As former President Donald Trump accepted his nomination at the Republican National Convention Thursday, he did not mince words on what energy policy would look like in a second Trump presidency.
“I make this pledge to the great people of America, I will end the devastating inflation crisis immediately, bring down interest rates and lower the cost of energy,” Trump announced to the crowd at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump said, garnering resounding cheers and applause from the RNC audience who began to echo the oil and gas slogan.
Trump continued, claiming an increased domestic production of oil and gas would lead to a “large-scale decline in prices,” and added, “We will do it at levels that nobody’s ever seen before.”
The former president took aim at the Biden-Harris administration’s push for environmental policy and mocked the Green New Deal, which was first introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Edward Markey in February 2019.
“They’ve spent trillions of dollars on things, having to do with the green new scam, that’s a scam, and that’s caused tremendous inflationary prices, in addition to the cost of energy,” Trump claimed.
However, during Biden’s tenure, the United States has continued to produce and export the most crude oil out of any country, at any time, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Crude oil production averaged 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023, breaking the previous U.S. and global record of 12.3 million, set in 2019, according to the agency.
Throughout his bid for reelection, Trump has been vocal about his plans to double down on reliance on fossil fuels and reverse federal climate action.
“As President, I will set a national goal of ensuring that America has the No. 1 lowest cost of energy of any industrial country anywhere on Earth,” Trump said on his campaign website.
On May 13, during a rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, Trump promised he would halt offshore wind energy projects “on day one” if elected.
“I’m going to write it out in an executive order. It’s going to end on day one,” Trump said, claiming that wind turbines “kill” whales, which was later denied by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Ahead of the election, several former Trump administration officials and conservative activists have released a “Presidential Transition Project” titled Project 2025 that lists proposals for the new administration if Trump were to take office.
Among the proposals are sweeping cuts to climate initiatives, saying the next administration will “stop the war on oil and natural gas.”
Ending subsidies for electric vehicles, withdrawing the country from initiatives for sustainable food production, preventing federal regulators from considering the economic impact of carbon emissions and abolishing the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and Loan Programs Office, are listed in Project 2025.
The Republican National Convention also saw the selection of Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who similarly went after climate initiatives during his acceptance speech.
Vance said the nation needs a leader who “rejects Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ Green New Scam and fights to bring back our great American factories.”
This seemingly marked a shift in Vance’s beliefs, who, during a speech at Ohio State University in 2020, said, “We of course have a climate problem in our society,” and added that reliance on natural gas “isn’t going to take us to a clean energy future.”
