Construction and trade unions praised President Trump’s executive order allowing the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline project to proceed, saying the action would be a major boost to their members and the industries they represent.
“Today, President Donald J. Trump gave continued hope to thousands of skilled craft construction professionals in America’s heartland for whom the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipeline projects have been an economic lifeline,” said the coalition group North America’s Building Trades Unions. “We are grateful that President Trump understands that 32 percent of today’s construction industry workforce is employed on energy projects, amounting to over 2 million workers, and that projects such as the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines are significant job creators that generate above-average wages and benefits for hard-working Americans.”
The Labors’ International Union of North America tweeted, “#LIUNA shares @POTUS commitment to building great #infrastructure & creating a new chapter for #energy policy #RebuildRenew.”
The unions hope that their members would get many of the more than 42,000 jobs the State Department estimated in 2014 that would be created by building the Keystone XL pipeline. The project would build a 1,700-mile long pipeline to transfer oil from Canada’s tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico. It would cost an estimated $7.6 billion to construct. Former President Obama initially appeared to lean toward approving the project in 2011, but subsequently pulled back after environmentalist groups came out against it, saying it would look bad for his climate change efforts.
Others in organized labor appeared to ignore the news, reflecting that the pipeline was a controversial issue within the movement. In 2012, LIUNA President Terry O’Sullivan angrily charged that other labor leaders had listened to environmental groups at the expense of union members. “We’re repulsed by some of our supposed brothers and sisters lining up with job killers like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council to destroy the lives of working men and women,” O’Sullivan said.
The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, had not issued a statement or responded to the Washington Examiner’s request for one. The AFL-CIO has voiced qualified support for the Keystone XL in the past.
