Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter says President Biden should listen to his own energy secretary who proclaimed pipelines are the safest way to transport fossil fuels.
Hunter sent a letter to the President and renewed his call for the President to support additional energy infrastructure including the Keystone Xl pipeline that Biden cancelled. The letter was in response to the hacking of the Colonial pipeline which resulted in its shutdown, price spikes, fuel shortages and long lines at gas stations across the south and eastern parts of the U.S.
In the letter, Attorney General Hunter and 18 other state attorneys general say President Biden sacrificed the Keystone pipeline on the altar of left-wing virtue signaling.
Attorney General Hunter said the president’s own energy secretary directly contradicted his decision to cancel the Keystone pipeline.
“Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, in a public briefing said that pipelines – as opposed to other transport methods – is the best way to move fossil fuels,” Attorney General Hunter said.
Hunter went on to state that when Biden was vice president, the state department published studies declaring that Keystone was a net positive for the economy, the environment and energy security.
“No one can argue against the safety and efficiency Keystone brings, not even the president’s own people. Canceling it does nothing but kill jobs and hurt our economy.”
In the letter, attorneys general detailed the harm caused by his purported cancelation of the Keystone XL pipeline and urged President Biden to put Americans’ national security and the environment first.
“Americans depend upon safe and secure energy supplies, which is why we must build and maintain robust energy infrastructure that is resilient in the face of accidents and sabotage,” the letter states. “A temporary shutdown of one pipeline’s full-capacity operations shouldn’t bring half the country to the brink. We need more safe and clean energy sources. But your Administration’s current approach exchanges those fact-based conclusions for the faddish preoccupations of your coastal elite constituencies.”
Attorneys general go on to say President Biden’s extreme climate agenda is untethered to scientific facts and realities, based on the decision on Keystone and other similar actions, which deprives Americans of the safe and clean energy supply that is needed.
“It undercuts our energy independence by eliminating a large and secure source of oil in a time of growing global unrest. It damages our reputation with geopolitical allies, like Canada, by reneging on our commitments. It destroys sophisticated, high-paying jobs. And it stunts sustainable economic growth in pipeline communities and throughout the country.”
Attorney General Hunter is also a part of 21-state coalition currently suing the Biden Administration over its unconstitutional revocation of the Keystone cross-border permit.
Read the letter, here.