President Joe Biden invoked the Steel City in his speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, asking why wind turbine blades can’t be made in Pittsburgh rather than Beijing, China — essentially challenging U.S. businesses to bring manufacturing jobs back from overseas.
President Biden: "There is simply no reason why the blades for wind turbines can't be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing." #JointAddress
— ABC News (@ABC) April 29, 2021
LIVE UPDATES: https://t.co/qBYRxyCHrI pic.twitter.com/91A9eCYMO1
Local reaction came from a wide variety of sources.
From Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald:
Thank you, @POTUS Biden. We will not just build the turbine blades in Pittsburgh .... we will build them better. Joe Biden always has Pittsburgh in his heart.
— Allegheny Co. Exec. (@ACE_Fitzgerald) April 29, 2021
From North America’s largest electrical workers’ union:
. @POTUS: "There is no reason wind turbines can't be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing."
— IBEW (@IBEW) April 29, 2021
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accused Biden of taking away American jobs with the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline project:
The Real State of the Union: Joe Biden chose Paris over Pittsburgh.
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) April 29, 2021
Rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement.
Blocked the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, eliminating 11,000 jobs.
Blocked new oil and gas leases and drilling permits. pic.twitter.com/1InphRUtE5
The Pennsylvania branch of the Republican National Committee also accused Biden of pursuing policies that “destroy American jobs,” including the Keystone cancellation as well as:
• Blocking new oil and gas drilling on federal lands.
• Rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement.
• Proposing an infrastructure package which the nonprofit Tax Foundation estimates could eliminate up to 159,000 jobs.
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto weighed in:
We are here and we are ready Mr @POTUS - our economic development strategy to Reimagine Appalachia @newdeal4us requires a strong federal partner https://t.co/F7aVSZIUoJ and it allows us to meet our requirements of the Paris Agreement while creating 400,000 jobs. @ginamccarthy46 https://t.co/QjNY35JJ23
— bill peduto (@billpeduto) April 29, 2021
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, said Biden has squandered his first 100 days in office catering to left-wing “wish lists” and ignoring bipartisanship.
“Tonight’s announcement of a new, dramatic, and costly expansion of the welfare state — paid for by massive tax increases — is yet another example of this hyper-partisan approach that the Biden administration has deployed since January,” Toomey said in a news release.
And journalist Matthew Yglesias took issue with Biden’s sentence structure on Twitter:
My industrial policy take is that Biden should have found an alliterative pair rather than Pittsburgh vs Beijing.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 29, 2021
Build the windmills in Dayton rather than Dalian! Phoenix, not Foshan!
