Keystone XL Pipeline Workers Speak Out About Lost Jobs Following Biden Cancellation of Project
“This is not a time to be making political statements. We need to be finding ways to put more Americans back to work, not the other way around”
Joe Biden’s decision to eliminate the Keystone XL Pipeline is killing jobs and hurting Americans. Unions that endorsed Biden are already speaking out against the decision.
So are the workers who are losing their jobs.
Teny Sahakian reports at FOX News:
Laid-off Keystone XL worker says decision to cancel pipeline ‘is going to hurt a lot of people’
In his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to halt the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which was meant to transport Canadian crude oil to the U.S., citing the climate-change crisis as the reason.
The move swiftly eliminated the estimated 11,000 U.S. jobs – including 8,000 union jobs – the project would have sustained in 2021.
Neal Crabtree, a welding foreman who began working on pipeline construction as an apprentice in 1997, was dismayed when he heard the news.
“This is not a time to be making political statements. We need to be finding ways to put more Americans back to work, not the other way around,” he said in an interview with Fox News.
A member of Pipeliners Local Union 798, one of four unions whose members will be left without work due to the pipeline’s cancellation, the 46-year-old welder from Arkansas was among the first to be laid off following the order. At the time the cross-border permits for the pipeline were rescinded, he and his team were in Nebraska working on a pump station for Keystone XL.
See Mr. Crabtree’s video below:
Laid-off Keystone XL worker: Biden's canceling of the Keystone pipeline “is going to hurt a lot of people, a lot of families, a lot of communities” pic.twitter.com/eoOc91Vhkg
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 26, 2021
Here’s a video from a manager on the Keystone XL Pipeline:
General Manager working on the Keystone XL pipeline: “hundreds of guys” have already been laid off because of Biden's executive order to halt construction of the pipeline
— Abigail Marone (@abigailmarone) January 25, 2021
Here’s one more. Strong language warning:
https://twitter.com/001Mellie/status/1352956890054094850
The left and the media are already rushing to Biden’s defense and downplaying the loss of jobs. Check out the ruling from ‘Politifact’ below, via WRAL News:
PolitiFact ruling
A Facebook post says that Biden’s executive order revoking the Keystone XL pipeline “is destroying 11,000 jobs.”
That number is an estimate, and the claim lacks context about the longevity of Keystone jobs.
TC Energy said more than 1,000 people are out of work because of Biden’s executive order. In October, the company said it expected to employ more than 11,000 Americans in 2021 and generate more than $1.6 in gross wages.
But both TC Energy and the State Department have said the majority of those jobs would be temporary. A 2014 report found that the company would need only 50 employees to maintain the Keystone XL pipeline once it’s finished, 35 of them permanent.
Temporary jobs are still jobs. But this post could leave the wrong impression without full context. We rate it Half True.
Killing the Keystone XL Pipeline was a dumb and destructive idea. It is killing jobs and will threaten our energy independence. No amount of media spin will change this.
Featured image via Twitter video.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Nothing helps your economy as much destroying jobs and raising the price of energy. We will be in the land of milk and honey soon.
Gov’t policies that increasing energy prices constitute an indirect tax on people.
Biden’s combination of direct and indirect taxes with place a severe burden on the US economy.
Biden is not destroying jobs. He is exchanging them.
50K Oil Worker Jobs are being exchanged for 50K Soldier jobs in Syria.
Plus, think of all the new secondary jobs Biden will be creating for Gravediggers and Prosthesis makers.
Looking at the way he is treating the military, he might have some difficulty finding enough enlistees to maintain his foreign wars. Which could lead to a reactivation of selective service conscription. Under the law as it stands, they can draft you from age 18-65 if they declare it reactivated. I admit that I would pay a nickel to see that mayhem.
Subotai Bahadur
the sad and nasty truth is that all this new energy politics increases the price of energy, electricity.
Here in Europe ?? , especially Germany ?? we now have mass energy poverty.
Green policies “criminalize” electricity consumption.
Poor people can no longer pay for their electricity. And energy costs are one of the largest production costs.
His Fraudulency & the Hoe looking out for the little people.
There is a good side to this, they are alienating more of their base all the time, causing them to desert the Democrats.
I’d rate this statement as half-true.
I’d rate most all of quid pro slo joe’s statements as lies.
Besides, as Biden told people at one of his appearances, “I don’t need your vote!”. Votes are no longer needed, as Biden told us.
The problem with your theory is that the election process is fair… since it is not and the judiciary is corrupt well…. they will get there way even if they have some defectors.
Well, you boys bet wrong.
I’m already seeing buyer’s remorse in this job sector and the states that have said jobs.
You asked for this, don’t blame me.
I voted for neither one of them.
If you didn’t vote for Trump you in effect voted for Biden
Aren’t you proud!
I’m predicting $5 gas by year end and unemployment between 8 -10%.
Joe Biden is the wrong guy at the wrong time.
“Don’t Underestimate Joe’s Ability to F**k Things Up” – attributed to Barack Obama.
People knew the left were going to target the oil industry and fracking. Biden was on record saying this but they chose to believe the media spin and lies during the campaign. Elections have consequences.
They SHOULD HAVE known. They MIGHT HAVE known if there were any truth coming from the media. But there isn’t.
Elections have consequences. You endorsed him, you get the “benefits” of doing so. I know that’s harsh but hopefully they’ll learn going forward.
The problem is the left isn’t the only group reaping the benefits of Biden’s wisdom.
The political ads for 2022 and 2024 are writing themselves. This is a another truly stupid decision.
The oil, at some of it, will now be moving by truck and train instead of a pipeline. How is that any better for the environment? It isn’t, in fact the risk of spills and environmental contamination have been increased not decreased due to this stupidity.
More of President Biden being an empty vessel and allowing himself to be used by the extremists d/progressive. Truly stupid with more to follow. Folks will see and remember the difference in prices.
WHAT political ads in 2022 and 2024???? Vote fraud is now institutionalized by the Democrats. What counts is who announces what they claim are the vote totals. While there may be SOMETHING called elections in those years, the vote totals will be ready for announcement months before.
The Constitutional Republic and the rule of law with the consent of the governed no longer exist. The sooner that is realized, the better.
Subotai Bahadur
HB1 erases all anti-fraud measures in elections, not that, as we have seen, current measures are enforceable. Political ads are irrelevant.
47 years of failure and lies, but 2020 was supposed to be different? biden lost anyway, by a lot. It’s going to come out sooner or later. Probably sooner.
Nothing will come out! Everyone that claims to have “Kraken” bet it Rudy, Powell or the Pillow character have dropped nothing
The democrats just finished politicizing Covid19 to tank the economy in the run-up to the 2020 election. Why would they bother worrying about a few fossil fuel related jobs that they want eliminated anyway?
It’s fun to watch Dims demand the COVID relief bill right now and forget that it was Piglosie who refused to pass COVID relief before the election.
I am sure McConnell and the rest of the Franz von Papen Republicans are giddy with anticipation of the Trump-less GOP sweeping the elections in 2022.
They really don’t understand how Communist dictatorships work, do they?
Boo. Freaking. Hoo.
Like the democrat lemmings they are, these goofballs and their union ASKED for this. So now they get to reap what they have sown.
And, no, it is NOT the “evil union leadership.” Union leaders are there because THE MEMBERS VOTED THEM IN.
Those that voted for Biden sure got what they deserved.
There is no excuse for them: all they had to do was do due diligence before voting.
However, while Biden likely got 100% of the union bosses’ vote, its unlikely he got a majority of the workers’ vote.
And are they going to change their leadership over this endorsement?
No?
Then shut up about who or what they voted for.
Which is EXACTLY why the union leadership did this. They face no consequences for endorsing somebody that cost their union thousands of jobs, and they were well taken care of because their endorsement delivered votes for Biden.
Until the union punishes their leadership for this, I don’t give a shit what they whine about.
Too bad that voting doesn’t matter any more or the Dems might pay a price for this.
Funny, but I didn’t hear anything about these guys learning to code.
This economy is fading. It can absorb some of the damage at first, but it will collapse at an increasing rate under these destructive policies. Simply unbelievable.
I worked in several union jobs and I can tell you one thing never trust them. They work for themselves, not the dues payer.
I’ve had two unionized jobs. The first one, the union drove the company into bankruptcy and left over 10,000 of us unemployed flooding the industry. Not a lot of jobs to be had at that point. I was in my early twenties and lost not only my job, but my apartment, and if not for unemployment I would have lost my car too. As it was, I had the option of moving back in with my parents for a while, otherwise, I’d have been sleeping in the back of my car. Second union job was as a teacher. Crap contracts that the school violated left and right, and the union would barely stir themselves to step in until teachers threatened to stop paying dues.
I bet these insular fucks had no idea there would be a downside to their green economy.
This will never make it to CNN.
Funny how all those BLM types justify their violent sectors with an MLK quote “Riots are the tool of the unheard.”
Why does that not swing both ways? Oh yea, I forgot, everything is to re-separated by race and everyone treated differently with different sets of rules and standards to live up to.
And yet liberals still smugly tell working people that they are voting against their best interests if they do not support the Democratic candidate.
At least a decade ago I figured out that leadership of both parties feed at the same trough. All that time choice was about finding out which was the least worse.
And the Trump came on the scene, a new person in a sea of mostly bad politicians. So I gambled on him.
Damned if he didn’t turn to be a real person, with principals, who actually work to deliver on his campaign promises.
He understood the swamp as much as anyone could, and he disrupted business as usual. He was so effective, and they were so desperate, that they committed election fraud on a grand scale.
The swamp has also exposed themselves in a way that they never had before.
Now is time for open season.
C’mon man, you’re a dog-faced pony soldier and you ain’t a worker if you don’t vote for me. (attributed to J. “46” Biden)
What people are not getting is that to the Left lost of private sector jobs especially in the fossil fuel industry is a feature not a bug. Anything that has a potential of increasing dependency on the federal government it’s subsequent growth is just Jim Dandy to them. You can be certain that massive job losses will become a crisis that the Left will not let go to waste.
One of the big goals of the Left is the erosion if not outright elimination of the whole concept of statehood as it is found in the Constitution and our history. We can look forward to 4 years of a “Handful of gimmees and a mouthful of much obliged.” from our D.C. betters.
Oh and by the way, building Utopia is a damned bloody business. Those scythes are sharp.
When has the “green economy” EVER produced good jobs? They are such liars.
Unions tend to unilaterally support Democrat candidates. I do believe Biden said he would do this, so what did they expect? How many of these unemployed workers voted for him? And how many who didn’t can afford to admit it?
If they voted for Biden, they got exactly what they asked for
So, how do we know that they, or anyone else voted for Biden? If we were sure that the results of the election were legitimate, then your statement would have some merit. As it is, it is simply speculation.
It’s safe to say that a majority of them did vote for Biden. They voted for the leadership knowing exactly who the leadership was going to endorse.
This is all find and dandy to gripe and complain and insinuate that Biden is this or that sort of SOB etc., but it all falls on deaf ears. No one (except for the workers and some others) cares a whit. Come 2024, they’ll be voting for the democrats again because 4 years is enough time to forget everything.
Besides when the 2024 election is here, history will have restarted and the Winston Smiths among the media and deep state will have done their job.
This is inescapable.
Maybe young people can forget the loss of a job in 4 years. Middle aged people don’t.
GF grew up in communist country. Her first question for anyone who complains: “Oh, who did you vote for?”
Biden promised to shut down the pipeline if elected. Biden fraudulently elected. Biden shuts down Pipeline. Union officials shocked.
Rank and file union members are upset, but are they upset enough to not re-elect their Lefty labor leaders? My question assumes that there are free and fair elections for union leaders.
Justice for Ashli Babbitt!
I was a labor reporter for a metropolitan daily newspaper, and can attest that, even in the cleanest unions (and most of them were clean) the internal politics are a rat’s nest. This is especially true within the skilled trades — the “AFL” of the AFL-CIO.
While I can’t help but feel a tinge of schadenfreude, my reaction is tempered by the knowledge that individual union members typically have little voice. To blame them, as tempting as it is, makes about as much sense as blaming me for WA State Gov. Jay Inslee, a lying moron who I’ve never voted for and never will.
Think of the billions that went to green energy jobs under Barack. Ok that was wasted money that got nothing in return. But they are some good graft paying jobs if you know the right Leftists.
Solyndra! A moneymaker if there ever was one!
Terrible decision on Xiden’s part, but I can’t help but feel a touch of schadenfreude as it concerns that union and its members.
On the contrary. One of the big failures of American society today is that the consequences of stupidity so rarely fall on the stupid.
Surprised Basement Joe/#Notmypresident & Heels Up Harris didn’t want to keep building the pipeline down to the Mexican border so that it could be re-purposed to give safe passage thru our country so those poor folks from the “South” can use it to get safe passage to Canada for good jobs and healthcare.
Hey union guys who voted for quid pro slo joe. Listen up.
Coding 101 at your local community college should fill up fast so get a headstart and put in your application for a spot right TF now.
The stupidity of this is that we will still need the same amount of oil and will still emit the same amount of emissions.
I wouldn’t call it stupid, I’d call it evil.
This would be true in a healthy and robust construction industry. But the pipeline industry is neither healthy nor robust. Between the activism and the ever-changing conflicts in political posturing, pipeline companies are unwilling to invest in long term projects. In a robust industry, if a job gets canceled, the construction hands can roll over to another project. But there aren’t any other projects to roll to. Obama, Biden, and their ilk have made sure of that.
I rate this rating as mind-bogglingly ignorant of how things actually work.
Didn’t the union lemmings vote for this brain dead sack of crap?
Biden wants to duplicate the Obama economy by having many more people out of work.
Translation: I voted for Biden, but let’s put that behind us and move on bipartisanly.
Response: No. We’re going to have a dialog in the other room with the Trump voters. The rest of you, sit here and STFU. You’re the entire reason the rest of us are f*d, and you clearly don’t have any ideas worth listening to.