Sen. Joe Manchin wrote a letter to President Biden on Tuesday asking him to reconsider his executive order revoking the Keystone XL pipeline permit.
“Pipelines continue to be the safest way to transport our oil and natural gas resources and they support thousands of American unions,” the West Virginia Democrat wrote.
On his first day in office, the president canceled the pipeline’s permit, which Donald Trump reinstated. The long-controversial project was intended to supply about 800,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil to the US
“In the absence of access to pipelines, crude oil will continue to find its way to the market through greater dependence on other means of transportation, such as trucks and railways, which have a greater number of reported crude oil emissions per tonne of mile than pipelines. , “Manchin remarked.
“I encourage you to reconsider, reconsider and take into account the potential consequences of any further action on safety, jobs and energy security,” he added.
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Manchin, along with fellow Democrat Sen. Jon Tester, Mont., Joined Republicans in a budget resolution supporting the pipeline. But they later voted for an amendment by Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., to kill the resolution.
Biden immediately drew Republicans’ anger at withdrawing the permit, but recently drew criticism from allies.
“I wish he did not do it on the first day,” Richard Trumka, president of AFL-CIO, told Axios on HBO.
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“I wish he linked it more closely to the thing he did second, by saying here’s where we create jobs,” he said.
Working groups said Biden’s day-one decision to complete the Keystone pipeline removed 1,000 unions from the track and would kill ten times more in construction tasks expected to be created by the project. The work was mostly seasonal work.
Opponents of the pipeline point to the fear that it will spill out and say that allowing the project to move forward will lock up decades of dependence on oil, amid the government’s pursuit of a 100% clean energy-based US by 2050.
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Manchin’s support for pipelines could hamper Democrats’ climate legislation in Congress. The moderate Manchin is one of the most powerful senators, as he can turn on a number of issues in the split 50-50 Senate.