On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to halt construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which was supposed to transport 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 union jobs – that the project would have sustained in 2021.
Neal Crabtree, a welding foreman who started working on pipeline construction as an apprentice in 1997, was dismayed when he heard the news.
“This is not a 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 Pipeliners Local Union 798, one of four unions whose members will be out of work due to the pipeline’s cancellation, the 46-year-old welder from Arkansas was one of the first to be fired after the order. At the time the cross-border licenses for the pipeline were terminated, he and his team were in Nebraska working on a pumping station for Keystone XL.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Crabtree wrote that he felt “a sick feeling in his stomach and a pain in his heart”, and admitted that he passed out and cried in his truck after firing his team.
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“Like the rest of the country, COVID hurt us a lot. We had a lot of projects canceled,” he told Fox News. “We have guys who haven’t worked in months and, in some cases, years, and having a project of this magnitude canceled will hurt a lot of people, a lot of families, a lot of communities.”
After a year of economic devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, this decision left those affected by it feeling more abandoned than ever.
When asked about the thousands of union jobs lost last week, the appointed Transport Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said the decision was part of a broader plan that would end up being a positive outcome for employment.
“We are very excited to see these workers continue to have well-paid union jobs, even if they are different,” said Buttigieg.
“I don’t consider it a job, I consider it a career,” said Crabtree in response to the statement. “You spend your whole life honing your skills, and if you’re going to start another job, you’re starting at the bottom. I doubt these politicians would want anyone to tell them to start over and find a different 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 the go-ahead when he took office.
According to the Biden government, revoking the license is one of several “essential first steps to tackling the climate crisis, creating good union jobs and promoting environmental justice, while reversing the harmful policies of the previous government”.
“I can’t understand how the pipeline industry became the villain,” said Crabtree of the widespread condemnation of Keystone XL. “The American public does not understand that, by not building this pipeline, it will not prevent oil from reaching the market. It is already arriving.”
“You can’t just flip a switch and switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy,” said the Arkansas native, who said Biden’s ambitious plans to “phase out” natural gas, oil and 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 working in the oil and gas industries fear that this is only the beginning of the financial and political pressures they will face under a government controlled by Democrats.
With a bleak outlook for the future, Crabtree admitted that sleep is now hard to come by.
“I’m building a house, trying to live the American dream, and the bank can own it before I have a chance to live in it.”