Republican Montana Sen. Steve Daines on Friday criticized President Joe Biden’s administration over the rejection of TC Energy’s concessions offered to keep plans for construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline in place.
Daines appeared on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” and was asked by host Bill Hemmer about the offer from the company that runs the pipeline, which included “10,000 American union construction jobs, steel pipe made in the U.S, $10 million in green job training fund, $500 million for indigenous suppliers and jobs, and 100% renewable power to operate the pipeline within 8 to 10 years.” (RELATED: Is The Keystone XL Pipeline Actually Bad For The Environment?)
“I think it’s all part of President Biden’s Saudi Arabia first plan. It looks like he cares more about workers in Saudi Arabia than the workers in America,” Daines said. “This is going to have a direct effect on the pocket books of the American people. Here we are in the middle of a pandemic. He just killed 11,000 jobs. Its 80 million dollars a year of tax revenues for my state of Montana to impoverished counties to help them make ends meet for schools, for law enforcement, for infrastructure. This is a major infrastructure project that President Biden killed six hours into his presidency.”
Daines referenced Saudi Arabia because it is one of the world’s largest crude oil producers. The U.S. increased its own energy production under President Donald Trump and became the world’s largest crude oil producer, passing Saudi Arabia and Russia, and relying less on energy production from the Middle East and other countries.
Biden signed an executive order on Jan. 20 revoking the permits that allowed the construction of the pipeline. The future of the pipeline is still uncertain, as the order could be challenged in court by TC Energy.
Host Dana Perino then asked Daines about Biden’s comments at the last presidential debate concerning oil. He said in the debate that he “wanted to transition away from the oil industry” before clarifying by saying that the transition would happen “eventually” but that he isn’t getting rid of fossil fuels.
“They are yielding to the far left radical extremists, the Green New Deal. It is already beginning to be implemented and we’re seeing it before our eyes,” Daines responded. “It going to kill jobs. It’s going to raise energy prices. And there is a very important national security element to this. Thank God that we’ve had this revolution in energy in America to reduce our dependencies in the Middle East.”
“That’s very important in terms of our economy and our national security,” he continued. “This reverses that course and places dependence back on the Middle East. That is terrible policy for our country and that’s why we aren’t giving up this fight here to bring common sense to Washington, D.C. with this radical Biden agenda.”