Donald Trump tells a lot of lies about energy and climate, but that’s not unusual. In his four years as president, he made at least 30,573 false or misleading statements – about 21 a day, on average. Last month, he rattled off 162 lies and distortions in a single news conference.
It’s no accident that he’s trained his mendacity on the climate crisis and clean energy transition during the 2024 campaign. Trump vowed, after all, to slam the nation’s climate and clean energy gains into reverse as payback to billionaire oil and gas donors.
In a speech last week to the Economic Club of New York, Trump sampled his climate and energy lies.
Below are six false claims (in italics) from Trump’s speech, followed by the facts.
Lie: “Starting on day one Kamala launched a war on American energy.”
The Facts: An American energy renaissance, with clean energy at its core, has been a defining achievement for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. On their watch, U.S. energy production has risen to an all-time high.
Since the first year of the Biden-Harris administration, total U.S. energy production, from all sources, is up 9.5 percent, more than twice as much as the economy overall grew – 3.8 percent – in the same period.
The gains reflect energy production in 2023, the last full year for which statistics are available, as compared to 2021, the first year of the Biden-Harris administration.
Lie: “I will end Kamala Harris’s anti-energy crusade . . . “
The Facts: The only one talking about stifling U.S. energy production is Trump, who wants to reverse the nation’s clean energy gains and limit consumer choice in order to strengthen the oil and gas industry’s stranglehold on our families and economy.
He vowed to “rescind all unspent funds” under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which contains climate and clean energy incentives, spread out over a decade.
Only Congress can roll back the incentives. A recalcitrant Trump, though, could bog down and confuse the implementation of the measures enough to bring its manifest benefits to a screeching halt.
Just since Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to assure the measure would pass, corporations have announced $126 billion in new factories to build solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and advanced batteries, creating more than 109,000 good-paying jobs.
More than 80 percent of this investment is going to places that need that help – disadvantaged counties where wages and employment rates are below the national average.
Three-fourths of the investment is going into Republican districts. That could be one reason many in Trump’s own party say they’re opposed to his extremist plan to slam the brakes on clean energy, even though not one Republican in the Senate or the House voted for this successful legislation.
The measures are saving our families real money, cutting electricity bills by as much as $38 billion by 2030, lowering the cost of installing rooftop solar panels and heat pumps, and making electric cars, new and used, more affordable for low-income and middle-income drivers.
And they’re making the country more energy secure, by reducing U.S. reliance on the fossil fuels that fill the war chests of belligerent petro states like Russia.
Lie: “. . . and implement a policy of energy abundance, energy independence and even energy dominance.”
The Facts: Under the Biden-Harris administration, the United States has grown more energy independent than ever before.
The country exports more total energy than it imports. Net energy exports, of all types, have more than doubled – up 116 percent (pg 3) since 2021. Net exports of petroleum products – crude oil and refined fuels – have grown 29.1 percent (pg. 13).
And clean, reliable, domestically produced wind and solar power has grown 21.5 percent (pg 5). It’s set to keep growing, in part due to Biden-Harris policies.
In fact, 94 percent of the large-scale electricity capacity the nation has added, or plans to add, this year is coming from solar (59 percent) and wind power (11.3 percent) and battery storage (23.9 percent) to support renewable energy.
Lie: “My plan will cut energy prices in half, or more than that, within 12 months of taking office.”
The Facts: Trump’s plan would raise energy costs, reduce consumers’ ability to choose clean energy, and extend the oil and gas industry’s grip on the economy.
The cleanest energy, from the wind and sun, is also the cheapest, far cheaper than building dirty power plants that burn fossil fuels.
The kinds of changes Trump has talked about, and are detailed in Project 2025, would raise household costs by $32 billion in 2030, a nonpartisan analysis shows,
Beyond that, oil prices are set on a global market. No single country controls it. That includes the United States, which is producing more crude oil than any other country in history, about 13.1 million barrels per day, or roughly 13 percent of the world total.
Rates for electricity and natural gas are set, for the most part, by state public utility commissions. The best way to cut utility rates is to invest in low-cost power from the wind and sun.
Lie: “Kamala spent $7.5 billion to build eight charging stations.”
The Facts: The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provides $7.5 billion, over five years, to jumpstart construction of a national network of 500,000 chargers by 2030. The money goes to individual states and cities to support new charging stations.
Pennsylvania, for example, is set to receive $172 million to build at least 70 stations that can each charge, typically, four cars at once. The city of Atlanta will receive nearly $12 million to install a central hub with 50 fast-charging ports at the Atlanta airport.
Since Biden took office, the number of publicly available charging stations nationwide has doubled, to nearly 200,000. About 1,000 new stations are being added each week. And, while most electric vehicle owners charge their cars at home, about six in ten people live within 2 miles of a public charging station.
Lie: “When people talk about global warming, I say ‘The ocean is going to go down one hundredth of an inch within the next 400 years, that’s not our problem.’”
The Facts: Trump probably meant to say the ocean will rise by that amount, in line with similar false claims he’s made in recent weeks. In truth, sea level is rising far faster each year than Trump claims it would rise in 400 years.
Global sea level is rising by 0.17 inches per year. That’s an inch every six years – and the rate is accelerating as the planet warms. Seas are rising along the U.S. coastline even faster than the global average, and are projected to rise, on average, by about one foot by 2050.
That’s not a punchline, it’s a problem for the 127 million Americans who live in coastal counties directly impacted by rising seas and the increasingly devastating consequences of floods, hurricanes, storm surge, saltwater intrusion and even heavy rains and high tides.
