Attorneys general from 21 states filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, March 17 against President Joe Biden and members of his administration for revoking permits for the 1,200-mile Keystone XL pipeline.
Led by Texas and Montana attorneys general, the lawsuit stated that Biden exceeded his authority when he signed an executive order in January that effectively ended the pipeline project. The complaint argued that Congress, not Biden, had the sole authority to change policies because the pipeline would be built across multiple states.
"The president lacks the power to enact his 'ambitious plan' to reshape the economy in defiance of Congress' unwillingness to do so," it read.
Texas and Montana were joined by Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. The states aim to reverse Biden's order and revive a project expected to provide 830,000 barrels of crude oil every day.
Thousands lost jobs due to pipeline construction's shutdown
Envisioned as part of a sprawling network of lines called "Keystone Pipeline System," Keystone XL was set to run from Steel City, Nebraska all the way to the oil sands of western Canada.
Canada's TC Energy Corporation proposed the pipeline more than a decade ago but faced delays under former President Barack Obama. It finally started construction last year after former President Donald Trump granted the energy company permits to build the pipeline. But Biden cancelled the permits on his first day in office in a series of orders aimed at addressing climate change.
"Leaving the Keystone XL pipeline permit in place would not be consistent with my administration’s economic and climate imperatives," Biden said in January. (Related: Joe Biden has the blood of Texans on his hands - the failure of Biden and 'climate change' solutions literally killed people in Texas.)
Biden's decision put more than 1,000 people out of work and precluded the employment of 11,000 Americans this year, according to Keystone XL.
Jason Jernigan, a third-generation oil and gas worker, was among the people laid off due to the construction's shutdown. In an interview on Fox News's "America's Newsroom," the 45-year-old said that the Biden administration took away his only livelihood.
"I’ve been pipelining for 21 years. This is all I know to do," he said. Jernigan revealed that he was hired to work on the pipeline when Obama was still in office but the project got cancelled at the time. He was rehired last year and was supposed to start work this year.
"The recent administration has taken my livelihood from me and expecting me to get a job somewhere else. I’ve got my whole life invested in this," Jernigan said.
In a White House press conference in late January, Biden's climate czar and former Secretary of State John Kerry urged oil and gas workers at risk of losing their jobs to consider working in the renewable energy industry.
"You look at the consequences of black lung for a miner, for instance, and measure that against the fastest-growing job in the United States, [which] before COVID was the solar power technician," Kerry said. "The same people can do those jobs, but the choice of doing the solar power one now is a better choice."
But Jernigan said that he had never been offered a job in the solar panel industry. He also noted that if he were to work for a solar panel company, he would have to take pay cuts and lose some employee benefits.
Learn more about how Biden is destroying the American economy in the name of Democrats' climate agenda at JoeBiden.news.
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