President Biden delivered an election year State of the Union address last week, and unsurprisingly didn’t have a lot to say about energy. His energy remarks were devoted to taking credit for “tens of thousands of clean-energy jobs” and once again recycling the old Green New Deal scheme of a “Climate Corps.”

Really, the last thing Biden should be taking credit for with his green-at-all-costs energy agenda is creating jobs. We’ve already made tremendous strides in cleaning up our environment and lowering emissions BECAUSE of energy sources like American natural gas. And, oil and natural gas literally fuel the American economy and the jobs its support. Here are some facts:

• The oil and natural gas industry combined supports nearly 11 million U.S. jobs—5.4% of the nation’s total employment.
• Nearly 1.5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs were created as natural gas production grew over the last decade—and for every manufacturing job, 4.4 jobs are created elsewhere.\
• A July 2020 study by North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), found that oil and gas jobs “have better wages, benefits and opportunities than renewables projects.” Many union members would “take a 50% or 75% pay cut” if they changed jobs into the renewable energy industry.

Biden got one thing right in his speech, America’s strength is built on “investing in all of America, in all Americans.” But, continuing to prop up renewable energy at the expense of the millions of American jobs in traditional energy is not that. Americans know better and we deserve better. We can protect our environment now and in the future, while also protecting our economic livelihood and energy security.

For more information on how energy like American natural gas fuels jobs, check out TEA’s Jobs Factsheet.