A former Keystone XL Pipeline worker, who was laid off after President Joe Biden canceled the project in 2021, slammed the president Wednesday for prioritizing green energy programs.
Neil Crabtree, a member of the Pipeliners Local Union 798 based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, stressed that the wellbeing of Americans continues to be intrinsically tied to fossil fuels, during a hearing hosted by the House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth.
“President Biden, he authorized the release of 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, this after canceling my job on the Keystone pipeline,” Crabtree said. “The one thing the president did not do was access the Green Energy Reserve because it doesn’t exist.”
Biden canceled the federal permit for Keystone XL shortly after taking office in January 2021. The order said the U.S. “must prioritize the development of a clean energy economy” and that the Keystone project would undermine the nation’s role as a climate leader on the world stage.
In January, a federal judge tossed a lawsuit challenging Biden’s executive action, officially marking the end of the Keystone XL, a project which would have delivered more oil to Americans. But as gasoline prices surged in November, President Joe Biden tapped into the nation’s emergency oil stockpile.
“Americans are paying record prices for energy because of the Biden Administration’s actions that killed private section investment,” Michigan Rep. Bryan Steil, the select committee’s top Republican, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “During our hearing, our witness Neal Crabtree brought up a great point about the need for reliable energy resources.”
“We cannot replace the free market with the federal government, or be discouraging private sector investment in our nation’s infrastructure,” Steil said.
Crabtree also noted during his testimony that the cyberattack against and subsequent temporary shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline in May 2021 had major ramifications for Americans. The White House paused the enforcement of regulations that limit how gasoline is transported in light of the fuel shortages caused by the hack.
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