‘I literally cried’: Former Keystone XL workers still reeling two years after Biden shut down pipeline

EXCLUSIVE: Pipeline workers who got jobs on the Keystone XL project before President Biden revoked their federal permits said they are still struggling to recover two years later.

Workers told Fox News Digital that they and their colleagues lost their jobs on the pipeline following the Biden decision almost two years ago, in January 2021, and have been struggling to make ends meet ever since. Immediately after taking office, Biden signed an executive order to shut down the project, despite the fact that it was supposed to create thousands of jobs, and said that the US “should prioritize the development of a clean energy economy.”

“I was going to participate in the Keystone XL project, but none of these works were realized. It got cancelled, so I didn’t see any of that work,” Suzanne Walker, a pipeline welder who was hired to work on a pipeline in North Dakota until Biden canceled her permits, told Fox News Digital. “It was a job down the drain, and it’s been almost non-existent since then.”

“I know a lot of the members have left and are now doing different things because the pipeline business — it just disappeared,” she continued. “I know there are a few jobs out there, but we’re trying to do it at home. I know many people who have gone through difficult times.”

UNIONS REPRESENTING FIRED KEYSTONE XL WORKERS ARE SILENT AFTER THOUSANDS OF JOB LOSSES REPORT

Workers remove a large clamp from a pipe during construction of part of the Keystone XL pipeline project in March 2013.
(Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Overall, the pipeline would create between 16,149 and 59,468 construction jobs, which would last approximately two years and have a positive economic impact of between $3.4 billion and $9.6 billion, according to a congressionally approved report released by the Department of Energy. December. .

And the project’s labor agreement, signed in August 2020, promised that the pipeline would create 42,000 U.S. jobs and generate $2 billion in total wages.

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“We were surprised when it happened,” Neil Crabtree, who worked as a pipeline foreman in Nebraska, told Fox News Digital. “I was upset about this. I literally cried because of this. I was a foreman at one of the compressor stations. We stayed there for three weeks.”

“We were excited to start this project. You know, we have to work to keep our insurance hours, we have to work to build our pension,” he added. “And when you’ve just spent a whole year [during the COVID-19 pandemic] doesn’t work, and then we think we have this huge project that will provide millions of man-hours for people in our industry, and then the rug is pulled out from under you, it was devastating.”

“It was overwhelming, I can tell you that,” Crabtree said.

President Joe Biden signs his first executive orders, including revoking federal permits to build the Keystone XL pipeline, at the White House on January 20, 2021.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Crabtree said he and many of his Keystone XL colleagues heard Biden’s campaign promise to close the pipeline, but didn’t think he would deliver on it, given the billions of dollars that were invested in it.

The project was scheduled to be completed earlier this year and transport an additional 830,000 barrels of crude oil from Canada to the US via the existing pipeline network, according to its operator TC Energy. Lawmakers and energy industry officials argue that the pipeline would help lower gas prices and bolster US energy security by increasing the supply of crude oil to Texas refineries.

Supporters of the project also pointed to the number of jobs it could create.

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“I know this affects families firsthand because my husband also works in the pipeline and we had to move from working to make good money to trying to make money now,” Walker added. “From 2020 to now, we’ve saved up some money, but with kids, money doesn’t last forever.”

“As far as the accounts you have, it doesn’t match what you’re doing. It definitely affects people a lot.”

Walker and Crabtree also drew attention to the Biden administration’s arguments that their jobs would be replaced by clean energy jobs and that keystone XL job losses meant less because they were temporary.

President Biden shakes hands with White House Chief of Staff Ron Klein along with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on June 30, 2021. The administration says pipeline workers can find new jobs building clean energy infrastructure.
(Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

For example, following its Keystone XL Jobs Report last month, the Department of Energy told Fox News Digital that it had concluded that canceling the pipeline had “a limited impact on jobs: it is estimated that about 50 permanent jobs were created if the pipeline have worked”.

“This pipeline was our project for that year,” Crabtree said. “You are talking about a project for 10 or 11 months. People say that “well, it’s just temporary” – any construction work is temporary. When you work in this industry, you know how a carpenter is. He doesn’t spend his entire career building the same house. He’s finishing this house, and then hopefully he’s got another house to build.”

“This Keystone pipeline was our home that we were supposed to build in 2020 and we couldn’t do it,” he told Fox News Digital. “And this is causing serious damage to the industry. When this happened, it wasn’t just the Keystone pipeline that was my main concern. I and many other people were afraid of the domino effect.”

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He also said he would not be able to move on to work on clean energy projects such as installing solar panels, as he was trained to work with pipelines.

A worker installs a solar panel on the roof.
(AP Photo/Ben Margot, file)

“What annoys me the most about the government is when it comes to builders, they just lump us together like we don’t have any special training,” Crabtree continued. “They think that just because we didn’t go to college and work in construction, we can take on any other construction project.”

“I am a professional pipeline welder. That’s what I do,” he said. “I have spent countless years honing my craft. In order for them to tell me that I can just go and build solar panels, something more suitable for me to be an electrician. I don’t know anything about being an electrician.”

Walker echoed Crabtree, saying she hadn’t heard from anyone offering jobs in clean energy.

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“I haven’t seen anyone call me about working on solar energy,” she said. “I don’t think I can just go from a pipeline welder to a wind farm or a solar world and make a living.”

Ultimately, TC Energy abandoned the Kesytone XL project in June 2021 as a result of Biden’s decision to revoke permits. And last year, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by nearly two dozen states asking the court to reinstate pipeline permits.