by Thomas Catenacci
Fourteen Republican state attorneys general wrote a letter to the White House, informing the president they were reviewing all legal options over his decision to nix the Keystone XL Pipeline permit.
The officials told President Joe Biden they were writing to him “with alarm” and urged him to reconsider his Keystone XL Pipeline executive order in the letter sent Tuesday.
The Laborers International Union of North America (LiUNA) estimated that the executive order would kill thousands of current union jobs and tens of thousands of future union jobs.
“Please be aware that the states are reviewing available legal options to protect our residents and sovereign interests,” the attorneys general wrote. “In the meantime, we urge you to reconsider your decision to impose crippling economic injuries on states, communities, families, and workers across the country.”
Republican Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen led the coalition of attorneys general, which included the top legal officers from Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas. Montana’s portion of the proposed pipeline would have been 285 miles long and was expected to generate more than 4,000 jobs.
“Your decision will result in devastating damage to many of our states and local communities,” the officials wrote to Biden. “Even those states outside the path of the Keystone XL pipeline—indeed all Americans—will suffer serious, detrimental consequences.”
“Yet it appears you never considered these impacts on Montana and other states and entities,” they added.
The letter took issue with the Biden administration’s promise that laid off pipeline workers would be given “green jobs” in the future. Knudsen and the others said it was “cold comfort” for workers who are now jobless to be promised a job that doesn’t exist.
John Kerry, Biden’s climate czar, said that workers who lose their jobs due to the administration’s climate policies can find jobs making solar panels. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki wouldn’t say when laid-off union workers could expect a renewable energy job, during a press conference Monday.
Fox News’ Peter Doocy presses @PressSec about where laid off energy workers would go to get “green” jobs:
President Biden “laid out a plan that will not only create millions of good union jobs but also help tackle the climate crisis.”
pic.twitter.com/MNJauWzYoB— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 8, 2021
LiUNA, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the International Union of Operating Engineers and the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters all condemned Biden’s action. The four labor unions were a part of the Keystone contract.
“We cannot ‘Build Back Better’ by reflexively tearing down,” the attorneys general said in the letter.
“You have expressed a commitment to unite the Nation,” the letter continued. “If that is to be more than empty rhetoric, you must fully consider and account for the alarming effects your actions have on states, local communities, families, and workers.”
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Thomas Catenacci is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Joe Biden” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0. Background Photo “Keystone Pipeline” by shannonpatrick17. CC BY 2.0.
