Unlike many raised in coal country, however, Trumka acknowledges global warming. “Do I believe there’s global climate change out there? Yes, I do. I think the facts support that, and I think that we as a nation and as a world have to address the problem and correct it—so that our grandkids and our great-grandkids and their great-grandkids can have a quality of life that’s sustainable.”
But that doesn’t mean he opposes the Keystone XL oil pipeline, current bête noir of the environmental movement. Although the AFL-CIO hasn’t directly backed Keystone, it has endorsed “pipelines in general,” says Trumka, who argues that the pipeline will have “a smaller carbon footprint” than other methods of transporting those petroleum products. (Emphasis added)
The nation would be better served, he says, by reducing “seeps and leaks” from existing oil facilities, “which represent a bigger hazard to the environment.” Would that create jobs? “Far more than the pipeline itself—about 125,000 jobs a year. But it would also be a win-win. The environmentalists agree with us on that, we should clean up the leaks and the seeps.”