Republicans in the House of Representatives, led by Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, introduced legislation Friday that would take away federal funding from schools that ban fossil fuel companies from job fairs.
The Embrace Fossil Fuel Recruitment Act requires schools that receive money from the Education Department to allow fossil fuel companies the same job fair advertising opportunities as other employers. In addition to losing federal funding for non-compliance, schools may be sent cease-and-desist orders, enforced under threat of lawsuit. (RELATED: Oil Industry Report Warns Of Massive Job Losses From Biden’s Anti-Drilling Agenda)
Local education agencies and colleges “shall provide prospective employers doing business within the fossil fuel sector the same access to secondary school students for recruitment purposes as is provided to prospective employers doing business within other energy resource sectors,” the legislation says. Original cosponsors include Texas Reps. Randy Weber and Ronny Jackson, Ohio Rep. Mike Carey, and Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman.
Read the bill here:
Embrace Fossil Fuel Recruitment Act by Michael Ginsberg on Scribd
The American energy industry expects to lose jobs in the long-term due to President Joe Biden’s policies, according to a 2022 report, which include slow-walking planned natural gas leases. Furthermore, a 2020 PriceWaterhouseCoopers poll found that 14% of millennials would not work in oil and natural gas due to moral objections, the highest of any industry.
Students at the University of Washington protested the attendance of fossil fuel companies at jobs fairs in early January, as the school began divesting from fossil fuels.
“Biden’s disastrous war on America’s fossil fuel industry knows no limits and has completely entrenched the federal bureaucracy. Every family feels the pain of the Democrat’s anti-American energy agenda at the gas pump, supermarket, and throughout their daily lives. My bill simply forbids certain educational institutions from denying fossil fuel company involvement in their student recruitment activities. The Left’s rampant indoctrination of our future generations through our educational system is a threat to Democracy, and my legislation blocks any effort to inject an anti-energy agenda in higher education and preserves a sustainable path forward for an America First energy apparatus,” Donalds said in a statement to the Daily Caller.
Backlash against fossil fuel companies at universities is not exclusive to the United States. Several universities in the United Kingdom have already banned carbon energy companies from their career fairs, as students at other schools protest their presence.