Sen. Cassidy slams Biden's vow to end oil industry

FPI / October 26, 2020

Joe Biden's vow to put an end to the oil and gas industry will occur "over my dead body," Sen. Bill Cassidy said.

The Louisiana Republican told Breitbart News that Biden’s pledge to close the oil industry shows a lack of concern for millions of working-class families that would lose their livelihoods.

“I think it exposes the elitism of the Democratic Party,” Cassidy said. “I read Joe flew away in his private jet. He will still have the jet fuel; he will just buy it from someplace else. Another 11 million jobs, 250,000 of them in Louisiana in oil and gas, they’re gone.”

Cassidy added: “But they’re not his voters. They’re in flyover country. So his coastal elites would do extremely well; they don’t worry about that, they won’t be inconvenienced, they’ll probably repeal the SALT tax so that they have even more money. For the folks back home, who have good-paying jobs because of the oil and gas industry, an asset that everyone can see will be needed for the next 50 years. They’ll be a little harder off.”

During Thursday night’s presidential debate, President Donald Trump asked Biden if he would shut down the oil industry.

“I would transition from the oil industry, yes,” Biden said.

The Democrat candidate went on to say: “Because the oil industry pollutes. It has to be replaced by renewable energy over time. And I’d stop giving federal subsidies to the oil industry. He won’t give federal subsidies to solar and wind. Why are we giving it to the oil industry?”

Cassidy told Breitbart News that “what I find is most upsetting is the future of those families and those jobs. When I’m re-elected, it’ll be over my dead body if he pushes that agenda, and I cannot believe the lack of concern he’s showing for families that depend on that income.”

Louisiana’s energy industry contributed $73 billion to the state’s GDP and supported 249,800 jobs in 2019. The Louisiana energy industry also provided 14.6 percent of total state taxes, licenses, fees collected as well as $14.5 billion in wages to state workers.

“If we ever had to establish that the president was for the working family and Biden was not, I thought that the debate last night pretty much established that,” Cassidy said. “Biden’s pretty much willing to shut down the economy again when it’s actually working families that suffer most from that.”

Free Press International