Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-05-18)

◼ POLITICS Bloomberg Businessweek May 18, 2020

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WOSHIBAI;

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here areunionworkersbuildingtheequipment,

gas rigs,pipelines,andpowerplantsthatextract,

distribute,andusethatgas.They’retornbetween

Trump’senergypoliciesandBiden’slaborpolicies.

“We’reinanunusualposition.Wehavea party

in the Democratsthatsupportsusasa laborunion

100% buthasa wingofthepartythatis vehemently

againsttheworkthatwedo,”saysJimKunz,the

businessmanageroftheInternationalUnionof

OperatingEngineersLocal 66 inPittsburgh.“And

then there’stheRepublicanswhoareverymuch

in favorofourindustrybuthasa wingoftheparty

on the farrightthathatesusbecausewe’reunion.”

KunzhascalledTrumpa “snakeoilsalesman”

but estimatesthatasmanyas60%ofhismembers

voted forthepresidentin2016.HesaysBiden,

▼ West Texas

Intermediate crude

futures,November 2020

2/11/20 5/11/20

$60

40

20

▼ Natural gas futures,

November 2020

2/11/20 5/11/20

$3.00

2.50

2.00

+30% Trump

whose hometown is Scranton, Pa., doesn’t have

the kind of baggage that Clinton carried in 2016.

“You can’t go talking about deplorables and a war

on coal and expect people in western Pennsylvania

to vote for you,” says Kunz. Trump has stoked those

cultural resentments, with Pennsylvania hosting

many of his once-frequent campaign rallies.

“How about going to Texas and say, ‘No Bible,

no oil?’ ” Trump told a Hershey, Pa., audience in

December. “But you know somebody that believes

in that is Sleepy Joe Biden. He was caught telling a

far-left radical activist that he would shut down fos-

sil fuel production in Pennsylvania, you saw that.”

(Biden told an activist in New Hampshire last year,

“We’re going to end fossil fuel.”)

In a round of local news interviews that aired in

Pittsburgh last month, Biden denied Trump’s claim.

“No, I would not shut down this industry,” he said. “I

know our Republican friends are trying to say I said

that. I said I would not do any new leases on federal

lands,” he said. “But I would not shut it down, no.”

One option that’s available to the president to

shore up the entire industry between now and

November: a bailout. The Trump administra-

tion has been considering possible ways of keep-

ing capital flowing to battered U.S. oil producers.

“The fact that they’re talking about direct support

of the industry is a function of how important it is

today vs. what it maybe was during the financial

Ky.

Wyo.

Okla.

W.Va.

N.D.

DATA: U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION