Joe Biden is Threatening Thousands of Jobs in PA

May 20, 2020

The Keystone XL pipeline is a project that will connect and secure a growing supply of Canadian crude oil with the largest refineries in the U.S., significantly benefiting our oil supply in a variety of ways. The project was put on hold in 2015 by then-President Obama, but was then put back on track by President Trump in 2017. This week, Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign made an unfortunate, but not surprising, announcement – if elected, he will kill the Keystone XL pipeline project.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

That termination would cost tens of thousands of jobs, which would result in billions of dollars in lost wages, according to estimates published last year by the State Department. Those reductions would in turn cost state and local governments millions in tax revenue, up to 10 percent of annual property tax revenues in 17 counties across three states.

Biden has made a handful of announcements in the past few weeks to pander to his party’s environmentalist base, such as naming Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) the co-chair of his Climate Task Force. But, pledging to end the Keystone XL project is the one that will immediate hurt everyday Americans the most.

The State Department estimated that two years of constructing the pipeline would produce 42,100 jobs, including 16,100 directly working on the pipeline, and another 26,000 created through indirect spending driven by the project. Killing the project would create an estimated loss of over $2 billion in employee earnings. Particularly right now, with over 20 million people going employed last month as a result of Covid-19, we cannot afford to sacrifice jobs for the sake of pandering to Democrats’ radical base.

Lost economic activity has tax implications, too. The State Department estimated that the project would generate $55.6 million in tax revenue across 3 states and 27 counties. Seventeen of those counties would see a more-than-10 percent bump in their annual revenues, a substantial boon.

America needs to take advantage of every possible opportunity to bounce back from this global pandemic – “proudly” rescinding a permit for a project that would create thousands of jobs and generate millions of dollars in revenue is not in the best interest of the American people. The natural gas and oil industry employs 106,000 people in Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state in every presidential election. Come election day, it would be wise for Pennsylvanians to remember where Biden’s priorities lie.