your data of all the thousands and thousands of people who won’t be getting a green job,” Psaki snarked. “Maybe next time you’re here you can present that.”
“But you said they will be getting green jobs. I’m just asking when that happens?” Doocy responded, noting a report by the Laborers’ International Union of North America which found 1,000 union jobs on the Keystone project would “immediately vanish.”
Another 10,000 construction jobs expected to be created by the project have also been nixed by Biden’s decision.
Prominent union leader and Biden ally AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka lashed the decision in an Axios on HBO interview Sunday, saying Biden should have also announced where he would replace those lost jobs.
But Psaki swatted away the criticism and made a vague promise that Biden would put a jobs plan forward in the coming weeks.
“He has every plan to share more details on that plan in the weeks ahead,” she said when asked how Biden would support workers left jobless by the decision.
Biden’s climate czar John Kerry was also condemned by Republicans last month as “out of touch” when he suggested that energy and coal workers impacted by climate change efforts could “go to work to make the solar panels.”
Last month, the Biden administration unveiled its $2 trillion Green New Deal-fueled environmental plan which includes eliminating coal, oil and natural gas as electricity sources by 2035.
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