WASHINGTON – White House Press Officer Jen Psaki on Monday mocked a reporter who asked when workers in the canceled Keystone XL pipeline would get “green jobs” promised by President Biden.
Up to 11,000 jobs are expected to be lost following Biden’s first-day decision to immediately halt construction of the pipeline to carry oil from Canada to Texas, confusing South Dakotans and leaving 1,000 people immediately out of work to sit.
“Where can they go for their green job?” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked Psaki at her Monday afternoon press conference, citing Biden’s promise to create well-paid union jobs in the green energy sector as his government seeks to end the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.
“The administration has promised that and there is now a gap, so I’m just curious when that will happen, when those people can count on it?” Doocy added.
“Well, I would certainly welcome you to present your data on all the thousands and thousands of people who won’t get a green job,” Psaki snapped. “Maybe next time you’re here you can present that.”
‘But you said they will get green jobs. I’m just asking when that happens? Doocy responded, noting that a report from the Laborers’ International Union of North America found 1,000 union jobs on the Keystone project “would immediately disappear.”
Another 10,000 construction jobs expected to be created by the project have also been cut by Biden’s decision.
Prominent union leader and Biden ally AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka made the decision on Sunday in an Axios on HBO interview, saying Biden should also have announced where he would replace those lost jobs.
But Psaki dismissed the criticism, making a vague promise that Biden would submit a job plan in the coming weeks.
“He has every plan to share more details about that plan in the coming weeks,” she said when asked how Biden would support the workers made redundant by the decision.
Biden’s climate crescent John Kerry was also condemned by Republicans last month as “out of reach” when he suggested that energy and coal workers affected by climate change “could get to work making the solar panels.”
Last month, the Biden administration unveiled its $ 2 trillion Green New Deal environmental plan, which includes eliminating coal, oil and natural gas as electricity sources by 2035.