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US President Donald Trump on Saturday announced that he has signed an order to protect the American energy industry and hydraulic fracturing.“Just signed an order to protect fracking and the oil and gas industry. This means jobs, low energy bills, and continued American energy independence! Sleepy Joe [Biden] would ban fracking and destroy American energy jobs! He has no clue!” Trump tweeted.
Trump said that hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, has become “one of the great success stories of our time,” opening up new sources of inexpensive and reliable energy and producing more jobs for Americans. In a memorandum released by the White House, Trump said, “As a result of new technologies and my Administration’s continued push for energy independence, our country recently became a net energy exporter for the first time since 1952, as well as the leading producer of oil and natural gas in the world. We are no longer beholden to foreign countries upon which we had depended for decades for the survival of our way of life.”
According to a report from the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), the use of fracking and other innovations had lowered energy prices thus saving US consumers USD 203 billion per year, or USD 2,500 in annual savings for a family of four.
“This memorandum sets forth policies related to protecting American jobs, economic opportunities, and national security by ensuring appropriate support of hydraulic fracturing and other innovative technologies for the use of domestic natural resources, including energy resources. In support of these policies, this memorandum directs certain officials to assess the potential effects of efforts to ban or restrict the use of such technologies,” the White House said.
In the memorandum, Trump stated that the lower energy prices that are the result of fracking benefit mostly low-income households in the US as they spend a larger share of their income on energy bills. “The CEA estimated that greater productivity had reduced the domestic price of natural gas by 63 per cent as of 2018; had led to a 45 per cent decrease in the wholesale price of electricity; and had reduced the global price of oil by 10 per cent as of 2019,” Trump’s memorandum reads.
Trump has been a strong supporter of the oil industry in the United States. This election year he has criticized his Democratic rival Joe Biden for wanting to ban fracking, Sputnik reported. Biden, in the last presidential debate, had said he would not ban fracking if elected, but later mentioned he would eventually like to make a transition from the oil industry to clean energy production.
The US Presidential elections are to be held on November 3.