Vice President Kamala Harris has championed radical environmental policies supported by activist groups that, in part, led to U.S. Steel’s disinvestment in a crucial Pennsylvania project. Now, a Japanese firm might revive the project — but Harris has come out opposing the foreign takeover in a bid to appeal to working-class voters. It’s a cynical ploy, however, considering her own agenda panders to the same activists who are partly to blame for the situation.
In 2019, U.S. Steel committed to investing over $1 billion in the Mon Valley Works project but withdrew two years later amid, in part, pressure from climate activists, according to CBS News.
The original project was expected to improve “jobs” and “air quality,” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said, according to the report.
“This community got blindsided because this is a good project,” Fitzgerald said when U.S. Steel announced it would not be investing in the project.
U.S. Steel agreed to sell itself to Nippon Steel in 2023, and Nippon pledged to re-invest in the Mon Valley Works project. U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt told CNN, “The bottom line is these are investments in the future of American steelmaking and the employees, families, and communities that rely on it.”
Harris, however, has come out in favor of keeping U.S. Steel American-owned, saying Monday that “US Steel is a historic American company, and it is vital for our nation to maintain strong American steel companies.” The United Steelworkers union said Harris “once again made it clear that
