Like blue states and cities did all throughout former President Donald Trump’s tenure, now red states are preparing to push back against President Joe Biden’s agenda using the federal court system.
And in fact, the leader of one Republican-dominated state, Texas, has made such pushback official, at least when it comes to Biden’s orders that have a negative effect on employment in the Lone Star State.
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Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order Thursday in response to an unprecedented wave of executive directors issued by Biden during his first few days in office instructing state agencies to file challenges to any White House climate-related orders that “kill jobs.”
“Texas is going to protect the oil and gas industry from any type of hostile attack launched from Washington D.C.,” said Abbott. “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 to 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.”
Texas, of course, is home to a very large portion of U.S. oil and gas production.
As for Abbott’s order, it comes after Biden — on his first day in office — killed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline via imperial fiat, as well as halted new fracking and oil/gas drilling leases on federal lands (that American taxpayers actually own).
While Biden’s actions have drawn fire from Republicans, industry groups, and even some Democrats, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said at a Wednesday press briefing at the White House that Biden wants to make sure workers in the energy industry “have better choices” in jobs that “pay better” and are “cleaner,” giving the example of being a solar power technician instead of being a miner. Kerry also claimed that it’s a false notion that “dealing with climate” comes at the expense of energy workers, adding that there is “a lot of money to be made” in the creation of new “healthier” jobs in sectors such as green hydrogen, geothermal heat, and other renewables.
Republicans in Congress are also pushing back. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) described Biden’s energy policies in sum as the “piecemeal green new deal.”
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“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 on the Senate floor. “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.”
“Wilfully throwing our own people out of work, reducing our domestic energy security, raising costs and prices for working families—all for no meaningful impact on global temperatures,” McConnell added.
While congressional Republicans have little-to-no actual power right now since Democrats control both chambers, the resistance to Biden’s leftist policies will have to come from red states. And if Texas is any indication, red states are already ramping up their legal teams.
