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January 11, 2021

Make Your Voice Heard On Keystone Pipeline

Shortly after President-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office on January 20, he could make a decision about the fate of the Keystone XL project: whether to revoke the existing presidential permit for the project, which will transport crude oil across the U.S.-Canada border, or to allow it to stand, thereby allowing the project to be finished.

The president will rely on his nominees to energy and environmental posts – each of whom requires Senate confirmation to take their post – to make this decision. (Click here for the Connecting the Dots article about those nominees.)

As such, these confirmation processes will provide U.S. senators the chance to ask nominees about their views about the pipeline and other similar projects. In an effort to get these questions asked, the Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance (EEIA), which MSCI is a member of, has recommended that interested employees along the energy and manufacturing supply chain write to their senators to explain why the Keystone project is important to their industry and to urge each nominee to ask President Biden to keep the project permit in place.

EEIA recommended making the following points:

  • Construction of the Keystone pipeline has created or will create more than 42,000 jobs;
  • All of the pipeline project contractors’ workforces are union workers earning family-supporting incomes directly from pipeline construction and these jobs are especially critical in today’s COVID-challenged job market;
  • Not completing this project would devastate countless construction worker families, along with many small businesspeople, and their families, who are supplying equipment, materials, and services to the pipeline;
  • TC Energy, the company building the pipeline, has committed to utilize only union labor to build the project in the United States, resulting in up to 8,000 jobs and $900 million in union wages in 2021 alone;
  • TC Energy also has created a $10 million Green Jobs Training Fund to help union members prepare for the jobs of the future; and
  • The company also has signed agreements with Indigenous communities to become equity owners in the project and will spend more than $500 million with Indigenous contractors, businesses, and workers during construction.

Interested individuals can use this website to send their letter to their senators.

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