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WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY? North America’s Building Trades Unions, a coalition of 14 unions with 3 million members in fossil fuel-heavy construction trades, is out with a pair of studies Friday warning that oil and gas jobs are better paying and more reliable than jobs in renewable energy.
The group is responding to an accelerated push by policymakers, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, to transition the economy away from fossil fuels to wind, solar, and other zero-carbon sources (see more below on how unions in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania are viewing Biden’s aggressive climate plans).
“These studies aren’t rocket science,” said Sean McGarvey, NABTU’s president, in a press call. “I hope they provide a cautionary note for policymakers that oil and gas jobs are quality jobs.”
To conduct the studies, the Cicero Group, commissioned by NABTU, conducted more than 20 interviews with union workers across the energy industry, along with eight focus groups in states such as Pennsylvania, Texas, and California. It also did an online survey of 1,600 workers, not all of them unionized, in trades such as pipefitting, heavy equipment operation, electricians, and carpenters.
Fossil fuel vs. renewable jobs: Most workers surveyed said they prefer oil and gas jobs over renewable ones, for a few reasons. Oil and gas jobs, they say, usually involve longer duration projects providing steadier income and more consistent benefits.
That’s because windmills and solar farms require little maintenance once they are online, feeding off the wind and sun to provide power.
McGarvey claimed the ratio of workers who do maintenance work on a natural gas plant or to refuel a nuclear plant, for example, compared to similar work in renewables, is 100 to 1.
“That’s no knock on renewables,” McGarvey said. “That’s the way they are.”
There are also more oil and gas projects across the country compared to wind and solar, cutting down on travel time for construction workers who usually move from project to project.
The workers also say skills used in fossil fuels jobs are not the same as renewable ones, countering the promise by Biden and other Democrats to transition oil and gas workers with training and enhanced benefits to cleaner trades.
Trades used on oil and gas projects that aren’t as relevant to wind and solar include pipelaying and fitting, steamfitting, and plumbing, while electrician work and construction labor are more interchangeable.
Caveats apply: To be sure, most of the workers represented by NABTU work in fossil fuel-related jobs, such as building and maintaining pipelines, manufacturing facilities, refineries, and petrochemicals.
“We don’t have a lot of market share in renewables,” McGarvey said.
That explains why other unions with more relevant trades to clean energy, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and United Auto Workers, are embracing Biden’s pitch to spur millions of new jobs building wind turbines, energy-efficient homes and buildings, railroad lines, and electric vehicles.
“It creates, if implemented, a tremendous amount of job opportunities,” McGarvey said of the Biden plan. “We are anxious to hear more about it. We understand where the world is at and where the United States is at when it comes to climate change. We want to make sure these aren’t just union jobs, but middle class sustaining jobs.”
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BIDEN’S CLIMATE POLICIES SCARE PENNSYLVANIA UNIONS: In recent conversations with Josh for a story posted this morning, union leaders (all Democrats) of fossil fuel-heavy building trades in Pennsylvania discussed how they’re grappling with the conflict over Biden, the working man they know to love, but whose climate policies could harm them.
Jim Cassidy of Insulators Local No. 2 union outside Pittsburgh keeps a photo with Biden in his office, a reminder of the former vice president’s longtime support for unionized workers who build things. But Cassidy is torn over whether Biden the Democratic presidential nominee would be an enemy of the fossil fuel industry whose workers he represents.
“Biden is really one of us. I always loved the man. He scares me now. Is he embracing the new Green Deal or whatever? He needs to get some stuff straight,” Cassidy said.
But Cassidy said he will vote for Biden, trusting the Democratic nominee will “come around” to recognize how the natural gas fracking boom over the past decade has been a “godsend” in western and northeastern Pennsylvania, replacing the fading coal and steel industries.
Others are less forgiving: Predictably, many hang on a gaffe from Biden in a debate where he suggested he’d ban fracking, even though he won’t: “I am completely shocked and stunned about the language coming from Biden, allegedly a union guy,” said Jim Snell of the Steamfitters Local 420 in southeastern Pennsylvania.
But some Pennsylvania union leaders are buying Biden’s outreach to them as part of his clean energy-driven economic recovery pitch.
“The fact he is clearly mentioning protecting the workers in these sectors is evidence he wants to make sure they have a future,” said Darrin Kelly, a firefighter and president of the Allegheny County Labor Council.
Bottom line: Unions’ perception of Biden’s energy policies might not matter for him, since he’s up big in polls of Pennsylvania as voters judge President Trump on his COVID-19 response. But former centrist Republican Rep. Ryan Costello, who represented the Philadelphia suburbs, argues “building trade voters have replaced suburban women as Pensyvania’s swing voters.”
“He doesn’t need all those votes back,” Costello said of Biden. “He just needs to make sure Trump has to compete.”
BIDEN CAMP HITS TRUMP ON RFS: “After inheriting a robust farm economic and strong trade relationships that he’s reduced to shambles, Trump cut Iowa’s ethanol industry off at the knees — showering Big Oil with sweetheart deals from the EPA,” Biden campaign spokeswoman Julia Krieger said ahead of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Iowa today.
That the Trump administration sent Pompeo to talk to farmers, and not EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, adds “further insult to injury,” Krieger added.
The Biden campaign is fueling the flames of the biofuels industry’s anger: The EPA has stayed silent on how it will address dozens of pending petitions from small oil refiners requesting waivers from prior years of the RFS, even as it’s received six more petitions since June.
Ethanol producers see the “gap” petitions as a ploy to undercut a 10th Circuit ruling earlier this year that severely limited the EPA’s ability to exempt small refiners from the biofuels blending requirements. The EPA has yet to implement that court ruling.
CHATTERJEE SAYS PURPA REFORM WON’T HURT RENEWABLES: Republican commissioners on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted Thursday to approve changes to the 1978 Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act, or PURPA, in a move utilities lauded but clean energy advocates said would hurt renewable energy. FERC’s sole Democrat, Richard Glick, voted against the changes, which he said would “gut the statute.”
What the heck is PURPA and what did FERC do? PURPA imposed mandatory purchase requirements to allow renewable developers the opportunity to get favorable long-term contracts from utilities. FERC’s changes would, among other things, reduce the threshold size of projects that can qualify for such contracts from 20 megawatts to 5 MW.
FERC chairman thinks concerns are ‘overblown’: “I am not at all concerned. The renewable energy industry is thriving across this country,” Chairman Neil Chatterjee told reporters Thursday.
“Regardless of what you think of PURPA and this final rule, most of the renewable energy projects developed these days are done outside of PURPA,” Chatterjee added. “That to me is total proof that renewables can compete in our markets, and I do not expect that to change.”
NEW YORK GOES BIG ON ELECTRIC CARS: The state announced Thursday it will pour hundreds of millions into new electric vehicle charging infrastructure and zero-emission buses.
The New York Public Service Commission approved a $701 million “EV Make-Ready Program” over five years to site and build electric vehicle charging stations, according to a news release. More than $200 million of that funding will go directly to increasing access to electric car chargers within low-income communities.
“The scale of this program is beyond any prior efforts, and it recognizes the need to install vehicle chargers widely around the State,” said Anne Reynolds, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, in a statement.
In total, the investments will support more than 50,000 level 2 chargers, which can charge a car two times faster, and 1,500 public direct current fast chargers, according to the release. New York will also direct nearly $50 million from the money it received from the Volkswagen diesel emissions settlement to advance cleaner transit options, including zero-emission buses.
Earlier this week, New York joined more than a dozen states in a new partnership aiming to make all new bus and truck sales zero-emission by 2050.
UK COULD BAN NEW PETROLEUM CAR SALES BY 2030, SHELL EXEC SAYS: That’s even more ambitious than what UK officials are considering, which is to bring the ban on new petrol and diesel car sales up five years, from 2040 to 2035.
“We believe that the right policy and incentives could allow the UK to achieve this as soon as 2030, to ensure the UK meets the 2050 net zero target,” Sinead Lynch, Shell’s UK country chair, wrote Thursday in a LinkedIn post.
Lynch stressed, though, that the UK must bolster EV policy, including by providing financial incentives for consumers to purchase electric cars, to build out a public charging network, and to support the electricity sector so it can handle additional power demand.
FLORIDA DELEGATION SPIKES AMENDMENT TO BAR OFFSHORE DRILLING: The bipartisan amendment to the House defense authorization bill would have permanently extended a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico (the prohibition is currently set to end in June 2022).
The withdrawal follows lobbying from a number of energy trade groups, including the National Ocean Industries Association, the American Petroleum Institute, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute, arguing the amendment would restrict debate about future domestic energy production and make energy production less safe by also rolling back Trump administration revisions of an offshore drilling safety rule.
“Instead of keeping today’s performance-based provisions, the amendment would have reintroduced technically flawed language that detract from the goal of safe and environmentally-responsible operations, seriously undermining a performance-based regulatory regime,” Erik Milito, NOIA’s president, said in a statement.
CONSERVATIVE GROUP…HEY GOP, DON’T FORGET ABOUT CLEAN ENERGY: The conservative group Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions is urging Republicans in Congress to push for the passage of bipartisan clean energy and climate change legislation as part of policymakers’ response to the coronavirus.
Heather Reams, CRES’ executive director, pushed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy in a letter Thursday to pass the America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act and the American Energy Innovation Act.
“As Congressional Republicans work to develop recovery legislation, we encourage you to look to the clean energy sector to help secure critical jobs, promote future economic growth, and improve our natural environment,” Reams said.
The Senate Environment Committee has already unanimously approved the surface transportation bill, which is the first highway bill to have a climate section, including spending on EV charging stations and grants to states to cut transportation emissions.
The American Energy Innovation Act, led by Republican Lisa Murkowski and Democrat Joe Manchin, contains pieces of more than 50 bills that have already cleared the Senate Energy Committee. It includes provisions to boost technologies such as advanced nuclear, energy storage, carbon capture, energy efficiency, geothermal power, and emissions-cutting technologies in the industrial sector.
The Rundown
Reuters EU’s greenhouse gas strategy fails to plug methane hole
New York Times Southern Iraq’s toxic twilight
Politico Trump’s ‘unforced error’ puts Western Senate Republicans in an election jam
Calendar
10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on users of public lands, forests, and national parks.
12 p.m. Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions holds a virtual forum titled “How do conservatives plan to tackle climate change?” featuring remarks from Dave Banks, chief strategist for Republicans on the House select climate committee.
