President Trump promoted his record on U.S. energy production Wednesday during a trip to Pittsburgh that sounded more like a campaign rally than a policy discussion.
Speaking at the annual Shale Insight Conference, Mr. Trump told oil and gas industry workers that Democrats “want to ban shale energy.”
“Anti-energy zealots are blinded by ideology,” Mr. Trump said, referring to liberals’ proposed Green New Deal. “The radical policies of Democrats in Congress would result in massive layoffs.”
Pennsylvania has experienced an energy boom in recent years through the production of natural gas from shale fracking, a process of hydraulic drilling. Mr. Trump won the state narrowly in 2016, but is trailing Democratic front-runner Joseph R. Biden by about 10 percentage points in polls of head-to-head matchups.
At a campaign appearance in his native Scranton Wednesday, Mr. Biden accused the president of having forgotten America’s “forgotten people.” The president said his plans will bring even more jobs to the energy-rich landscape of Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
“Our goal is to bring 100,000 energy jobs to Appalachia and to rebuild this magnificent region … which was forgotten too long by the Democrats,” Mr. Trump said.
The president warned that Democrats’ energy agenda would roll back the gains from shale gas drilling and would “obliterate millions of American jobs, devastating communities across Pennsylvania.”
“As long as I am your president, that will never, ever come close to happening,” Mr. Trump said. “Our vision is pro-worker, pro-jobs, pro-family, pro-energy and 100% pro-American.”
Noting that the U.S. is now a net exporter of energy, the president said America “should never again be at the mercy of a foreign energy supplier.” Instead, he said, the U.S. should keep growing to “dominance” of world energy markets.
“The path to that future starts right here in shale country,” he said.
The president listed his achievements on energy, including approving permits for long-stalled oil pipelines, cutting regulations that threatened the coal industry, canceling the Obama administration’s “Clean Power Plan” for power plants and withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate accord.
“The Paris Accord would have been shutting down American producers with excessive regulatory restrictions,” he said. “What we won’t do is punish the American people while enriching foreign polluters. It’s called — I’m proud to say it — ’America First.’ My job is to represent the people of Pittsburgh, not the people of Paris.”
The president is expected to move forward with the process of officially withdrawing from the Paris Accord by submitting a letter Nov. 4 to the United Nations, the earliest date he can start the one-year clock to formally remove the U.S. from the global climate pact.
“I promised as president that I’d unleash American energy like never before because our natural resources do not belong to the government, they belong to the people,” Mr. Trump said. “Today I’m proud to declare that I’ve delivered on every single promise I made to this conference three years ago and much, much more. We’re now energy-independent. We’ve ended the war on American energy, and we’ve ended the economic assault on our wonderful energy workers.”
The president also cited accomplishments such as his border wall, which he mistakenly said includes a section in Colorado, drawing laughs from some in the audience.
His speech was interrupted for about three minutes by several protesters whose message was not clear.
“Don’t pay attention, don’t pay attention,” Mr. Trump said. “Don’t hurt them, don’t hurt them, please,” he quickly added. “They don’t know they’re dealing with very tough people.”
“Go home to mom,” the president said as the protesters were leaving.
Mr. Trump also referred several times to the impeachment furor in Washington, complaining that Democrats are “vicious but they stick together” while Republicans aren’t as unified.
“We got to stick together, right?” he asked the crowd.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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