Republican Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs said that ending the Keystone XL Pipeline will ultimately “endanger” the opportunity for the United States to be “energy independent.”
President Joe Biden cancelled a permit critical to the Keystone pipeline, meant to transport oil from Canada to the U.S., as one of his first acts in office. As a result, around 11,000 high paying jobs were lost.
Discussing the move Wednesday morning on Fox News’ “The Faulkner Focus,” Biggs told anchor Harris Faulkner that comments by Biden officials stating that the displaced workers will easily find new jobs are “incredibly insensitive.”
WATCH:
“We hope he gets a new job,” Biggs said, referring to a clip Faulkner played of a previous guest who had lost his job. “I believe he probably will get a new job. But what happens in the interim and how do you change your career?”
“This guy and all of his workers, they had a job they thought that they liked and enjoyed,” Biggs continued. “It’s important for their families and now the government came in and said, ‘no you don’t.’ Not only does it have microeconomic issues to those people, it has macroeconomics for this country because it’s going to endanger our opportunity to be energy independent, which is so huge as a foundation for our economic revival.” (RELATED: Is The Keystone XL Pipeline Actually Bad For The Environment?)
Biggs and Faulkner went on to discuss the safety ramifications of now having to transport the oil on roads in trucks.