Biden’s Keystone XL Decision Signals Troubling ‘New Normal’ For U.S. Pipelines

Biden’s Keystone XL Decision Signals Troubling ‘New Normal’ For U.S. Pipelines

FILE - In this Nov. 3, 2015 file photo, the Keystone Steele City pumping station, into which the ... [+] planned Keystone XL pipeline is to connect to, is seen in Steele City, Neb. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)



ASSOCIATED PRESS

In a statement reminiscent of Barack Obama's famous admonition that West Virginia coal miners losing their jobs should “learn to code,” Transportation Secretary nominee Pete Buttigieg flatly stated during his confirmation hearing this week that union workers who have been or expected to be employed on the Keystone XL Pipeline project should simply get other jobs, saying “…we're very eager to see those workers continue to be employed in good paying union jobs, even if they might be different ones.”

Thus does the future cabinet member reflect the Biden/Harris administration's indifferent attitude towards domestic oil and gas industry in general and this key, $8 billion energy infrastructure project specifically. News of the cancellation of this cross-border permit was by and large treated as sort of a business-as-usual matter, but it is in fact an extraordinary, even radical act of executive fiat that has few peacetime precedents in American history.

The Keystone XL project represents