Trump: The State of the Union Address (climate unmentioned)

“… the President of the United States has proven quite a match for the anti-energy, anti-industrial, anti-sovereignty climate crusade.”

“Climate change? Nary a mention. Maybe this was one of the highlights of the 2020 State of the Nation.”

MasterResource has chronicled the energy-related speeches of Donald Trump on the campaign trail and as president.

Promises made, promises kept.

While his tariff policies have increased input costs for energy infrastructure (steel for pipelines, in particular), and split-the-baby biofuel subsidies stubbornly continue (what politician other than Ted Cruz has been able to say no?), there are many bright spots for the nation with the liberation of oil and gas exploration and production, pipeline projects, and other infrastructure needs.

And in the greatest pro-liberty energy campaign of all-time, President Trump has said YES to regulatory reform, NO to the anti-energy agenda of the Obama Administration, and HECK NO to global governance in the name of addressing the so-called climate change.

With the U.S. and other countries ignoring and violating the aspirations of the ‘voluntary’ Paris Climate Accord of 2015, the hydrocarbon energy boom continues virtually unabated.

Trump’s recent rebuke to the climate agenda to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (“the speech was a disaster for the conference,” said one climate campaigner), gave confidence to the private sector to resist the war on fossil fuels. Even before he took office, Trump called out the Climategate scandal before the New York Times editorial board; the President of the United States has proven quite a match for the anti-energy, anti-US climate crusade.

State of the Union 2020

It was a good night for Republicans with Trump’s SOTU address last night. “Trump links energy boom to economy’s success,” the headline read at E&E News.

This said, here is the energy part of Trump’s State of the Union speech last night. It came within his first major talking point, as released as a “sneak peak” by White House.

A Middle-Class, Blue-Collar BOOM: The unemployment rate is near a 50-year low. Record stock markets are boosting 401(k)s. Wages are up, and income inequality is down. It’s about to get even better: President Trump’s NAFTA-replacing USMCA is expected to add up to 600,000 jobs and $235 billion to the economy.

Trump was brief but to the point.

Thanks to our bold regulatory reduction campaign, the United States has become the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world, by far.

With the tremendous progress we have made over the past three years, America is now energy independent, and energy jobs, like so many elements of our country, are at a record high.

Last year’s State of the Union said more on energy:

My administration has cut more regulations in a short period of time than any other administration during its entire tenure. companies are coming back to our country in large numbers, thanks to our historic reductions in taxes and regulations, and we have unleashed a revolution in American energy. The United States is now the number-one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world — and now, for the first time in 65 years, we are a net exporter of energy. After 24 months of rapid progress, our economy is the envy of the world

But that is old news a year later. Liberated dense, mineral energies are just doing their thing.

Climate change? Nary a mention. Maybe this was one of the highlights of the 2020 State of the Nation.

Reaction

Once again, Trump on offense put the keep-it-in-the-ground activists on the defensive. E&E News reported:

Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves, the top Republican on the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, praised the president’s “America First” energy policy, arguing it had helped spur the economy and improve the nation’s national security.

But Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate aide, now with the Progressive Policy Institute, said Trump inherited record oil and gas production that occurred during the shale boom under President Obama.

Bledsoe said energy need not be a partisan issue. “Despite Trump’s claims,” he said, “most Democrats still support responsible oil and gas production during the transition to a clean energy economy.”

‘Energy need not be a partisan issue‘? Yes, Democrats should be for lower- and medium-income Americans who are very sensitive to energy prices. But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) went negative and pessimistic:

The Republican Party of today is essentially the political wing of the fossil fuel industry, and they’re going to have to make some strong decisions about how far they want the fossil fuel industry to lead them down this bleak rim road.

Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail one-upped Whitehouse:

In the year 2020, how can a president of the United States give a State of the Union speech and not mention climate change?” It is truly sad that we have a president of the United States who lacks the courage to stand up to his billionaire friends in the fossil fuel industry [who are] dooming [us to] “live in a planet increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable.”

Democrats should be worried, very worried, come November with this doom-and-gloom message. Pro-fossil fuels for blue-collar America, anyone?