Donald Trump: Gas heater is much less expensive, the heat is much better, it's a much better heat
President-elect Donald Trump’s first press conference after the certification of his election victory—exactly four years since the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots—was anything but ordinary. Speaking from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, Trump touched on familiar themes of climate and energy skepticism while introducing new, controversial assertions. Among the most notable was his promise to reverse President Biden’s newly announced offshore drilling ban.
Biden’s recent move aims to permanently prohibit new offshore oil and gas drilling across 625 million acres of U.S. coastlines, including the East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific shores of Washington, Oregon, and California, and parts of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea. Trump dismissed the policy, pledging, “I will reverse it immediately. It’ll be done immediately. And we will drill, baby, drill.” He also hinted at plans for expanded drilling elsewhere, while deriding renewable energy initiatives as part of what he called “the green new scam.”
However, Trump’s threats are largely hollow. The drilling ban is considered permanent under current law, and reversing it would require Congressional approval, not just an executive order.
In his remarks, Trump also took aim at Biden’s support for electric vehicles, falsely claiming there is an “electric car mandate” and promising to eliminate it. “This guy loves electric, and we don’t have enough electricity,” Trump said. “And then we have AI where we need more.” While Trump is correct that artificial intelligence could increase energy demands, his broader points on electric cars lack factual basis.
Trump’s longstanding disdain for wind energy also resurfaced during the press conference. He announced plans to halt the construction of wind turbines, claiming, “They don’t work without subsidy. You don’t want energy that needs subsidy.” He also repeated a debunked claim that offshore wind is responsible for whale strandings, stating that windmills “are driving the whales crazy” and referencing two whale beachings over a “17-year period.” As noted previously by Lauren Gaches, director of NOAA Fisheries Public Affairs, “there is no scientific evidence that noise resulting from offshore wind site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales.” Moreover, the oil and gas industry itself has long relied on substantial tax subsidies.
Trump’s comments, though often provocative, were riddled with inaccuracies and reflected his ongoing skepticism of climate policies and renewable energy advancements.