On his first day in office, President Biden signed an executive order to revoke the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, which appealed to climate activists and indigenous groups. If completed, Keystone would cover nearly 1,200 miles, transporting heavy carbon oil south from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
The pipeline was an obstacle to Biden’s campaign promise to create 10 million clean energy jobs. The order overturning it indicated that the pipeline “would not serve the national interest of the United States” and said the U.S. “should prioritize the development of a clean energy economy, which in turn will create good jobs “.
Pipelines are built seasonally for 19 and a half weeks at a time, so jobs created to build them are considered short-term. In 2014, the State Department estimated that Keystone would employ 10,400 workers over several construction seasons, adding up to 3,900 jobs.
Now, without a pipe to build, hundreds of workers are unemployed. According to TC Energy, the Canadian company that builds Keystone, “nearly 1,000” workers were laid off as a result of the executive order.
Photo courtesy of Ron Berringer
Ron Berringer is one of them.
Berringer, 60, is a union administrator in Clarinda, Iowa, who has worked in pipes for decades in seven states, as has his father before him and his three brothers today.
“[I was told]”Well, your father was an administrator for us and if you do half the work he did, you’ll do us a great job.” And I knew then that was what he wanted to do, continue and follow in his footsteps, ”Berringer told CBS News, recalling the beginning of his career in pipe construction thirty years ago.
The sense of community, in addition to good profits and wages, is what makes the pipeline so attractive. Berringer said he planned to work six days a week, ten hours a day, which means there is the constant promise of twenty overtime hours.
He calls it the best job he’s ever had: his “bread and butter”.
Without that financial boost, Berringer says his future looks “bleak.” He can no longer plan to replace his van, which has registered 450,000 miles building pipes. And she will have to cut back on the financial aid she usually sends to her two adult daughters.
Before the pipe construction stopped, Berringer said friends inside and outside his union, the International Union of North American Workers (LiUNA) Local 1140 in Omaha, approached him “daily” for ask him to work at Keystone. He said people were often confused about the fate of the pipeline because construction stopped and began as a result of Obama and Trump’s executive orders.
For these workers, the pipeline is more than a means of subsistence. As a member of LiUNA Local 620, Tyler Noel, 33, said the bonds he forged by working in pipes for thirteen years is “the only one I have right now.”
Photo courtesy of Tyler Noel
Noel is headquartered in Aberdeen, South Dakota, but spent the last five and a half months of 2020 working in Keystone, about 215 miles away, in Murdo, South Dakota. Pipe workers settle for long periods of time during construction, often living in local motels or transporting their own campers.
“It’s not just a job, it’s like a lifestyle,” Noel said. “The only people I talk to are family members and pipeliners.”
Without Keystone’s promise, Noel finds himself at a “crossroads.” Work on Murdo was completed in December. He has not received any stimulus checks. As a result, Noel has been forced to refinance his truck and meets other people who have refinanced their homes.
“Unable to get [Employment Services]. You can’t, “he said.” And, you know, I paid a lot of money to the states working on it. I am entitled to unemployment. ”
Noel is concerned about the possibility that the Biden administration may revoke other channeling opportunities, mainly because he will have to accumulate more hours in the workplace in order to be eligible for his pension.
“Everything that came in the next few months was supposed to be Keystone,” he said. “If I hadn’t saved my money over the years, I would have been really affected. But I would say I’m at least three months old and I’ll have to do something.”
Now what?
Last month, signing a trio of climate-related executive orders, Biden said: “Today is‘ Climate Day ’at the White House, which means today is‘ Labor Day ’at the White House. White House “.
Climate envoy John Kerry told reporters that workers in the oil and gas industry “may be the people who are going to work to make the solar panels.”
But Berringer and Noel are not convinced.
They both said their best hope is to find work to maintain existing pipes. Berringer, who now works at a power plant in Omaha, says he has worked on wind turbines in the past and found the job “uncomplicated” and less satisfying because it doesn’t offer the same benefits as overtime than pipe work.
“Every time I do jobs like that, I think,‘ Why am I here? It should be in a pipe, ”he said.
Biden’s executive order emphasizes moving workers to new jobs, but is vague about the details.
“These jobs will create opportunities for young people and for older workers to move into new professions,” the order states. And “it will maximize the creation of accessible training opportunities and good jobs.”
It is likely that any movement on this front will have to originate with Congressional legislation.
For Noel, the idea of moving from his long practice to a new one is “just crazy.”
“It’s easy for welders,” he said. “I’m a foreman. My job is labor. The money is much better for directing a crew. I wouldn’t be very close to making a wind turbine, which I’ve never done.”
President Biden’s candidate for energy secretary, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, said in her recent confirmation hearing that she thought the president’s economic plan would create more “clean energy jobs” than jobs. of work that could be sacrificed “.
Noel says he’d like to believe Granholm and the Biden administration will be true to his word, but he already feels like he starts with the former.
“If you do a homework, you do a job, for thirteen years, you’d like to think that in thirteen years you’ll be comfortable and you won’t have to worry about work,” Noel said. “What have the last thirteen years been for? The last thirteen years I’ve been off the road, away from family and for what? Why am I sitting here right now talking to you about this?”