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On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to halt construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which was to carry Canadian crude oil to the United States, citing the climate change crisis as the reason.
The move quickly eliminated the estimated 11,000 jobs in the United States – including 8,000 unionized jobs – that the project would have supported 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.
“Now is not the time to make political statements. We need to find ways to get more Americans back to work, not the other way around,” he said in an interview with Fox News.
A member of Local 798 of Pipeliners, one of four unions whose members will be left without work due to the pipeline cancellation, the 46-year-old welder from Arkansas was among the first to be fired at the continuation of the order. By the time the cross-border permits for the pipeline were canceled, he and his team were in Nebraska working on a pumping station for Keystone XL.
In a Wednesday Facebook post, Crabtree wrote that he felt “an uneasy feeling in my stomach and pain in my heart,” and admitted to collapsing and crying in his truck after laying off his team.
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“Just like the rest of the country, COVID has hurt us. We’ve had a lot of canceled projects,” he told Fox News. “We have guys who haven’t worked for months, and in some cases years, and having a project of this magnitude canceled is going to hurt a lot of people, a lot of families, a lot of communities.”
After a year of economic devastation brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, the move has left those affected by it feeling more abandoned than ever.
Asked about the thousands of union jobs lost last week, Transport Secretary candidate Pete Buttigieg said the move was part of a larger plan that would end up being a net positive for jobs.
“We are very excited to see these workers continue to work in well-paying union jobs, even though they may be different,” Buttigieg said.
“I don’t consider this a job, I consider it a career,” Crabtree said in response to the statement. “You spend your life honing your skills and if you start another job, you start at the bottom. I doubt these politicians would like someone to tell them to start over and find another job.
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Opposition to the construction of Keystone XL, first proposed in 2008, has become a rallying cry for climate change activists in recent years. Although President Obama rejected the pipeline in 2015, President Trump gave it the green light once in office.
According to the Biden administration, the repeal of his permits is one of many “critical first steps to tackle the climate crisis, create good union jobs and advance environmental justice, while overturning harmful policies of the ‘previous administration’.
“I can’t understand how the pipeline industry has become the bad guys,” Crabtree said of the Keystone XL’s widespread condemnation. “The American public does not understand that by not building this pipeline, it will not prevent oil from reaching the market. It is already happening.”
“You can’t just flip a switch and switch from fossil fuels to renewables,” said the Arkansas native, who said Biden’s ambitious plans to “phase out” natural gas, oil and gas. coal were unrealistic.
“If they want to start developing this infrastructure, they can. But you can’t just get rid of us at the same time.”
Those in the oil and gas industries fear this is just the beginning of the financial and political pressures they will face under a Democratic-controlled government.
With bleak prospects for the future, Crabtree admitted that sleep was hard to come by now.
“I’m building a house, I’m trying to live the American dream, and the bank might own it before I have a chance to live there.”
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