Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told reporters the federal government should get out of the energy business and let free markets work.
“We’ve got to get rid of some of these regulations,” Trump said at an event Thursday in Bismarck, North Dakota — America’s number two oil producing state. “It’s gotten out of control.”
Trump also took the time to blast Democratic candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for saying her policies would put coal miners out of work. He also said he would approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline and take some of the project’s profits.
“That’s how we’re going to make our country rich again,” he said.
Trump was in North Dakota Thursday to talk about energy policy at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference. Trump recently named North Dakota Rep. [crscore]Kevin Cramer[/crscore] as his energy policy adviser.
Trump said he wants to make America energy independent, in part, by removing regulations hampering coal, gas and oil production. That stands in sharp contrast to Clinton and her Democratic opponent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Clinton’s and Sanders’ energy policies have largely focused on fighting global warming and promoting green energy projects rather than energy independence and boosting fossil fuels. Sanders, in fact, wants Americans to get 50 percent of their energy from green sources, and Hillary wants to build half a billion solar panels by the end of her first term.
“Through these goals, we will increase the amount of installed solar capacity by 700% by 2020, expand renewable energy to at least a third of all electricity generation, prevent thousands of premature deaths and tens of thousands of asthma attacks each year, and put our country on a path to achieve deep emission reductions by 2050,” Clinton’s website boasts.
Trump, on the other hand, is not concerned with global warming. He recently told a Reuters reporter he would renegotiate an agreement hashed out by nearly 200 countries in Paris, France last year. Trump says the deal’s not good enough.
“I will be looking at that very, very seriously, and at a minimum I will be renegotiating those agreements, at a minimum. And at a maximum I may do something else,” Trump said.
“But those agreements are one-sided agreements and they are bad for the United States,” Trump said. “Not a big fan because other countries don’t adhere to it, and China doesn’t adhere to it, and China’s spewing into the atmosphere.”
Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.