Energy Progress: Trump Remarks at the New York Economic Club (November 12, 2019)

“My order required that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated. But instead of two for one, we have now eliminated nine for one. And we think that, within the next six months, it will be close to twenty for one instead of two for one.”

“[The Paris Climate Accord] is so unfair. It doesn’t kick in for China until 2030. Russia goes back into the 1990s, where the base year was the dirtiest year ever in the world. India, we are supposed to pay them money because they are a developing nation. I said, ‘We’re a developing nation, too.’”

Last week, President Trump delivered a pro-energy speech at the Economic Club of New York in New York City. There was a lot of applause and laughter from the well-heeled, left-of-center audience. The anti-industrial Left has certainly met its match with Donald J. Trump.

Some excerpts from Trump’s address follow:

“For many years, our leaders in Washington … waged an unethical regulatory assault on the American people. They tried to shut down American energy. And, by the way, they’re still trying.”

“You want to see energy shut down? Take a look at what I’m competing against on the other side. I don’t think they even believe in energy. So far, I haven’t found any form of energy that’s acceptable to them. I think they think the factories are just going to work without energy, don’t they?”

They don’t have a clue, these people. But I don’t want to mention it yet. I want to wait a little bit longer. Let them go a little bit further so they can’t take it back, because as a campaign, I like it. I like it very much. Let them keep talking. Every time they talk, I say, ‘Boy, this looks like it might be easier than I anticipated.’”

“To liberate our economy, my administration launched the biggest, boldest, and most ambitious campaign to reduce regulation…. In two and a half years, we’ve done far more than any other administration, whether it was four years, eight years, or in one case, more than eight years.”

“My order required that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated. But instead of two for one, we have now eliminated nine for one. And we think that, within the next six months, it will be close to twenty for one instead of two for one.”

“But you go into rooms that are half the size of this, and they would literally be stacked to the ceiling with regulations.  Nobody has ever seen anything like it.  And we have actually, I think, a fairly long way to go.  We need regulation, but it has to be smart regulation.”

“Highways were taking 20 years to get built, to get approved. You’d put in a application; 20, 21 years later, they’d reject it…. So we have it down close to one year…. And if it doesn’t work, we’re going to reject it. But it’s going to be rejected fast. Swiftly. But mostly, it’s not going to be rejected.”

“The foundation of American liberty and prosperity has always been the rule of law. Throughout history, economies have failed when the rule of law is abandoned. That’s why we must protect the constitutional rule of law in our country at all costs.”

“To fuel our economic boom, we are … boldly pursuing American energy independence. And you see that in the Middle East, where ships are at great danger. And they keep saying, “What happened to the American ships?”  They don’t see too many American ships over there anymore.  Do you notice that?”

“We stopped the radical crusade to dismantle U.S. energy production and empower rogue regimes. We withdrew from the one-sided, horrible, horrible, economically unfair, ‘close your businesses down within three years,’ ‘don’t frack, don’t drill, we don’t want any energy’ — the horrible Paris Climate Accord that killed American jobs and shielded foreign polluters. It was a disaster for this country.”

“Ask them, ‘How are they doing in Paris with your Paris Accord?’ Not too good.”

“America is now the number-one producer of oil and natural gas on the entire planet Earth. Net energy imports … set a historic low; it’s a 58-year low….”

“We are now a net exporter of natural gas, and we recently became a net exporter of crude oil and petroleum products for the first time in our country’s history. It’s a big thing.”

“According to the Council of Economic Advisers, the astonishing increase in production, made possible by the shale revolution, saves Americans $2,500 for a family of four in lowering electric bills and prices at the pump. And the number is actually now even higher than that.”

“And I will tell you, when I signed — that was another one — Clean Waters of the United States — well, the Paris Accord, too — and I said, ‘This is going to take guts.’ I just closed my eyes and I signed it. I got one day of a big hit from some of the radical-left newspapers. And then after that, everybody thanks me. They thank me so profusely. You’re talking about trillions and trillions of dollars of destruction would have been done to our country with the Paris Climate Accord.”

“And [the Paris Climate Accord] is so unfair. It doesn’t kick in for China until 2030. Russia goes back into the 1990s, where the base year was the dirtiest year ever in the world. India, we are supposed to pay them money because they are a developing nation. I said, ‘We’re a developing nation, too.’ “

Question & Answer

Q: “Business works hard to think through and mitigate risk. How do you think about risk as it relates to trade policy and to, really, big issues like climate change?”

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, you know, climate change is a very complex issue.  I consider myself to be, in many ways, an environmentalist, believe it or not…. 

“But to me, it’s clean air and crystal-clean, clear water. And we have now the cleanest air we’ve ever had in our country, meaning, over the last 40 years. I guess, 200 years ago was cleaner, but there was nothing around.  Right? I’m not sure that it was much cleaner, if you want to know the truth. But I want clean air. I want clean water, environmentally.

If you take a look, we discussed the Paris Climate Accord. That would just put us out of business. We’re sending money all over. We’re doing things that are unnecessary. It would’ve been a catastrophe.

I’m very much into climate.  But I want the cleanest air on the planet and I want to have — I have to have clean air — water.”

And, you know, when people ask the question — your part of the question about climate — I always say: You know, I have a little problem. We have a relatively small piece of land — the United States. And you compare that to some of the other countries like China, like India, like Russia, like many other countries that absolutely are doing absolutely nothing to clean up their smokestacks and clean up all of their plants and all of the garbage that they’re dropping in sea and that floats into Los Angeles, along with other problems that Los Angeles has, by the way.  Isn’t amazing it ends up in Los Angeles?  Oh, what a — what a mess that is.

But when you see this happening, it’s — nobody wants to talk about it.  They want to talk about our country.  We have to do this.  We have can’t have planes any longer.  We can’t have cows any longer.  We can’t have anything.  I said, “What about China?”  I don’t think they’re going to subscribe to a poor student coming up with 12 — you know, I actually heard the other day, some pretty good politician.  I’ve seen him around for a long time.  Nice white hair.  Everything is like central casting.  You could put the guy in a movie.

He was talking.  I don’t know if he believes this — but he was a Democrat — he said, “We have 11 years.”  It’s the first time I’ve heard it; I heard 12.  But now, see, it’s been a year, so now they think we have 11 years to live.  (Laughter.)  I don’t know, folks.  I think these people have gone totally loco.  (Laughter.)

But we are — you know, they will kill our industry. They don’t want oil. I mean, go to Texas. Tell Texas there will be no more drilling, there will be no more oil and gas. We’ll put hundreds of thousands of people out of work. We won’t fuel our factories. And now you’re talking about millions and millions of people, and you’re talking about a country that couldn’t even exist.

Is this politics? Because I think it’s bad politics. I think it’s bad politics.”