Donald Trump’s “America First” Energy Policy Address [Full Transcript]

Thursday, May 26, 2016 – Donald Trump unveiled an “America first” energy plan during a policy speech at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, N.D., which consisted of an “all-of-the-above” approach. The presumptive Republican nominee also revealed his plan to expand the general election map, putting the battleground state number at 15 rather than 7 to 9.

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF TRUMP ENERGY SPEECH

I’m delighted to be in North Dakota, a state at the forefront of a new energy revolution.

Oil and natural gas production is up significantly in the last decade. Our oil imports have been cut in half.

But all this occurred in spite of massive new bureaucratic and political barriers.

President Obama has done everything he can to get in the way of American energy. He’s made life much more difficult for North Dakota, as costly regulation makes it harder and harder to turn a profit.

If Hillary Clinton is in charge, things will get much worse. She will shut down energy production across this country.

Millions of jobs, and trillions of dollars of wealth, will be destroyed as a result.

That is why our choice this November is so crucial.

Here’s what it comes down to.

Wealth versus poverty.

North Dakota shows how energy exploration creates shared prosperity. Better schools. More funding for infrastructure. Higher wages. Lower unemployment.

Things we’ve been missing.

It’s a choice between sharing in this great energy wealth, or sharing in the poverty promised by Hillary Clinton.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Just listen to Hillary Clinton’s own words. She has declared war on the American worker.

Here is what Hillary Clinton said earlier this year: “We are going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of work.”

She wants to shut down the coal mines.

And if Crooked Hillary can shut down the mines, she can shut down your business too.

Let me tell you how President Obama Undermined Our Middle Class

President Obama’s stated intent is to eliminate oil and natural gas production in America.

His policy is death by a thousand cuts through an onslaught of regulations.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s use of totalitarian tactics forces energy operators in North Dakota into paying unprecedented multi-billion dollar fines before a penalty is even confirmed.

Government misconduct goes on and on:

• The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against seven North Dakota oil companies for the deaths of 28 birds while the Administration fast-tracked wind projects that kill more than 1 million birds a year.
• The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service abuses the Endangered Species Act to restrict oil and gas exploration.
• Adding to the pain, President Obama now proposes a $10-per-barrel tax on American-produced oil in the middle of a downturn.At the same time President Obama lifts economic sanctions on Iran, he imposes economic sanctions on America. He has allowed this country to hit the lowest oil rig count since 1999, producing thousands of layoffs.

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.

But President Obama has done everything he can to keep us dependent on others. Let me list some of the good energy projects he killed.

He rejected the Keystone XL Pipeline despite the fact that:

• It would create and support more than 42,000 jobs.
• His own State Department concluded that it would be the safest pipeline ever built in the United States.
• And it would have no significant impact on the environment.
• Yet, even as he rejected this America-Canada pipeline, he made a deal that allowsIran to transport more oil through its pipeline that would have ever flowed through Keystone –with no environmental review.

President Obama has done everything he can to kill the coal industry. Here are a few of President Obama’s decrees:

Regulations that shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants and block the construction of new ones.

A prohibition against coal production on federal land.

Draconian climate rules that, unless stopped, would effectively bypass Congress to impose job-killing cap-and-trade.

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.

This is your treasure, and you – the American People – are entitled to share in the riches.

President Obama’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.

If President Obama wanted to weaken America he couldn’t have done a better job.

As bad as President Obama is, Hillary Clinton will be worse.

• She will escalate the war against American energy, and unleash the EPA to control every aspect of our lives.
• She declared that “we’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels,” locking away trillions in American wealth.
• 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.” Keep in mind, shale energy production could add 2 million jobs in 7 years.

Yet, while Hillary Clinton doesn’t want American energy, she is strongly in favor of foreign energy. Here is what she told China as Secretary of State:

• “American experts and Chinese experts will work to develop China’s natural gas resources. Imagine what it would mean for China if China unleashed its own natural gas resources so you are not dependent on foreign oil.”

Hillary Clinton has her priorities wrong. But we are going to turn all of that around.

A Trump Administration will develop an America First energy plan. Here is how this plan will make America Wealthy Again:

• 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 Russia. 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 interest will 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.

Policy decisions will be public and transparent. They won’t be made on Hillary’s private email account.

We’re going to do all this while taking proper regard for rational environmental concerns. We are going to conserve our beautiful natural habitats, reserves and resources.

In a Trump Administration, political activists with extreme agendas will no longer write the rules. Instead, we will work with conservationists whose only agenda is protecting nature.

From an environmental standpoint, my priorities are very simple: clean air and clean water.

My America First energy plan will do for the American People what Hillary Clinton will never do: create real jobs and real wage growth.

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. This exploration will also create a resurgence in American manufacturing — dramatically reducing both our trade deficit and our budget deficit.

Compare this future to Hillary Clinton’s Venezuela-style politics of poverty.

If you think about it, not one idea Hillary Clinton has will actually create a single net job or create a single new dollar to put in workers’ pockets.

In fact, every idea Hillary has will make jobs disappear.

Hillary Clinton’s agenda is job destruction. My agenda is job creation.

She wants to tax and regulate our workers to the point of extinction.

She wants terrible trade deals, like NAFTA, signed by her husband, that will empty out our manufacturing.

During her time as Secretary of State, she surrendered to China – allowing them to steal hundreds of billions of dollars in our intellectual property.

She let them devalue their currency and add more than a trillion dollars to our trade deficit.

Then there was Libya.

Secretary Clinton’s reckless Libya invasion handed the country over to ISIS, which now controls the oil.

The Middle East that Clinton inherited was far less dangerous than the Middle East she left us with today.

Her reckless decisions in Iraq, Libya, Iran, Egypt and Syria have made the Middle East more unstable than ever before.

The Hillary Clinton foreign policy legacy is chaos.

Hillary Clinton also wants totally open borders in America, which would further plunge our workers into poverty.

Hillary’s open borders agenda means a young single mom living in poverty would have to compete for a job or a raise against millions of lower-wage workers rushing into the country, but she doesn’t care.

My agenda will be accomplished through a series of reforms that put America First:

• Energy reform that creates trillions in new wealth.
• Immigration reform that protects our borders and defends our workers.
• Tax reform that brings millions of new jobs to America.
• Regulation reform that eliminates stupid rules that send our jobs overseas.
• Welfare reform that requires employers to recruit from the unemployment office – not the immigration office.
• Trade reform that brings back our manufacturing jobs and stands up to countries that cheat.

There is one more thing we must do to make America wealthy again: we have to make our communities safe again.

Violent crime is rising in major cities across the country. This is unacceptable. Every parent has the right to raise their kids in safety.

When we put political correctness before justice, we hurt those who have the least. It undermines their schools, slashes the value of their homes, and drives away their jobs.

Crime is a stealth tax on the poor.

To those living in fear, I say: help is coming. A Trump Administration will return law and order to America. Security is not something that should only be enjoyed by the rich and powerful.

By the way, I was endorsed by the National Rifle Association, and we are not going to let Hillary Clinton abolish the 2^nd amendment, either.

My reform agenda is going to bring wealth and security to the poorest communities in this country.

What does Hillary have to offer the poor but more of the same?

In Chicago, for instance, one-fourth of young Hispanics and one-third of young African-Americans are unemployed.

My message today to all the people trapped in poverty is this: politicians like Hillary Clinton have failed you.

They have used you.

You need something new. I am the only who will deliver it.

We are going to put America back to work.

We are going to put people before government.

We are going to rebuild our inner cities.

We are going to make you and your family safe, secure and prosperous.

The choice in November is a choice between a Clinton Agenda that puts Donors First – or a new agenda that puts America First.

It is a choice between a Clinton government of, by and for the powerful – or a return to government of, by and for the people.

It is a choice between certain decline, or a revival of America’s promise.

The people in charge of our government say things can’t change.

I am here to tell you that things have to change.

They want you to keep trusting the same people who’ve betrayed you.

I am here to tell you that if you keep supporting those who’ve let you down, then you will keep getting let down for the rest of your life.

I am prepared to kick the special interests out of Washington, D.C. and to hand their seat of power over to you.

It’s about time.

Together, we will put the American people first again.

We will make our communities wealthy again.

We will make our cities safe again.

We will make our country strong again.

Ladies and Gentlemen: We will make America Great Again.