Trump Embraces Natural Gas Industry on Visit to Pennsylvania

SEATTLE (Oil Monster):  President Trump promoted his support for the natural gas industry Wednesday, making clear on his second visit to Pennsylvania in the past three months that he sees his pro-industry policies as a boost to his chances of winning the battleground state in 2020.

As some of his leading Democratic opponents call for a fracking ban, Trump has been eager to cut a contrast, touting his support for a sector he says brings economic benefits to rural pockets and jobs to construction union workers.

But pipeline politics might not be so clear-cut.

In the suburbs that might be key to his path to victory, Pennsylvania voters have shown a growing opposition to the drilling and massive pipelines required to move its product across the state. Candidates in state and local races are increasingly hardening their stances on the industry. National polling shows growing skepticism of fracking, the process used in extraction.

While the issue is unlikely to be the one that turns a race already dominated by Trump’s strong personality, a looming impeachment fight and accusations of racism, Trump’s eagerness to promote the industry underscores his tight focus on shoring up his base of rural voters, even at the risk of alienating others.

“Today, I’m proud to declare that I’ve delivered on every single promise I made to this conference three years ago and much, much more,” Trump said at an energy conference in Pittsburgh, a corporate hub of activity in the Marcellus Shale, the nation’s most prolific natural gas reservoir.

Trump reminded the audience that he overturned the Clean Power Plan, put forward by his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, to fight climate change.

“Sounds nice but it wasn’t nice,” Trump, a climate change skeptic, said of the plan. “It was a disaster.”

The president also highlighted his decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, a multinational pact designed to reduce the emission of gases that contribute to global warming.

Trump has argued that the agreement entered into during the Obama years would have restricted the U.S. but allowed foreign producers to “pollute with impunity.”

“My job is to represent the people of Pittsburgh, not the people of Paris,” the president said as the audience cheered.

Addressing the Pittsburgh conference gave Trump the ability to pitch to an industry and a region – western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and West Virginia – that help make up “what some would call his base,” said Dave Spigelmyer, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a trade group that’s co-sponsoring the event.

“The president certainly recognizes what a critical role this country is playing in energy, and that this state and region are playing in energy,” Spigelmyer said.

Several Democratic presidential candidates are taking their own political risks on the issue. Backed by environmentalists on the left, some candidates – including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren – have broken from the party’s past support for fracking to call for a nationwide ban. More centrist candidates, including former Vice President Joe Biden, have declined to go that far.

Trump’s visit Wednesday followed an August rally at a massive ethane refinery being built northwest of Pittsburgh.

“This would have never happened without me and us,” Trump said.

In 2016, Trump eked out a win in Pennsylvania – the first Republican presidential candidate to capture it since 1988 – by piling up support with Pennsylvania’s rural areas and working-class whites.

Philadelphia’s moderate suburbs, meanwhile, turned decisively against him. Some party officials have fretted that Trump will need to improve his suburban performance in 2020 to win Pennsylvania a second time.

Courtesy: www.pressherald.com