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Trump’s Speech Was Riddled With Lies and Inaccuracies About Fossil Fuels

A fact-check of Trump’s economic policy changes shows a speech riddled with lies and inaccuracies.
Image: Flickr/Gage Skidmore

On Monday, presidential candidate and climate change denier, Donald Trump, laid out his proposed economic reforms in a speech at the Detroit Economic Club. As part of his destructive manifesto, Trump threatened to demolish "job-killing energy restrictions" enacted during the Obama administration.

"The Obama-Clinton Administration has blocked and destroyed millions of jobs through their anti-energy regulations, while raising the price of electricity for both families and businesses. As a result of recent Obama EPA actions coal-fired power plants across Michigan have either shut down entirely or undergone expensive conversions."

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In classic Trump form, not a single policy was ever named during the address, but the sentiment was self-evident: more drilling means more jobs. However, point by point, Trump's promises and allegations about an energy revolution were riddled with inaccuracies and bunk data. What he calls an "America first energy plan" is no more than a strawman propped up by xenophobia, limited government, and the idealization of a dying coal industry.

In his speech, Trump proclaimed the following: "The Obama-Clinton war on coal has cost Michigan over 50,000 jobs. Hillary Clinton says her plan will 'put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business.' We will put our coal miners and steel workers back to work."

Several falsehoods in these accusations were brought to light by fact-checkers at the Washington Post and NPR. According to a study published last year in Energy Policy, approximately 50,000 coal industry jobs were lost nationwide between 2008 and 2012. Trump's data point appears to have been based on a 2011 National Mining Association statement, and actually reflects the hypothetical number of jobs that would have been created in Michigan if a series of coal power plants had not been blocked by environmental regulations.

In regard to putting coal miners "back to work," the job destruction that Trump attributed to the Obama administration was more likely a symptom of cheap natural gas supplanting coal. This year, the Energy Information Association published data that showed between 2014 and 2015, coal-generated power dropped by 226,000 gigawatt-hours in the US. In its place, natural gas rose by 208,000 gigawatt-hours. And, as Philip Bump pointed out at the Washington Post, more mining jobs were eliminated during the Reagan and Bush administrations than during Obama's two terms.

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It's also worth noting that almost all of the "facts" that Trump cited during his address were credited to the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank whose benefactors include Charles and David Koch. According to SourceWatch, the institute received more than $6 million in funding from the Koch-owned Claude R. Lambe Foundation, and more than $700,000 from oil company ExxonMobil.

The Heritage Foundation, with whom Trump is not shy about his affiliation, has been flagged by climate experts as one of the organizations most committed to spreading doubt about climate science. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the foundation once said in a report: "The only consensus over the threat of climate change that seems to exist these days is that there is no consensus."

On the fossil fuel industry's ability to stimulate job creation and economic growth, Trump had this to say:

According to the Institute for Energy Research, lifting the restrictions on all sources of American energy will:

Increase GDP by more than $100 billion dollars annually, add over 500,000 new jobs annually, and increase annual wages by more than $30 billion dollars over the next 7 years;

Increase federal, state, and local tax revenues by almost $6 trillion dollars over 4 decades;

Increase total economic activity by more than $20 trillion dollars over the next 40 years.

What he omitted from these figures (which were attributed to another Koch-funded, anti-climate science organization), however, was the fact that this year, for the first time ever in the US, solar energy jobs surpassed those created by the oil and gas industry. There are now more jobs related to solar power than oil, gas, and coal extraction, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Another report, published by the Global Green Growth Institute and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in 2015, found that investments in renewable energy sources yield more jobs per dollar than equal amounts contributed to the fossil fuel industry.

Today, Trump turned a blind eye to truth that while renewables continue to find their footing, the nation's declining coal sector is drawing its last breaths. As more homeowners adopt clean energy alternatives, such as installing solar panels on their roofs, the shift away from fossil fuels is palpable. And now, with policy adviser Rep. Kevin Cramer at his side, it's evident that Trump's energy plan is just pandering to corporate interests.

So while Trump has sworn to rebuild the nation using "American energy—mined from American sources," what he's really pledged is to construct is a shaky platform on a dying industry.

Correction: We previously stated that Trump cited a Sierra Club report. In fact, he cited an NMA report created in response to a Sierra Club report.