WASHINGTON – Over the weekend, Donald Trump released what he called in a tweet “an order to protect fracking and the oil and gas industry.” In reality, the memo ordered new studies on fracking but contained no new policies.
In response, Greenpeace USA Senior Climate Campaigner John Noël said:
“Trump’s half-baked ‘order’ on fracking is the move of a campaign that knows it’s losing. For all Trump’s bluster about so-called energy dominance, he has done nothing to support the actual workers who have been most impacted by turmoil in the oil and gas market in 2020. If science, economics, and the will of the people say fracking is on its way out, then fracking will go. It’s up to our next president to ensure a just transition for fossil fuel industry workers, one that includes job guarantees, retraining, and opportunities for family-sustaining, union jobs in the renewable energy economy.
“In 2016, Trump made huge promises to coal workers about how he was going to bring their industry back from the brink. He’s broken every single one of them. As coal companies have gone bankrupt, their CEOs have escaped with million-dollar bonuses while robbing their workers of the pensions and health benefits they’ve earned. We must not let the same thing happen in the transition away from oil and gas. With a Green New Deal, we can ensure the clean energy revolution leaves no one behind.”
An August 2020 poll from Climate Power 2020 and the Global Strategy Group found that voters in critical swing state Pennsylvania strongly support investing in renewable energy over oil and gas, and support tighter regulations on the fracking industry. Nationally, more Americans oppose fracking (44 percent) than support it (35 percent).