Biden uses 'SWAT team' to take out jobs, Cassidy says

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Sen. Cassidy says Biden uses 'SWAT team' to take out jobs

Energy Secretary nominee Jennifer Granholm testifies at confirmation hearing.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., accused the Biden administration of being unsympathetic toward the thousands of Americans whose jobs were lost due to new policies put into effect in the first days of the new presidency.

During the confirmation hearing for energy secretary nominee Jennifer Granholm, Cassidy referenced the halting of work on the Keystone XL pipeline, which will result in the elimination of an estimated 11,000 jobs. She said the administration is assembling a "a sort of SWAT team" to help parts of the country that rely heavily on the fossil fuel industry.

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 "I think there’s kind of a question for the American people: Does the Biden administration actually care about their jobs? You had mentioned that the Biden team had, in response to Sen. [John] Barrasso, will have a SWAT team to make sure that folks are employed. I’m thinking they have a SWAT team to take out some jobs."

"You had mentioned that ideally we’d replace those with green jobs," Cassidy continued, recalling that transportation secretary nominee Pete Buttigieg said at his confirmation hearing that these jobs may not become available right away, while White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy said that Americans should not have to sacrifice any more than they already have.

Cassidy asked how the government can "square the fact that we're killing 11,000 jobs now" with likely delay before green jobs take their place, and the idea that Americans have already suffered too much and so they should not be asked to sacrifice any more.

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"I totally get the concern about job losses. Totally," Granholm said, before pointing to the president’s "commitment to create millions of jobs."

Former Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich., testifies before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during a hearing to examine her nomination to be Secretary of Energy, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Jim Watson/Pool via AP) ((Jim Watson/Pool via AP))

Cassidy said that the time it would take for these new jobs to become available means that the current problem remains unsolved.

"If you’ve lost a job that is putting food on your table now, it’s cold comfort to know that years from now, perhaps in a different state with a different training within which you have, there'll be another job available," he said.

"I completely understand what you are saying," Granholm said. What I can tell you is from my experience in Michigan is that when we focused on providing incentives for job providers to locate in Michigan in clean energy they came."

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Earlier in the hearing, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., focused on the impact of Biden’s ban on new oil and gas leases on federal lands, claiming that tens of thousands of jobs would be affected.

Granholm responded by saying that Biden’s plan "would create more jobs in energy – clean energy – than the jobs that might be sacrificed," before clarifying that "we don’t want to see any jobs sacrificed."