On the heels of a flurry of executive actions signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday meant to address the issue of climate change, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order of his own on Thursday. Abbott’s order directs state agencies to legally challenge any Biden order “that threatens the continued strength, vitality and independence of the energy industry.”
Considering that one of Biden’s orders calls for a halt to all oil and gas exploration on federal land, lawyers in the Lone Star State should be busy in the coming days and weeks.
“Texas is going to protect the oil and gas industry from any type of hostile attack launched from Washington, D.C,” Abbot said. “President Biden’s embrace of the green new deal is a job killer in Texas. It also takes a wrecking ball to the energy independence that Texas has been able to provide the United States of America and Texas is not going to stand idly by and watch the Biden administration kill jobs in Midland, in Odessa or any other place across the entire region.”
Abbott’s order directs “every state agency to use all lawful powers and tools to challenge any federal action that threatens the continued strength, vitality and independence of the energy industry.” It further directs state agencies to “work to identify potential litigation, notice-and-comment opportunities, and any other means of preventing federal overreach within the law.”
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The order was signed by Abbot and attested by Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs. Abbott threatened to fire agency heads who refuse to follow through on his order.
Thus far, Biden’s executive actions have cost at least 11,000 American jobs with his cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline on day one of his administration. The orders he signed on Wednesday could potentially cost hundreds of thousands of more jobs in the energy and related sectors. This, despite Biden referring to the signing of the orders as “jobs day at the White House.”
On Wednesday, former Secretary of State John Kerry, now Biden’s “climate czar,” claimed that killing energy-sector jobs would not come at the expense of workers currently employed in such positions. Kerry claimed that new “healthier” jobs in hydrogen, geothermal, and other renewables were on the way and that the Biden administration wanted the energy-sector workers to “have better choices.”
Though Biden and his underlings promise “clean energy” jobs down the road, the technologies for most of those new jobs don’t yet exist. So, despite their claims to the contrary, they are indeed putting people out of work as of right now with their authoritarian climate dictates.
Some Texas Democrats have also called for Biden to rescind the halt on oil and gas leasing. Vicente Gonzalez, Lizzie Fletcher, Henry Cuellar, and Marc Veasy penned a letter to Biden calling for him to “reject policies that would ban responsible oil and gas leasing on federal lands and federal waters.”
However, other Democrats in the Lone Star State accused Abbott of not “being honest with working Texans,” insisting that the state’s energy-job future lies in renewables.
“To save Texas energy, we need to demand new leadership in this state that is honest, upfront with Texans, and embraces the future,” said Texas Democrat Party spokesman Abhi Rahman.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) attacked Biden’s job-killing executive order on behalf of Republicans.
“There’s nothing green about a tsunami of pink slips for American workers, or carting Canadian crude around in trucks and trains instead of a pipeline,” McConnell said. “This piecemeal green new deal is the wrong prescription; wrong for the environment, wrong for national security, and most of all for the working Americans who will soon be formerly working Americans if this keeps up.”
The loss of even more jobs in the current COVID-19 economy could be beyond disastrous. An American Petroleum Industry report from September of last year estimates a peak job loss of approximately one million – 120,000 of those lost jobs would be in Texas.
“It’s a heck of a way to kick off a presidency,” McConnell concluded.
Under Donald Trump, the United States became energy independent for the first time in decades. In 2019, the country became a net exporter of petroleum for the first time since record keeping began in 1973. Despite all of this energy production — which was accomplished despite strict environmental regulations — the United States also reduced greenhouse-gas emissions more than any other country.
Biden is destroying all of that progress and threatens to put a million people out of work, raise energy prices, and tank the economy — all with the stroke of pen.
Texas, at least, is fighting back.
