A group of truckers are planning a strike during Veterans Day on Wednesday in an effort to urge the incoming Biden administration to avoid implementing a ban on fracking.
"Our message is simple and hopefully effective. We fully intend to exercise our rights, and will not have politicians making crippling decisions, that will negatively affect our future and the future of our children." StopTheTires2020 organizer Jeremy Rewoldt wrote in a Facebook post. "We will not participate in the leftist, Biden/Harris Green New Deal. We do not support the banning of fracking. The United States of America operates as a capitalistic economy and OIL is the fuel she survives on."
Rewoldt applauded President Trump for working "diligently for four long years to protect the rights and freedoms of all Americans, and very importantly the blue-collar workers of this country."
"The blue-collar workers are literally the ones that make the wheels turn!," Rewoldt said. "Without truck drivers this country could not survive for long."
He added that the protest's intention is not to harm anyone and that they do not wish for any companies or private drivers who are supplying any kind of medical supplies or services to participate in the movement.
In addition, the group plans to launch a second StopTheTires protest from Nov. 26 to 29. The StopTheTires2020 Facebook group, created on Friday, has gained more than 20,600 members as of Monday afternoon.
The planned protest comes as major oil and gas producers, including ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Schell, and Chevron Corp., announced last month that they will cut thousands of workers as the coronavirus pandemic continues to hammer oil prices and fuel demand.
Fracking, or the process of extracting natural gas by injecting water into shale rock at high pressure, has supported at least 10.3 million jobs in the oil and gas industry, according to a 2017 report by the American Petroleum Institute. The institute's report also projects fracking could support an additional 1.9 million jobs by 2035.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette told FOX Business' Stuart Varney that abolishing hydraulic fracturing technology could potentially lead to the loss of 19 million jobs.
“This technology, hydraulic fracturing, has produced the largest economic boom that we have known in our lifetimes,” Brouillette said. “We are now a net energy exporter in the United States. The one thing that can’t be undone is the economic progress that’s occurred since this president took office in 2017. It has been enormous. Absolutely enormous.”
President Trump has frequently claimed that Biden would kill those jobs.
According to Biden's transition website, his administration plans to launch a national effort to create jobs that will deliver a "equitable clean energy future." One of the goals of that effort will be to create jobs in "climate-smart agriculture, resilience, and conservation," including 250,000 jobs plugging abandoned oil and natural gas wells and reclaiming abandoned coal, hardrock, and uranium mines.
The American Trucking Association issued a statement on Saturday congratulating President-elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, noting that they "look forward to working with their Administration to strengthen the economy and rebuild our national infrastructure" and that trucking does not speak to "one specific political party."
"While some exist in Washington to perpetuate problems, we come to the table prepared with solutions. We value sound data and honest dialogue. Above all, we commit to working with anyone willing to work with us," the organization said. “As the Biden Administration rolls up its sleeves and begins the heavy lift of rebuilding America’s ailing infrastructure, it will find a constructive partner in ATA. We stand ready, willing and able to get the job done.”
This article originally appeared on Fox Business