Thursday, October 24, 2019

1600 Daily The White House • October 24, 2019 Watch: THANK YOU for Rebuilding our Country!

1600 Daily
The White House • October 24, 2019

Watch: THANK YOU for rebuilding our country!

President Donald J. Trump traveled to Pittsburgh yesterday, where he spoke to workers in America’s booming energy sector at the Shale Insight Conference.

The last time President Trump spoke at the conference was on the campaign trail in 2016. Back then, American energy was under relentless assault—not from some foreign enemy, but from our own Federal Government. The previous Administration made it its mission to stifle growth with crippling regulations aimed at energy producers. These policies did nothing to advance “green energy,” but they did cost many workers their jobs.

American energy dominance is a powerful symbol of President Trump’s larger mission for our nation: “Instead of relying on foreign oil and foreign energy, we are now relying on American energy and American workers like never before,” he says.

“I’m here with the incredible people who fuel our factories, light up our homes, power our industries, and fill our hearts with true American pride,” he added. “With unmatched skill, grit, and devotion, you are making America the greatest energy superpower in the history of the world.”

Energy superpower is no exaggeration. Here are some of the facts and numbers behind America’s energy boom under the Trump Administration:
  • The United States is now the world leader in oil and natural gas production.
     
  • Crude oil reached a record high in production last year—and is projected to set another record this year.
     
  • Ditto for natural gas: Production is on pace to set a record high in 2019, the third straight year of such a record.
     
  • In 2018, coal exports reached their highest level in 5 years.
It wasn’t a mystery figuring out how to get America back on top globally—it just took a President willing to abolish the counterproductive war on American energy workers. The Trump Administration ended job-killing policies put in place under President Obama, like the Clean Power Plan and “stream protection rule.” It pulled America out of the fraudulent, ineffective, and one-sided Paris Climate Accord. And it has opened up federally owned land and offshore areas for exploration and production.

President Trump also believes in building world-class infrastructure that puts more Americans back to work—no matter what the far left tries to block. His Administration has approved permits for the crucial Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines, for instance.

Back in 2008, Democrats actually offered a startling preview of what was to come. “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” then-Sen. Barack Obama explained. He was telling the truth: By the time President Trump took office, more than a third of all coal mining jobs had vanished.

The left is at it again, but this time there’s even less pretending about their true motives. If implemented, the “Green New Deal” would be the most radical takeover of America’s economy ever contemplated. The ultimate goal is to eradicate all production of oil, coal, and natural gas in the United States—and millions of jobs along with it.  

President Trump made clear yesterday that he will never let that happen. That’s because he knows who built this great country—and it wasn’t wanna-be socialists in Congress.

“I will never stop fighting for you, because I know that you are the ones who are rebuilding our nation. You are the ones who are restoring our strength. You are the ones renewing our spirit. And you are the ones who are making America greater than it has ever been before.”

Thanks to President Trump, the war on American energy is over.

ReadThe President’s full remarks to energy workers in Pennsylvania.

Photo of the Day

Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour
Workers cheer as President Trump delivers remarks on American energy at the 9th Annual Shale Insight Conference in Pittsburgh | October 23, 2019

ON-THE-RECORD PRESS CALL BY CEA ACTING CHAIRMAN TOMAS PHILIPSON ON THE VALUE OF U.S. ENERGY INNOVATION AND POLICIES SUPPORTING THE SHALE REVOLUTION

Office of the Press Secretary
ON-THE-RECORD PRESS CALL
BY CEA ACTING CHAIRMAN TOMAS PHILIPSON
ON THE VALUE OF U.S. ENERGY INNOVATION
AND POLICIES SUPPORTING THE SHALE REVOLUTION

Via Teleconference

 
11:04 A.M. EDT

     MS. SLOBODIEN:  Thank you for joining today’s call today to discuss CEA’s latest report before on energy innovation.  Before I turn things over to Chairman Philipson, I’d like to remind that this call is on the record.  Additionally, you can find CEA’s latest energy report on our website or on our Twitter feed which is @WhiteHouseCEA.

     We’ll open with remarks from the Chairman.  And if time permits, we will take a few questions.  During question and answer, we may have a senior economist joining, but his remarks will be on background.  Only the Acting Chairman’s remarks will be on the record.  With that, let’s get started.

     ACTING CHAIRMAN PHILIPSON:  Thanks everyone for calling in.  This is Tomas Philipson.  As many of you saw yesterday, President Trump spoke at the Shale Insight Conference in Pittsburgh.  During the speech, the President explained that a thriving energy industry not only benefits hardworking Americans who live in shale country, it is an enormous benefit to citizens across our land as well.

     In conjunction with the President’s speech, the Council of Economic Advisers released a report titled “The Value of U.S. Energy Innovation and Policies Supporting the Shale Revolution.”  CEA’s new report confirms that American consumers are benefitting from the shale revolution as they see lower monthly energy bills because of it.

     The shale revolution illustrates a typical pattern about how innovation and production techniques translates into gains for consumers.  Generally, such innovation raises productivity in terms of output per day, which therefore lowers production costs for a given amount of output.  Price competition thereafter, among suppliers, then forces these cost reductions to get passed on to consumers, and prices decline, which in turn leads to a larger amount of output being purchased and increased production.

     As CEA’s report shows, this is exactly what happened under the shale revolution.  The report focused on three aspects of this revolution: consumer benefits; environmental benefits, relative to the status quo of not having a shale revolution; and results of state energy innovation policies.  I’ll discuss each of these in greater detail.

     The first component, the shale revolution, has created immense consumer benefits to lower prices.  Innovation lowered oil and natural gas production costs, which reduced energy prices.  It’s important to note that lower energy prices particularly favor lower-income households, who spend a larger share of their income on energy.  At the same time, greater production from shale has expanded employment and made America the world’s leading producer of both oil and natural gas, making us more energy independent.

     These price reductions and output expansions result from the enormous productivity gains that the shale revolution enabled.  The report finds that from 2007 to 2019, innovation in shale production brought an eightfold increase in an extraction productivity for natural gas and a nineteen-fold increase for oil.

     CEA estimates that improvements in productivity reduced the domestic price in natural gas by 63 percent and led to a 45 percent decrease in the wholesale price of electricity.  Shale production also reduced the global price of oil by 10 percent.

     By lowering energy prices, CEA estimates that the shale revolution saves the U.S. consumers $203 billion annually, which amounts to two and a half -- two and a half thousand dollars for a family of four.

     Because low-income households spend a larger share of their income on energy bills, lower energy prices disproportionally benefit them in a progressive manner.  Shale-driven savings represent 6.8 percent of income for the poorest fifth of our households, compared to 1.3 [percent] of the income for the richest -- the richest fifth of our households.

     A second finding of the report is the substantial environmental benefits from the shale revolution, compared to the status quo of no such innovation.  Moreover, we find the benefits were unexpected before the shale extraction became common.

In 2006, the Energy Information Administration projected a 15 percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions from 2005 to 2017.  Instead, because of contributions from shale -- from the shale revolution -- they decreased by about 14 percent.  These benefits came from less emissions from the electric power sector as it generated less power from coal.

CEA estimates that from 2005 to 2017, the shale revolution lowered energy-related greenhouse gas emissions by 527 million metric tons per year, or 9 percent of 2005 level.  This contributed to a greater decline in greenhouse gas emissions, relative to the size of the economy in the United States, than in the European Union over that period, even though the European Union developed and expanded the government-run cap-and-trade system that increased energy costs for consumers.

Importantly, this shale-driven decline in GHG emissions is larger than the EPA projected by 2025 for its 2012 CAFE Standards regulations for cars and trucks, and is more than double what EPA projected for its now-rescinded excessive regulations of power plants.

Additionally, CEA estimates that particulate emissions declined faster in the United States than in the European Union from 2005 to 2017.

In short, private-sector innovation reduced emissions more than government policies did, and this form of U.S. energy innovation has been great news for the environment.  This value of private sector innovation, rather than government control, is also found in the paper's third main component.

This component shows that, while most states have allowed shale production to flourish through deregulations, some states like New York have taken a heavy-handed approach and banned fracking.

Comparing Pennsylvania -- a nationwide leader in this, in shale -- to New York demonstrates our policies that allow energy innovation and infrastructure can bring increased employment, a cleaner environment through lower emissions, and cheaper energy prices.  Much of southern New York sits on the Marcellus Shale formations, which is the most prolific shale gas formation in the United States.  Not tapping this goldmine has deprived New York of economic and environmental benefits.  Since New York banned fracking in 2008, energy firms have drilled more than 2,500 wells in Pennsylvania, adjacent to the New York border.  

The shale development caused Pennsylvania's natural gas production to increase tenfold from 2010 to 2017.  Over the same period, New York’s production fell by nearly 70 percent.

As a result, today, Pennsylvania leads the country in net electricity exports to other states and produces more than twice the energy it consumes.  In contrast, New York consumes four times the energy it produces.

Reinforcing the paper's findings about the shale environmental benefits, despite the growth in Pennsylvania's energy production, Pennsylvania state energy-related GHG emissions fell 15 percent from 2010 to 2016 -- twice as much as New York's 7 percent decline during that period.

Energy infrastructure is also critical to the shale revolution's success.  In 2017 and 2018, two major pipelines projects to take the Appalachian gas into Michigan and beyond were finished.  Over the same time, no new interstate pipelines were built from Pennsylvania into New York, and on to New England.  As a consequence, from 2016 to 2018, Michigan’s gas price relative to the national average price fell 14 percent. On the contrary, New York’s prices increased 16 percent.

A 14 percent decline in the New York and New England gas price would have saved consumers in the region an estimated $2 billion annually, or $233 for a family of four.  And as CEA's paper shows, this gain would've benefitted lower incomes households the most.

To conclude, the Trump administration is advancing policies to promote energy innovation, such as the shale revolution, which greatly benefits Americans across the country.  CEA's report finds that innovations lower the energy bills and improves the environment in ways that no one expected.

The Trump administration is focused on defending American private sector and energy innovation over misguided government policies, and we hope our new findings encourage states to keep welcoming the consumer and environmental benefits this innovation may deliver.

With the time remaining, I’m happy to take a few questions about the report.  Thank you.

     Q    Hey.  Thanks for doing the report.  So, can you just clarify what actions the Trump administration has taken to boost shale production in the United States?  Obviously, shale production has been rising for years now.  I'm from Pennsylvania and was covering this in 2008, '09, '10, and '11.  So, I just want to better understand -- I see in the report you talk about deregulation, but there isn't a lot of detail on what, really, the Trump administration has done to further this.  Thank you.
   
     MS. SLOBODIEN:  Our senior economist will speak to that, on background.
   
     SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Hi.  Yes.  Thanks.  That's a good question.  The report recognizes that the roots of the shale revolution go back a long ways, at least to the early 80s, and the deregulation of natural gas markets and pipelines in that period, which then supported Mitchell Energy’s innovations in Texas and fracking.

So we recognize that, but we also think that the administration certainly has created a policy environment where firms are willing to continue to invest to bring to completion new wells, new pipelines, new export facilities, which are longer-term investments.

And so, with the administration's action supporting pipeline infrastructure, such as Dakota Access or Keystone Pipeline -- or, if we look to LNG exports, the administration has doubled the capacity of LNG exports.  And that's a very important thing for current investments in natural gas because domestic production is overwhelming domestic supply.  So the ability to export to international markets, especially for that gas, is key to driving current investment.

     Q    Hi.  This is Maya Weber with S&P Global Platts.  Could you explain that detail you just gave about the administration doubling the investment in LNG export facilities, what exactly are you referring to there?  Are you talking about what's been approved or what's actually come online that might have been approved previously?
   
     SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks for the clarifying question.  Yeah.  The doubling is the amount of capacity approved for export to non-free-trade-agreement countries, which is essential for making the project viable.

     So, the administration began with about -- in the beginning of 2017, there was about 17 billion cubic feet of capacity approved, and that's what has doubled.  There is much more in the pipeline, so to speak.  But that number, that doubling, is what has been approved -- that the DOE has given approved for export of LNG to any country that it wants.  That's what I'm referring to, not -- the doubling doesn't refer to a specific investment number; it's to approved export capacity.

     Q    Okay.  Thank you.
   
     MS. SLOBODIEN:  Thank you, everyone, for joining the call today.  If you have any additional questions, please reach out to me or the White House Press Office.  Thank you.
                           

                             END                11:18 A.M. EDT

 

West Wing Reads - Schiff’s Secret Bombshells

West Wing Reads

Schiff’s Secret Bombshells


“Bombshell. The walls are closing in … That’s more or less been the unanimous chorus in the impeachment press since Tuesday,” The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes.

The problem? The left’s media narrative relies on nothing but opening statements from their hearings—and leaks from Democrats themselves.

“The self-described goal of Mr. Schiff’s hearings is to impeach and remove from office a President elected by 63 million Americans. This requires more transparency and public scrutiny than Mr. Schiff’s unprecedented process of secret testimony, followed by selective leaks to the friendly media to put everything in the most anti-Trump light, in order to sway public opinion.”

Click here to read more.
“Hours after President Donald Trump announced at the White House that Turkey has agreed to a cease fire in Syria, he boarded Air Force One” en route to Pittsburgh, where he addressed a major conference on shale energy production, Megan Tomasic and Natasha Lindstrom report for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “Nobody does it better than the hard-working men and women of Marcellus shale country,” he said. 
“First lady Melania Trump embarked on her first solo visit to Capitol Hill Wednesday to discuss the opioid crisis with a bipartisan group of lawmakers,” Marina Pitofsky reports in The Hill. “The event marked the one-year anniversary of the signing of the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, which provides funding for training surrounding the opioid crisis, as well as for care.”
This week, Second Lady Karen Pence spoke at a Military Spouse Employment Partnership induction ceremony, "bringing in 42 new employers who have pledged to recruit, hire and retain military spouses," Karen Jowers reports in the Military Times. “The Military Spouse Employment Partnership is so important to reducing the unemployment rate among our military spouses,” Mrs. Pence said. 
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Adviser to the President Ivanka Trump are in Wichita, Kansas, where they’ll visit today with some of the city's aviation workers, KAKE News reports. “After the roundtable, a group of Wichita-based aviation companies will sign the Pledge to America's Workers, including Spirit AeroSystems.”

Presidential Proclamation on United Nations Day, 2019

Office of the Press Secretary
United Nations Day, 2019

- - - - - - -

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation
 

     Seventy-four years ago, representatives of 50 countries gathered in San Francisco to establish a global organization dedicated to achieving peace and prosperity.  Impelled by the unprecedented carnage of two world wars, these countries created the United Nations as a forum for peaceful conflict resolution and the promotion of shared beliefs, forever changing global diplomacy.  On this day, we celebrate the achievements of the United Nations in promoting peace, delivering aid to those in need, and confronting international challenges, and we recommit to helping the organization reach its full potential.

     Last month, at the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, I laid out my vision for a future of which America can be proud.  The United States has embarked on a program of national renewal -- fueling economic growth through tax cuts and deregulation, fighting unfair trade, protecting individual freedoms, and standing up for sovereign borders.  We call on other countries to pursue their own programs of national revitalization.  The path to prosperity for each country begins at home -- and when leaders of sovereign nations put the interests of their citizens first, our collective future will be brighter, our people will be happier, and our partnerships will be stronger.  The United States prizes liberty, independence, and self-government above all, and the United Nations organization is stronger when leaders protect their own people, respect their neighbors, and honor the differences that make each country unique.

     Among the member states of the United Nations, the United States is leading the way in addressing global problems.  We have held to account the Iranian regime, which seeks destabilization through nuclear proliferation, promotes a global campaign of terror, and causes mass unrest throughout the Middle East region.  In response to Iran's attack in September on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, we imposed stringent sanctions on the regime's Central Bank and National Development Fund.  We have also worked to address the ongoing calamity in Venezuela wrought by the illegitimate regime of Nicolas Maduro.  We imposed sanctions that cut off the Maduro dictatorship's financial support, and we were the first country to recognize Juan Guaido as the legitimate, interim President of Venezuela.  The United States will continue to work through the United Nations and with its member states to confront bad actors who seek to disrupt and destroy freedom, prosperity, and progress.

     We must also recognize that, in order to reach its enormous potential, the United Nations must follow through on essential reforms.  The financial burdens must be distributed more equitably and funds should be taken from failed programs and directed to those that work.

     On this day, we also pause to acknowledge the sacrifices of all men and women who serve in United Nations missions around the world.  They are far from home, and devote their time and energy to protecting the vulnerable and providing relief to areas ravaged by war, famine, and natural disasters.  And we honor the memories of those who have lost their lives in the pursuit of world peace.

     NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim October 24, 2019, as United Nations Day.  I urge the Governors of the 50 States, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the officials of all other areas under the flag of the United States, to observe United Nations Day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

     IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-third day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand nineteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fourth.



                             DONALD J. TRUMP


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