President Donald Trump on Thursday reminded energy-rich states like Texas, that they would face stiff resistance from former Vice President Joe Biden if he won the election in 2020.
Trump and his campaign painted Biden’s ambitious targets of “net-zero emissions no later than 2050,” part of the “Unity Platform” with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), as dangerously similar to the Green New Deal.
Former Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry warned in a recent op-ed that Biden’s clean energy plan would devastate states like Texas.
“Democrat Joe Biden recently introduced a disastrous $2 trillion energy plan that would work toward abolishing fossil fuels — a move that would eliminate more than 10 million jobs in the U.S.,” Perry wrote.
The president and members of his administration continue warning states enjoying energy jobs growth that former Vice President Joe Biden would put their economy in jeopardy.
Biden would ban the federal government from issuing new oil and gas permitting on federal lands and waters, and pull back development progress in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic National Wildlife refuge. The oil lobby has warned that Biden’s ban would cost nearly 200,000 jobs.
As president, Trump moved quickly to build oil and natural gas pipelines that former President Barack Obama’s administration blocked. Those projects, like the Keystone XL pipeline, were suddenly fast-tracked, boosting the energy industry to new heights.
It was one more example of the “promises kept” message trumpeted by the Trump campaign stemming from his landmark energy speech in Bismarck, North Dakota in May 2016.
Under Obama, emissions and carbon regulations, the Paris climate deal, and other laws choking the industry were pulled back, and energy boomed before the coronavirus pandemic.
Current Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette warned that the left would use the oil prices crash to kill the industry.
“They plan to exploit the impact COVID-19 had on the market to bury the industry once and for all, caring little for what that means for quality of life in Texas or for our nation’s energy future,” he wrote in an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle.
On top of Biden’s agenda, the former vice president has placated the left by repeatedly voicing his support for banning fossil fuels, coal, and fracking, promising to only subsidize and develop wind and solar energy in the future.
“Let me ask you, Mr. Governor, how do you think that works in Texas? No fracking, no drilling, no oil,” Trump asked Texas Governor Greg Abbot on Thursday. “I don’t think Biden is going to do too well in Texas.”