After Biden Caused Thousands of Layoffs, Granholm Complains Not Enough Oil & Gas Workers on the Job

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm complained Tuesday in a White House briefing that there were not enough oil and gas workers to generate supply to lower gas prices, ignoring the fact that President Joe Biden caused thousands of layoffs.

Granholm spoke after President Biden gave a speech about gas prices and the economy before leaving for Nantucket, Massachusetts, for a Thanksgiving vacation. Biden blamed foreign countries and American oil and gas companies for high fuel prices, as he released oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and encouraged consumers to buy electric vehicles.

Secretary Granholm continued in the same vein, accusing fossil fuel companies of letting oil and gas leases sit idle while they make “enormous profits.” She added: “In fact, there are 150,000 fewer workers in oil and gas today. It was over 200,000 people who were working in the industry before the pandemic. They have not re-hired people. They have not turned on the rigs. They have not taken advantage of the permits that they have, on the land that they have.”

As Breitbart News reported earlier this year, Biden caused thousands of layoffs in the oil and gas industry on his first day in office when he canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, which had already passed environmental approvals and was undergoing construction at the time:

Biden revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, as promised. In so doing, he killed some 11,000 direct jobs that the pipeline’s construction was to have created, and an estimated 60,000 indirect jobs in secondary, related industries.

Over 1,000 workers already on the job — mostly union workers — will be laid off as a result of the decision, even if it is litigated, as many expect it will be, in the courts.

Biden recently returned from the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow, Scotland, where he renewed pledges to wean the U.S. from fossil fuels. The administration continues to fight in court against challenges to its halt on new oil and gas leases.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.