A major plumber and pipefitter’s union endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden in a Monday statement but disagrees with the Democrat’s opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Biden’s support for water infrastructure projects will help employ many of The United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters’ 359,0000 members, the union president Mark McManus told The Washington Post. He said the union doesn’t support Biden’s promise to stop the Keystone XL and DAPL pipelines.
“Looking at the whole gamut of what the United Association does, the many tentacles that we have, the many issues in front of us for the next four years, we strongly endorsed” Biden, McManus told the Post. (RELATED: Joe Biden Will Rescind Keystone XL Permit If Elected President, Campaign Says)
“The UA absolutely still supports” the Keystone pipeline, McManus told the Post. The Keystone pipeline would connect Canada’s tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries.
Former United Association president William Hite told the Post in 2012 that the Keystone project would be a major job creator.
“We promote it every chance we get,” he said at the time.
President Donald Trump displays one of five executive orders (Photo by Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
Biden said in a Tuesday statement, “I promise you this: if I’m elected, workers and unions will have the strongest friend they have ever had in the White House,” the Post reported.
He has pledged to rebuild the country’s “crumbling infrastructure – from roads and bridges to green spaces and water systems,” according to Biden’s campaign website.
Biden plans to spend $2 trillion on “ambitious climate progress,” according to his campaign website. The former vice president’s plan would dramatically reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and place a 15-year timeline for the U.S. to transition to a 100% clean electricity standard, the Post reported in July.
McManus said President Donald Trump did not deliver his 2016 campaign infrastructure promises.
“Donald Trump said that he was going to have the biggest, hugest infrastructure package America has ever seen,” he said during the interview with the Post. “We’ve waited four years. We’ve come up with zero, quite frankly.”
The United Association backed former President Barack Obama in 2012 and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign. Both Democrats opposed Keystone XL, among other fossil fuel pipelines.
Trump signed a pair of executive orders in 2017 giving Keystone and Dakota Access approval after Obama halted both projects, citing concerns over the U.S.’ image as a clean energy leader. The president also rolled back more than 90 environmental rules and regulations, The New York Times reported in December 2019.
The U.S. Supreme Court supported a lower court’s ruling in July that blocked a crucial environmental permit that Keystone XL pipeline needed to transport oil across the country, media reports show. A federal judge made a similar decision the same month shutting down the DAPL, which was meant to ship oil from North Dakota to Illinois.
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