"Keystone XL Pipeline Could Burst Political Alliances"
https://www.newsmax.com/adamgoodman/keystone-xl-pipeline-richard-trumpka-democrats/2021/02/16/id/1010179/ By Adam GoodmanTuesday, 16 February 2021 08:19 AMCurrent | Bio | Archive Hardisty (population 554), a small village in northern Canada once known only by cartographers and geographers, is today the origination point, the fountainhead, of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Two thousand miles away, Nemacolin (pop. 684), is an equally small town in northeast Pennsylvania that a century ago served as HQ to America's largest coal and steel companies. This hardy hamlet also happens to be the birthplace of AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka, whose very public opinion about Keystone is diametrically opposed to Joe Biden's who promised to be "the best union President you've ever seen."
These two small towns are now destined to be part of a gargantuan story line that could not only change American energy policy, and recalibrate Congress' power center, but also fracture one of the nation's oldest political alliances between big labor and big Democrats.
If so, their shared labors of love could soon devolve into labor of the hardest sort.
The Keystone XL Pipeline — a project that would ultimately transport 168 billion barrels of crude from Canada's coniferous forests to America's Gulf Coast — has been in the headlines for years. Now it's the proverbial deer in the headlights due to four parallel yet competing forces.
One: It is central to Democrat dogma. Progressives have made this blue-scorned project a red line litmus test, a put up or shut up moment to show Democrats are serious about addressing climate change with fundamental policy change. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are two of its biggest cheerleaders, and rest assured they're going to be keeping score on those who don't follow suit.
Two: Raw political power. The new chairman of the Senate Energy Committee is none other than coal country's man-in-the-middle, West Virgina's Joe Manchin, where mere mention of the words "climate change" or "environmental activism" leave constituents in this deep red state seeing red (and come next election, voting anything but blue.)In a campaign television commercial run years ago, Manchin literally shot a copy of the anti-miner "cap and trade" bill — ruggedly nailed to a target in the woods — with a long-barreled rifle. Manchin's letter to President Biden this past week, objecting to derailing the pipeline and the consequent loss of jobs, may not change Keystone's fate but will impact every energy state Democrat fearing that any perceived concession to the "Green New Deal(ers)" will effectively deal them out of office next time around.
"It's not the environment or jobs. You can have both."
Honorable Jennifer Granholm U.S. Energy Secretary Nominee
Three: The $15 minimum wage. Democrats' push for a massive minimum wage hike in the stimulus bill, designed to ensure American workers are paid better, will not be appease laid-off energy workers in the fracking, oil-and-gas, and pipeline sectors. In fact, these workers — and others in and beyond the union movement — will be plenty sore that the party claiming to stand for hard-working Americans is working overtime to throw them overboard.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates a $15 minimum wage, exacerbated by the pandemic, will cost the nation 1.4-million jobs while boosting the deficit another $54-billion by the end of the decade.
Four: Not since the Taft-Hartley Act, which opened the door to right-to-work laws in 28 states, has organized labor (repping less than 11% of America's total workforce) faced such a Hobbesian choice. Side with most elected Democrats on Keystone and take the hits from labor's rank-and-file, or stand up to pandering partisans ready to sell them down the river. It's worth noting that the states that lost the most residents over the year of COVID — California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut — have no right to work laws. Those that do — Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, others — gained new citizens by the car- and planeload.
The president's nominee for Energy Secretary, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, once defended her home state auto industry by saying, "It's not the environment or jobs. You can have both."
Blunt-talking Richard Trumka once chillingly warned scabs crossing a picket line, "If you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you're likely to get burned."
He could offer the same counsel to fellow Pennsylvanian Joe Biden about this Keystone, and the many keystones to follow.
Adam Goodman is a national Republican media strategist and columnist. He is a partner at Ballard Partners in Washington D.C. He is also the first Edward R. Murrow Senior Fellow at Tufts University's Fletcher School. Follow him on Twitter @adamgoodman3. Read Adam Goodman's Reports
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