Keystone Rejection - Politics Wins; American Workers Lose

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following statement was released today by Sean McGarvey, President of North America's Building Trades Unions, in reaction to the announcement by the Obama Administration that it is formally rejecting the application to construct the Keystone XL pipeline:

"It is rather ironic that during the same week that the Obama Administration has chosen to formally deny the permit to construct the Keystone XL pipeline, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that significant numbers of voters from both parties are unified in their dissatisfaction with Washington and the manner in which politics supersedes concern for the day-to-day struggles of Main Street America.

The action taken today by the Obama Administration is proof positive that those feelings are not unwarranted.

To demonstrate the insidiously craven political nature of this White House action, consider that between 2009 and 2013 more than 8,000 miles of oil transmission pipelines have been built across the United States.  And by last year, that number increased to 12,000 miles of pipeline being constructed.

In other words, we have built the equivalent of ten Keystone XL pipelines since 2009 and the White House has not uttered one single word about those projects. In fact, President Obama attended the groundbreaking for the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Yet, despite this administration's own findings that the Keystone project will result in the creation of 40,000 jobs as well as significant economic benefits to our country without impacting the environment, President Obama has chosen to place politics over substantive policy that only serves to advance the agenda of well-funded radical environmentalists.

All of which begs the question: Where does this leave the Democratic Party's historical core constituency of working Americans?

We won't know the answer to that question until November 2016.

But, to paraphrase Senator Ted Kennedy, for all those whose jobs have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, and the dream shall never die, and hope springs again in January of 2017."

ABOUT NORTH AMERICA'S BUILDING TRADES UNIONS

NABTU is an alliance of 14 national and international unions in the building and construction industry that collectively represent over 3 million skilled craft professionals in the United States and Canada. Each year, our unions and our signatory contractor partners invest $1 billion in private sector money to fund over 1,900 apprenticeship training and education facilities across North America.

www.BuildingTrades.org 
www.Facebook.com/NorthAmericasBuildingTradesUnions 
@BldgTrdsUnions

Contact:
Tom Owens
202-756-4623 (Office)
202-252-1081 (Mobile)
Email

SOURCE North America's Building Trades Unions

Related Links

http://www.buildingtrades.org