Keystone Pipeline Foreman on Biden: “I Laid off Guys Because the President Doesn’t Want Them to Work”

In his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to halt the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which was meant to transport Canadian crude oil to the U.S., citing the climate-change crisis as the reason.

The move swiftly eliminated the estimated 11,000 U.S. jobs – including 8,000 union jobs – the project would have sustained in 2021.

Neal Crabtree, a welding foreman who began working on pipeline construction as an apprentice in 1997, was dismayed when he heard the news.

"This is not a time to be making political statements. We need to be finding ways to put more Americans back to work, not the other way around," he said in an interview with Fox News.

A member of Pipeliners Local Union 798, one of four unions whose members will be left without work due to the pipeline’s cancellation, the 46-year-old welder from Arkansas was among the first to be laid off following the order. At the time the cross-border permits for the pipeline were rescinded, he and his team were in Nebraska working on a pump station for Keystone XL.

In a Facebook post from the Wednesday, Crabtree wrote he felt "a sick feeling in my stomach and an aching in my heart," and admitted to breaking down and crying in his truck after laying off his team.

"Just like the rest of the country, COVID hurt us bad. We had a lot of projects canceled," he told Fox News. "We've got guys that haven't worked in months, and in some cases years, and to have a project of this magnitude canceled, it's going to hurt a lot of people, a lot of families, a lot of communities."

Following a year of economic devastation brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, this decision left those affected by it feeling more abandoned than ever.

One emotional Facebook post about his layoff and 3.5 thousand shares later, Crabtree is all over the internet and in front of the camera for Fox News shows. That may not be all.

Crabtree FB post
"I'm getting phone calls every minute it seems like for different shows and emails," Crabtree says of his sudden demand. "I just want my job back and I'm going to fight for it."

Asked how he's going to do that, Crabtree pointed to our camera and said, "Things like this right here, sir. Try to get my message out. Try to talk some common sense into politicians if that's possible."

After an appearance on Hannity on Monday night, Crabtree was back in the KTBS 3 Newsroom Tuesday morning, where our station uplinked his latest live cable news interview for Fox's The Faulkner Focus.

In part of the interview, Crabtree told the national audience of the need for the pipeline, saying, "A pipeline can do this safer. Common sense tells you that. Common sense says we don't need to be putting American workers out of a job right now. Common sense says this pipeline needs to be built. But common sense seems to be lacking in some of the early days of the decisions of this administration."

Joe Biden and democrats want to pretend that these jobs will be replaced with new "green jobs," but this is just not true.