Steve Scalise: Biden's energy policies will 'increase global emissions and crush American jobs'

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Scalise blasts Biden's push to ban oil and gas: 'It's devastating'

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., reacts to President Biden's immigration policies and his move to curtail the U.S. oil industry.

President Biden's climate-change-related policies are hurtful to the United States and particularly southern Louisiana, House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., told "America's Newsroom" on Tuesday.

In his first day in office, President Biden signed an executive order to halt the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which was meant to transport Canadian crude oil to the U.S., citing the climate-change crisis as the reason.

The move swiftly eliminated the estimated 11,000 U.S. jobs – including 8,000 union jobs – the project would have sustained in 2021.

LAID-OFF KEYSTONE XL WORKER SAYS DECISION TO CANCEL PIPELINE ‘IS GOING TO HURT A LOT OF PEOPLE’

SCALISE: "Bill, it’s devastating for the hard-working families in south Louisiana. You go down to a Port Fourchon where they serve a lot of the deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. These are really good jobs, these are careers for people who have been working in many cases second and third generation, producing American energy. This is something that’s allowed us to lower energy costs. Oh and by the way, our standards are so much better in America than these other countries these jobs will go to.

It’s not like nobody is going to produce oil. It’s going to be a gift to countries like Russia, Venezuela, and by the way, carbon emissions are going to go up because those countries don’t have the good standards. We use the money in Louisiana to restore our coast. It’s a big environmental issue, rebuilding land that has been lost over decades from the levying of the Mississippi River. That money comes from drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Where is that going to go? 

SCALISE: So, there is a lot of devastating impacts to families and to our environment in south Louisiana. And, again, you can see the story playing out in other states. You showed in Texas, the families put out on the streets. John Kerry can fly around on a private jet telling you not to fly on a commercial airliner. Where do you think the jet fuel is going to come from? It’s not just going to go away.

They’re not going to put solar panels on those airplanes. It’s going to come from foreign countries, in many cases, who don’t even like America and who emit more carbon. You will increase global emissions and crush American jobs. Explain how that is prioritizing Americans or the hard working families who depend on it. The school systems who will lose money because those local communities aren’t getting the tax revenue. That money is now going to countries like Russia."

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Biden's $2 trillion clean energy infrastructure plan, with its goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 at the latest, aims to "create millions of good-paying jobs that provide workers with the choice to join a union and bargain collectively with their employers," according to his website.

Gina Raimondo, Biden's nominee for secretary of commerce, said recently before the Senate that the Biden administration will ensure union workers who lost jobs due to the blocking of the XL pipeline will get new jobs.