President Trump slammed Joe Biden for his plans to “massively re-regulate the energy economy,” saying the presumptive Democratic nominee’s climate plans would crush U.S. energy development.
“You’d have to close 25% of your businesses and kill oil and gas development,” Trump said Wednesday, during remarks at the UPS Hapeville Airport Hub in Atlanta. He added the Biden campaign “still haven’t explained what they’re going to do to power our great plants and factories.”
Trump criticized Biden for moving further to the left on climate change, saying the former vice president has relied on Green New Deal author Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former progressive rival Bernie Sanders for policy ideas.
“AOC and Bernie are in charge of energy,” Trump said. “I don’t think Texas is too happy about that.”
Trump’s comments come just one day after Biden unveiled an upgraded climate policy framework, one that would spend more money and set more aggressive near-term goals, including 100% clean electricity by 2035, than his previous plans.
Many of the new elements mirror recommendations made by a Biden-Sanders unity task force, which Ocasio-Cortez chaired along with former Secretary of State John Kerry. Several left-wing environmental groups, including the youth group Sunrise Movement, claimed success in pushing the Biden campaign to make stronger commitments on climate change, though they suggested they’d keep the pressure on him to go even further.
In Atlanta, Trump announced an overhaul of decadesold environmental permitting requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which he called a “historic” move that would speed infrastructure development across the country.
Environmental groups, however, say the changes to NEPA would undercut the public’s ability to weigh in on infrastructure projects that could harm their health and would essentially eliminate any consideration of climate change in project approvals.
Biden opposes “all of our permitting reforms and wants to increase the length of the permitting process,” Trump said, adding that’s part of “the Bernie Sanders deal,” appearing to allude to the joint climate task force.
