Trump announces six energy initiatives
President Trump announced a set of energy initiatives to "unleash American energy" and a push for "energy dominance" worldwide.
The six goals, which he said would usher in "new American energy policy," were unveiled as part of the White House's Energy Week:
- Revive and expand nuclear energy sector
- Address barriers to financing of overseas coal energy plants
- Build a petroleum pipeline to Mexico
- Sell more American natural gas to South Korea
- Approve two long-term applications to export additional natural gas from the Lake Charles LNG terminal in Louisiana
- Release new offshore oil and gas leasing program.
Of the last goal, the president complained that the Obama administration had closed off 94 percent of offshore land to oil and gas exploration. That, he said, would end.
"We're opening it up, the right areas, but we're opening it up -- we're creating a new offshore oil and gas leasing program," Mr. Trump said. "America will be allowed to access the vast energy wealth located right off our shores."
The Obama administration had banned drilling in parts of the Atlantic and the Arctic.
"The golden era of America is now underway, believe me," Mr. Trump said.
The president also emphasized the need for "American energy independence" and "American energy dominance," expressing his desire to make the United States more energy independent and less "vulnerable to foreign regimes that use energy as an economic weapon."
"We don't want to let other countries take away our sovereignty and tell us what to do, and how to do it, that's not going to happen," he said.
Mr. Trump's goals to expand production and exportation of energy from the United States coincide with his hope to limit the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which he has also gone after legislatively with the Energy Independence executive order.
"We're ending the intrusive EPA regulations," Mr. Trump said.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry echoed the president's energy ambitions.
"The resources that we have in this country, the technologies that can be used to further benefit not only our citizens, but the environment," Perry said. "Under the leadership of President Donald Trump that's exactly what we're getting."
