Trump Environmental Update: July 8, 2019

“I will not stand for [the Green New Deal].  We will defend the environment, but we will also defend American sovereignty, American prosperity, and we will defend American jobs.”

– President Donald Trump, The White House, July 8, 2019.

E&E News headlined its story, “Trump slams Paris deal in remarks about the environment.” Never mind that the major nations of the world are violating, if not decimating, the global climate agreement’s voluntary quotas. And never mind that the President talked about a raft of other environmental issues where the news is all good.

In fact, it was a speech of substance, the major theme of which is mineral energies are compatible with environmental progress. Some highlights from Trump’s speech in regard to energy and climate follow:

Remarks by President Trump on America’s Environmental Leadership

• For years, politicians told Americans that a strong economy and a vibrant energy sector were incompatible with a healthy environment.  In other words, one thing doesn’t go with the other.  And that’s wrong because we’re proving the exact opposite.
• A strong economy is vital to maintaining a healthy environment.  When we innovate, produce, and grow, we’re able to unleash technologies and processes that make the environment better while reshoring and, so importantly — you look at reshoring production all the way — taking it away from foreign polluters, and back to American soil.
• The previous administration waged a relentless war on American energy.  We can’t do that.  They sought to punish our workers, our producers, and manufacturers with ineffective global agreements that allowed the world’s worst-polluting countries to continue their practices. 
• These radical plans would not make the world cleaner; they would just make and put Americans out of work, and they put them out of work rapidly.  They move production to foreign countries with lower standards — our companies were forced to do that, and they didn’t want to do that — and they drive up the price of gas and electricity at home, and drive it to levels that are literally unaffordable.
• And, by the way, that’s happening to many other countries, but it’s not happening here.  Other countries — their pricing on electricity is so high, not even to be affordable.  At our level, we are doing numbers that nobody has seen before.  Nobody believes what we’re doing and what we’re producing electricity and other things for.
• Punishing Americans is never the right way to produce a better environment or a better economy.  We’ve rejected this failed approach, and we’re seeing incredible results.Since the election, we have created more than 6 million new jobs.  Nobody would have believed that. 
• We’re unlocking American energy, and the United States is now a net exporter of clean, affordable, American natural gas.  We’re exporting all over the world.
• And today, the United States is ranked — listen to this — number one in the world for access to clean drinking water — ranked number one in the world.
• One of the main messages of air pollution — particulate matter — is six times lower here than the global average.  So we hear so much about some countries and what everyone is doing.  We’re six times lower than the average.  That’s a tremendous number.
• Since 2000, our nation’s energy-related carbon emissions have declined more than any other country on Earth.  Think of that.  Emissions are projected to drop in 2019 and 2020.  We’re doing a very tough job and not everybody knows it, and that’s one of the reasons we’re here today to speak to you.
• Every single one of the signatories to the Paris Climate Accord lags behind America in overall emissions reductions.  Who would think that is possible?
• For this reason, in my first year in office, I withdrew the United States from the unfair, ineffective, and very, very expensive Paris Climate Accord. 
• My administration is now revising the past administration’s misguided regulations to better protect the environment and to protect our American workers, so importantly….
• While we’re focused on practical solutions, more than 100 Democrats in Congress now support the so-called Green New Deal.  Their plan is estimated to cost our economy nearly $100 trillion — a number unthinkable; a number not affordable even in the best of times.  If you go 150 years from now and we’ve had great success, that’s not a number that’s even thought to be affordable.  It’ll kill millions of jobs, it’ll crush the dreams of the poorest Americans, and disproportionately harm minority communities.
• I will not stand for [the Green New Deal].  We will defend the environment, but we will also defend American sovereignty, American prosperity, and we will defend American jobs.
• We’ve refocused the EPA back on its core mission…..
• From day one, my administration has made it a top priority to ensure that America has among the very cleanest air and cleanest water on the planet.  We want the cleanest air.  We want crystal-clean water, and that’s what we’re doing and that’s what we’re working on so hard.

Note: At one point in the speech, Trump praised solar as a viable energy source. And, in fact, off the grid, as a starter energy, (distributed) solar has a market niche. On-grid solar? That’s another story.