Corey Lewandowski: Trump’s energy plan will energize the economy

President Obama and congressional Democrats engaged in a war on coal and pushed ideas that hurt energy production and hurt America. President Donald Trump is fixing federal law to make the U.S. economic climate friendly to domestic energy production. This is something the media may want to ignore, yet it is far more important than the sensationalized media’s reports on Trump palace intrigue.

June was focused on job creation. The White House hosted the titans of American technology for a summit quarterbacked by Jared Kushner. Reports on the summit indicate that there was a strong push to modernize government.  Working sessions were conducted on issues ranging from cybersecurity, big data, fraud detection, artificial intelligence and cloud computing.  This was merely the first of many tech summits planned for the future.

{mosads}Earlier this month, the president held events pushing the idea of apprenticeships. The president closes out the month with this week’s focus on making the American energy sector of the economy great again.

There is not a more critical sector of the economy that will create new jobs than the energy industry. A 2013 Heritage Foundation report described the Obama policies as “Solyndra-style loan guarantees, nice-sounding but too expensive efficiency mandates, and his war on coal. It is this war on coal that would prove the most costly, with hundreds of thousands of lost jobs and $1.47 trillion of lost national income by 2030.”  Furthermore, the Competitive Enterprise Institute reported that “on federal lands, (oil and gas) production actually decreased during the Obama administration,” even though Obama took credit for more domestic production in the private sector.  

Strengthening the energy sector promotes growth of the whole economy, increases national security, creates jobs and lowers energy costs for middle and low income Americans. The United States is loaded with natural resources that will be the gas that keeps our great nation fueled as the world leader in technology, banking and services.   

On June 28, 2017, President Trump and his Energy Secretary Rick Perry called for U.S. “energy dominance” in the world market.  The president said their work would “help the United States achieve true energy dominance. And that’s what’s happening. We’ve made so much progress with respect to energy just in the last four months. It’s been an incredible journey, I will tell you. We’ve learned a lot and we’ve made a lot — we’re here to talk about how we can create new prosperity for our citizens by unlocking vast treasures of energy reserves, which we have a great deal — far more than anyone understood.”  

This is a far cry from the Obama Administration’s policies to stop coal extraction and U.S. energy exploration. Just look at former President Obama’s war on coal. When President Obama was running in 2008, his promise to his liberal base was “(if) someone wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.” 

And he bragged that the billions generated by putting new limits on coal would be used by government to purchase more inefficient means of producing energy. When Obama became president, he followed through with that threat. 

The global economy will also be bolstered when America is utilizing resources to make all peoples’ lives better. 

First, the authorizing of the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines reversed an unnecessary and harmful Obama Administration obstacle to economic growth. President Trump also directed federal agencies to cut regulations that slowed and stopped the production and use of domestic energy resources that include natural gas and coal. Finally, the directive that allowed more offshore oil and gas exploration and, in the future, drilling, makes sense to create an American energy independence from oil producing nations.

Although the U.S. has been an energy importer since the early 1950s, the United States is very close to being an exporter of energy resources.  Secretary Perry said during a White House briefing on June 21 that his department was “ending the bureaucratic blockade that has hindered American energy creation.  

He argued that “the United States has been a net energy importer since 1953” and “thanks to innovation and technology advancements, we’re on the brink of changing this, and in very important elements of an American energy portfolio.”  

By 2018, according to the White House, the U.S. will be a net energy exporter of natural gas. American liquefied natural gas has been a sector of U.S. energy exports that has grown to historic levels.  
An America First energy policy allows more domestic drilling and exploration, both offshore and on federal lands. President Trump has taken decisive action that will increase American energy production, and, in turn, wean the United States off foreign sources of energy.  The media will not give him credit, but President Trump is a far better steward of the economy than the Obama Administration.

Corey R. Lewandowski is President Trump’s former campaign manager.

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