Trump’s energy message is job-focused; presumed Republican candidate says he intends to remove barriers that block the development of America’s energy resources
In a campaign speech in North Dakota last week, presumed Republican presidential nominee and real estate developer Donald J. Trump laid out his energy plan for the country. Trump’s characterization was that his plan represents “energy reform that creates trillions in new wealth.”
Below are some of the energy-related highlights from the speech and a posting of the highlights of Trump’s energy plan (source: transcript of Donald Trump’s speech in North Dakota, May 26, 2016).
“America’s incredible energy potential remains untapped. It is a totally self-inflicted wound. Under my presidency, we will accomplish complete American energy independence. Imagine a world in which our foes, and the oil cartels, can no longer use energy as a weapon.”
Trump referred to energy projects that the current administration has killed, specifically referencing the coal mining industry and the Keystone XL pipeline project.
“President Obama has aggressively blocked the production of oil & natural gas:
- He’s taken a huge percentage of the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve off the table;
- Oil and natural gas production on federal lands is down 10%;
- 87% of available land in the Outer Continental Shelf has been put off limits;
- Atlantic Lease sales were closed down too – despite the fact that they would create 280,000 jobs and $23.5 billion in economic activity;
- President Obama entered the United States into the Paris Climate Accords – unilaterally, and without the permission of Congress. This agreement gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use right here in America.
“These actions have denied millions of Americans access to the energy wealth sitting under our feet.” Trump said the president’s “anti-energy orders have also weakened our security, by keeping us reliant on foreign sources of energy. Every dollar of energy we don’t explore here, is a dollar of energy that makes someone else rich over there.”
Trump said, “North Dakota shows how energy exploration creates shared prosperity. Better schools. More funding for infrastructure. Higher wages. Lower unemployment.”
From Trump’s “America First” Energy Plan Bullet Points:
- American energy dominance will be declared a strategic economic and foreign policy goal of the United States.
- America has 1.5 times as much oil as the combined proven resources of all OPEC countries; we have more Natural Gas than Russia, Iran, Qatar and Saudi Arabia Combined; we have three times more coal than Our total untapped oil and gas reserves on federal lands equal an estimated $50 trillion.
- We will become, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy from the OPEC cartel or any nations hostile to our interests.
- At the same time, we will work with our Gulf allies to develop a positive energy relationship as part of our anti-terrorism strategy.
- We will use the revenues from energy production to rebuild our roads, schools, bridges and public infrastructure. Cheaper energy will also boost American agriculture.
- We will get the bureaucracy out of the way of innovation, so we can pursue all forms of energy. This includes renewable energies and the technologies of the future. It includes nuclear, wind and solar energy – but not to the exclusion of other energy. The government should not pick winners and losers. Instead, it should remove obstacles to exploration. Any market has ups and downs, but lifting these draconian barriers will ensure that we are no longer at the mercy of global markets.
A Trump Administration will focus on real environmental challenges, not phony ones:
- We will reject Hillary Clinton’s poverty-expansion agenda that enriches her friends and makes everyone else poor.
- We’ll solve real environmental problems in our communities like the need for clean and safe drinking water. President Obama actually tried to cut the funding for our drinking water infrastructure – even as he pushed to increase funding for his EPA bureaucrats.
- American workers will be the ones building this new infrastructure.
Here is my 100-day action plan:
- We’re going to rescind all the job-destroying Obama executive actions including the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule.
- We’re going to save the coal industry and other industries threatened by Hillary Clinton’s extremist agenda.
- I’m going to ask Trans Canada to renew its permit application for the Keystone Pipeline.
- We’re going to lift moratoriums on energy production in federal areas
- We’re going to revoke policies that impose unwarranted restrictions on new drilling technologies. These technologies create millions of jobs with a smaller footprint than ever before.
- We’re going to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.
- Any regulation that is outdated, unnecessary, bad for workers, or contrary to the national interestwill be scrapped. We will also eliminate duplication, provide regulatory certainty, and trust local officials and local residents.
- Any future regulation will go through a simple test: is this regulation good for the American worker? If it doesn’t pass this test, the rule will not be approved.
A considerable portion of the North Dakota speech was dedicated to pointing out the presumed Democrat candidate’s (former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) anti-fossil fuel and other stances.
“In March, Hillary Clinton said: ‘by the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place’,” Trump quoted Mrs. Clinton.
Trump said that “shale energy production could add two million jobs in seven years. … According to the Institute for Energy Research, lifting the restrictions on American energy will create a flood of new jobs:
- Almost a $700 billion increase in annual economic output over the next 30 years;
- More than a $30 billion increase in annual wages over the next 7 years;
- Over the next four decades, more than $20 trillion in additional economic activity and $6 trillion in new tax revenue.
“The oil and natural gas industry supports 10 million high-paying Americans jobs and can create another 400,000 new jobs per year,” Trump said.
