After President Biden met with Alaska's bipartisan congressional delegation in advance of a decision on whether to approve a massive oil drilling project, critics warned a no-go would hurt the president's purported key base – union workers.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who served as President Trump's energy secretary, told Fox News Monday defying ‘green’ leftists in the Democratic Party in favor of union labor would be a boon for Biden for 2024.
"If you want to look at it just straight up numbers for a political election, there's 2,500 construction jobs in the [Willow] project. Those are union jobs, by and large. And union men and women across the country are watching this," he said on "The Story."
"And if President Biden needs those union jobs to get re-elected and win; his math anyway, then I think the balance is going to be pretty much over on that. We need to open up the Willow Project."
ALASKA GOV. DUNLEAVY: BIDEN SEARCHING FOR OIL ‘ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET EXCEPT AT HOME’
If Biden bows to his far-left environmentalist flank and denies the project, Perry said he will not only be hurting the prospect of added union labor but also empowering other oil-producing nations like Russia, Iran and Argentina at the expense of the United States.
Anchor Martha MacCallum added that the estimated oil wealth under the North Slope far exceeds that within the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve overall.
"The point is, if the green environmental radicals have their claws into Joe Biden as deep as some of us think they do, then they're pulling the strings on him," warned Perry.
"We'll see. I think this is a real test to find out -- is Joe Biden so behold[en] to the radical left that he is willing to throw away 2,500 good paying construction jobs -- billions of dollars. I want to say something like $18 billion a year to the federal kitty that could be used to lower taxes and help on this deficit we've got."
ENTIRE ALASKA DELEGATION MEETS BIDEN AT WHITE HOUSE IMPLORING APPROVAL OF MASSIVE OIL PROJECT
Alaska's trio of federal representatives, Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola and Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Daniel Sullivan, are united in favor of the project, along with the state's newly-reelected Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
In a previous interview with Fox News, Dunleavy said the oil industry funded $394 million in property taxes within the North Slope Borough alone in 2019, which in turn helped the far-flung communities build new infrastructure, establish medevac services and an investment account similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund that has paid annual dividends to statewide residents for decades.
"We think [energy production] should be coming from places like Alaska where there is robust regulatory oversight to ensure the total footprint is minimized," Dunleavy said at the time, adding that any blanket ban on domestic production would hurt the state's economy.
After the meeting with Biden, Murkowski said she hopes he doesn't seek the middle ground where he makes things difficult for Conoco-Phillips to the point they ditch the project, MacCallum reported.
Sullivan separately told Fox News the max production for the project would be nearly 200,000 barrels per day.
Perry said Biden's forthcoming decision will be an inflection point for the public to see just how much he values American economic security over other political concerns like the green movement.
"You're either for America, for America energy or you're not. And so you're just going to have to stand up, Mr. President, and declare which side you're going to be on," he said.
"You're either going to be for the Argentines, the Russians, the Iraqis, the Iranians, people who are going to fill this void – or you're going to be for us, because this fuel is going to get used out there in the world somewhere."
Fox News' Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report.
