Unions react to pipeline rejection

Labor unions are reacting to President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, with some slamming the decision and others praising it.

Obama announced Friday that “the State Department has decided that the Keystone XL Pipeline would not serve the national interest of the United States.  I agree with that decision.”

The proposed pipeline would have run 1,179 miles and carried 800,000 barrels a day of petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast of the United States.

Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, called Obama’s decision “shameful.”

“President Obama today demonstrated that he cares more about kowtowing to green-collar elitists than he does about creating desperately needed, family-supporting, blue-collar jobs,” O’Sullivan said. “We are dismayed and disgusted that the President has once again thrown the members of LIUNA, and other hard-working, blue-collar workers under the bus of his vaunted ‘legacy,’ while doing little or nothing to make a real difference in global climate change.”

TransCanada, the company that planned to build the pipeline, said it would create 42,000 jobs directly and indirectly, including 9,000 jobs in construction.

In contrast, the National Nurses Union praised Obama’s announcement.

“This is an important decision that will protect thousands of Americans who would face significant health hazards from the transport and refining of the dangerous tar sands oil that Keystone was proposed to carry, and it adds momentum to the fight against the harmful effects of climate change,” said NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro.
 
NNU first announced its opposition to Keystone in February, 2013 citing a significant impact on the health of communities in the tar sands production areas along its route and communities where the heavy sour crude will be processed, in addition to its contributions to climate change.

Pollutants associated with tar sands, the oil at the center of the Keystone project, have been linked to cancer, leukemia, genetic damage and birth defects, the NNU said.