White House press secretary Jen Psaki gave a curt response to Fox News’s Peter Doocy after he asked when fossil fuel workers who have lost their jobs can expect new “green” employment.
“When is it that the Biden administration is going to let the thousands of fossil fuel industry workers, whether it’s pipeline workers or construction workers who are either out of work or will soon be out of work because of a Biden [executive order], when it is and where it is that they can go for their green job?” Doocy asked.
“I would certainly welcome you to present your data of all the thousands and thousands of people who won’t be getting a green job,” Psaki replied. “Maybe next time you’re here, you can present that.”
“But you said that they would be getting green jobs. So I’m just asking when that happens,” Doocy said, before citing a quote from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka expressing disappointment in Biden’s executive order on Keystone.
“I certainly welcome you to present your data of all of the thousands and thousands of people who won’t be getting a green job.”@jrpsaki gives a curt response to @PDoocy when asked when and where fossil fuel workers can go for a “green job.” pic.twitter.com/AT4nSL3pIp
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 8, 2021
Her response was met with criticism on social media, including from Fox News’s Laura Ingraham.
“Psaki Translator: I have no flipping idea where these green jobs are going to come from or how much taxpayers will be fleeced to ‘create’ them,” Ingraham tweeted.
Psaki Translator: I have no flipping idea where these green jobs are going to come from or how much taxpayers will be fleeced to “create” them. https://t.co/3P1yPnL9ss
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) February 8, 2021
Psaki tried to make Doocy prove laid-off oil workers can’t get “green” jobs.
But was the administration that claimed they *would* get green jobs. Doocy asks the right question: If so, when?
For now, they’re just out of work. Appalling https://t.co/ynvA7Nyqn7
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) February 8, 2021
Fox News’s Peter Doocy is back and he’s brought the receipts on energy to Jen Psaki.
Needless to say, she didn’t like that he pressed her on what’s the plan for laid off workers to get these fantastical “green” jobs that Biden and Kerry keep talking about (1/2) pic.twitter.com/czz45M9tXK
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 8, 2021
Biden announced on his first day in office that he was revoking a key permit to the Keystone XL pipeline, which is expected to lead to the loss of thousands of jobs.
A State Department study found that the pipeline would have led to 26,100 indirect and direct jobs.
U.S. special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry sparked backlash in January when he suggested that people laid off in the fossil fuel industry should find jobs making solar panels.
“They’ve been fed the notion that somehow dealing with climate is coming at their expense,” Kerry said. “No, it’s not. What’s happening to them is happening because of other market forces already taking place.”
“Coal plants have been closing over the last 20 years. So what President Biden wants to do is make sure those folks have better choices, that they have alternatives, and they can be the people who go to work to make the solar panels.”
His comments didn’t sit well with those in the industry who have lost their jobs, including former pipeline workers Lynn Allen and Greg Baird.
“That’s a slap in my face,” Allen told Fox Business.
“I would love to sit down face to face with him [Kerry] and ask him … to lead by example,” said Baird. “It’s really kind of calling the kettle black when he wants to tell me to watch my carbon footprint, to change my lifestyle, my livelihood, to go do something else.”
