Former Keystone Pipeline worker: Oil, gas still runs this country

president biden canceled the keystone xl pipeline on his very first day in office there he is signing it off january the 20th pipeline worker neil crabtree got laid off just three hours after biden was inaugurated and he joins me now neil thank you so much i guess the first question is with that job with that job eliminated what are you doing now uh well uh nothing really i've got on the unemployment so that seems to be what the administration their answer is to everything let's take your job away and we'll provide you with a stimulus check and some unemployment benefits and everything will be okay how long have you had you been working on the pipeline uh well that particular project we just started it uh just the first week of january we went there but three weeks uh just a small crew at the time but throughout the the spring and the end of the summers when we would have been adding you know the 11 or 12 000 jobs you hear about but uh that's kind of a thing of the past right now and these are good paying jobs uh which are probably not in high supply in that part of the country no i mean well that's part of being a pipeline worker you can't make a living building a pipeline in your hometown you've got to travel to where the works at and you know when you'll be able to stay on the road you have to be able to afford motel rooms and the cost of living you know out of town so that's the reason they pay so good and then some of these solar panel jobs they were talking about you can't make a living traveling doing them at 16 or 17 an hour i don't know who they're going to find them in those jobs because it's not going to be me well i guess i i think i can guess what you're going to say but what do you make of this administration do they understand the impact of what they've done i don't believe so you know i think there is a dangerous time for this country you know if we go to neglecting our reliable uh uh energy uh uh it's a national security issue to me you know the biden administration as much as they hate to admit it you know uh oil and gas still runs this country and it it needs to be part of this uh uh energy infrastructure uh that we're talking about you know forcing us to go in a green direction uh it shouldn't be something the government's gonna do the private sector will take care of that because believe me there's money to be made in it they'll they'll start uh moving in that direction but having the government forces in that direction is a dangerous thing to me so what is your plan now going forward neil i know you said you're relying on these benefit checks that's not what you want to do what's your next step well i mean there's going to be smaller projects going on mostly maintenance work and things like that but it's not going to provide enough man-hours for the people that rely on this industry i mean there's uh i'm telling you the truth when i know people in their 30s and 40s were having to cash in their 401ks that they were saving for retirement to try to make it through this and that's uh that's not something you want to be faced with no no that says it all all right neil crabtree neil thanks for joining us and we wish you the very best of luck going forward from here and thanks for taking time to speak with us alright thank you

Channel: Fox Business

Views: 14,366

Keywords: Fox Business, news, business, politics, Keystone Pipeline, New Mexico, Dakota Pipeline, Joe Biden, Biden executive order, Green new deal, renewable energy, green energy, energy sector, fossil fuels, oil and gas, oil and gas industry, gas prices, Biden administration, Keystone Pipeline employees, gas, crude oil, Russian oil, Middle East, United States, fracking, oil drilling, Neal Crabtree

Id: COZFEnD5gPM

Length: 3min 23sec (203 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 05 2021