Betrayed by Biden: Oil and Gas Workers Reveal How They Feel About Biden Killing Keystone Pipeline
Fierce critics of the Biden administration are coming out of the woodworks to vocally oppose the president’s decision to kill the Keystone XL pipeline.
David and Kristina Dickerson of Texas, whose family has been supported by the oil and gas industry for decades, said that President Joe Biden left them behind.
“I had hopes I’d be up there welding on it — for someone, if not myself,” David said on “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning.
“I’ve been in this industry for 31 years. This about all I know how to do besides farm, and I can only do that until I go broke then I have to go back out and do that,” he continued.
Fox News host Steve Doocy asked about the impact it had on union workers, who typically support Democrats.
“It hurt everybody … we all depend on those jobs. And that was one that we’d been waiting on for a long time,” Kristina said.
“We’ve had to actually dip into our retirement and our 401k, just trying to survive until something like this come up,” David said. “We’ve been depending on this to happen and it just all of a sudden got ripped out from under us, and we’re not going to be able to do it now.”
“I feel pretty betrayed by it,” David later added. “They’re saying we’re saving the environment and taking care of that, but everybody needs to realize it’s a good thought, but it’s not a well-thought-out plan.”
“They’re all patting each other on the back for it, but they’re not doing anything but making their world a little less safe,” David said, referring to the fact that the oil would still be moved into the U.S. from Canada by rail, even with the pipeline down.
Biden signed an executive order revoking the pipeline’s permit on his first day in office, claiming that it would help signify a switch to renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
“The Keystone XL pipeline disserves the U.S. national interest. The United States and the world face a climate crisis. That crisis must be met with action on a scale and at a speed commensurate with the need to avoid setting the world on a dangerous, potentially catastrophic, climate trajectory,” the order said.
“At home, we will combat the crisis with an ambitious plan to build back better, designed to both reduce harmful emissions and create good clean-energy jobs.”
“Leaving the Keystone XL pipeline permit in place would not be consistent with my Administration’s economic and climate imperatives,” the order concluded.
As a result, TC Energy, the corporation that powered the pipeline, had to lay off 1,000 union workers in the United States and Canada, Bloomberg tweeted on Jan. 21.
TC Energy has let go 1,000 workers in both the U.S. and Canada after President Biden canceled the Keystone XL oil pipeline project https://t.co/OOzjDrI2Hw
— Bloomberg (@business) January 21, 2021
There would have been an estimated 11,000 temporary pipeline construction jobs available in the near future, according to a TC Energy news release in October, but now those will no longer be a possibility.
Several labor unions, including the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters, endorsed Biden, then later criticized his executive action.
With major union endorsements, it’s no surprise that families like the Dickersons feel betrayed.
Biden campaigned on being an advocate for blue-collar workers but ultimately stabbed them in the back.
Democrats used to be considered the party of the working class, especially in middle America. However, it seems that changing attitudes regarding energy and manufacturing have made the backbone of the United States feel forgotten.
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