President Donald Trump touted how his reversal of Obama-era regulations on the fossil fuel industry has led to the United States being the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world during his State of the Union address on Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol.
“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,” Trump said.
“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,” Trump said.
Trump’s speech, dubbed “The Great American Comeback,” was criticized by the left even before it was given, including E&E News:
In his past speeches to Congress, Trump has ignored climate change and the environment, instead touting his administration’s regulatory rollbacks and focus on the fossil fuel industry.
That’s likely to continue, although Trump’s tone has changed in recent months to mirror the evolving rhetoric on climate from Republicans on Capitol Hill.
The president in the past has variously called climate change a “hoax” and suggested that it could be reversed. More recently, he’s continued to mock and mislead about climate science in some settings, but in others he has connected climate change to flooding and called it “a very serious subject.”
But the critical report also noted that crude oil production reached 12.2 million barrels per day in 2019, up 1.3 million barrels a day from 2018 and the most in the world. Natural gas production and liquefied natural gas also reached record highs.
Follow Penny Starr on Twitter.