While President Biden proclaimed he could replace Keystone XL pipeline workers with renewable energy jobs, a new study shows those renewable industry jobs do not pay as well as those in the nuclear, electric power transmission, natural gas, coal and oil industries.
The report might also throw even more water on White House Climate Czar John Kerry who infamously said this in January when discussing what laid-off pipeline workers could do—
“What President Biden wants to do is make sure those folks have better choices, that they have alternatives, that they can be the people to go to work to make the solar panels.”
The report shows a major pay gap between the new green energy jobs promoted by Biden and his climate-change administration and the fossil fuel jobs they want to eliminate. If those same out-of-work pipeline and oilfield employees have to transfer to renewable energy jobs, they’ll have to take some big cuts in pay.
The study by Energy Futures Initiatives, a clean-energy think tank formed by former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is considered a major blow to Biden reported POLITICO.
The same report showed how Oklahoma’s oil and gas industry gained more than 6,500 jobs from 2016 to 2019, a more than 19% increase.
It also revealed, much to the Biden administration’s setback that the nation’s highest-paying positions are in the nuclear industry where the median hourly wage is $39.19 compared to the national median of $19.14 per hour. Nuclear industry employees generally make 105% more than the national median.
Workers in Electric Power Transmission & Distribution are paid $31.80 per hour median while those in Natural Gas receive a median pay of $30.33 per hour.
The Oil industry median was $26.59, nearly 41% higher than the national median. Even the coal industry’s wages are 50% more than the national pay. Those employed in the Wind and Solar industries were lower.