Remarks by President Trump at 9th Annual Shale Insight Conference | Pittsburgh, PA | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

David L. Lawrence Convention Center  •  Pittsburgh, PA  •  October 23  •  3:51 P.M. EDT
    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. What a nice group. (Applause.) Ah, you're much happier. I was here three years ago; you're much happier now. (Applause.) And you're much wealthier, and you're providing a lot more energy than you used to, that's for sure. Right? (Applause.) Thank you.

    You know, Harold is a very successful man. And I was with the great football coach, Barry Switzer. I think he might be the only one - he won in the NFL and he won in college, right? The championship. But Barry is a great guy. Great coach. And he's one of Harold's best friends.

    And Harold was coming into a meeting, and I was talking to Barry. And he said about Harold, "You know, sir, that guy can take a straw" - probably the plastic ones, before they changed. (Laughter.) I don't think it would have worked; the paper straws aren't working too well. "Sir, he can take a straw and he can put it into the ground, and oil comes out." And other companies, they spend billions looking for oil. They want to find that oil. They just spend billions, and they can't get it. But this guy puts a straw in the ground. And I said, "How cool is that?" Right?

    But that's my friend, Harold. He's a great gentleman. I learned a lot about energy from him.

    But it's wonderful to be here, back in Pittsburgh. By the way, go Steelers. Go Steelers. (Applause.) Big Ben. I guess, Big Ben is recovering. I know Ben. He's a great guy. He's a tough cookie. And he'll be back, right? He'll be back. Big Ben.

    And you have a great - and you have a great ice hockey team, too. You have a great ice hockey team. (Applause.) Sidney Crosby, the whole group - you know, they were at the White House not a long time ago. And they came in and they are a great group of people.

    So you have a great sports place and a great sports town.

    But I'm here with the incredible people who fuel our factories, light up our homes, power our industries, and fill our hearts with true American pride. That's you. And, by the way, you guys - sit down. (Applause.) Thank you. Sit down, everyone. We'll be here for a little while. I like energy people. (Laughter and applause.) Energy people have a lot of energy, unlike some people I deal with. (Laughter.) They got a lot of energy, in more ways than one.

    Nobody does it better than the hardworking men and women of Marcellus Shale country. (Applause.) Wouldn't it be great if New York realized what they're sitting on top of - (applause) - before the competing states take a lot of it? You know, it gets down a little bit, right? It keeps going down. They'll say, "Hey, we used to have a lot of energy before they took them from Pennsylvania and Ohio." But New York should do it, and New York should allow pipelines to go through so the people of New England can cut their energy costs in half, so the people in New York could cut their energy costs in half. (Applause.)


    New York doesn't allow pipelines to go through. I don't know, there has to be some kind of a federal something that we can do there. But they won't allow pipelines to go through New York; this is for a long time. And they won't do any fracking in New York. And they won't take all of that wealth underneath and reduce their taxes. Wouldn't that be nice? They don't do it in New York. Somebody, someday, will explain why.

    They do it in Pennsylvania. They do it in Ohio. They do it in states right around New York. They don't do it in New York. They're sitting on a goldmine of energy.

    With unmatched skill, grit, and devotion, you are making America the greatest energy superpower in the history of the world. You're number one, by far, now. Right? (Applause.)

    And I want to thank the Marcellus Shale Coalition, the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. Oh, I love Ohio. I love that state. Ohio. (Applause.) Don't forget, for a year, I had to listen to, "You cannot win unless you win Ohio." I said, "No, no: 'The great state of Ohio.' Please, treat it well." (Applause.) And we won Ohio by a lot. It's a great state.

    And another great state: West Virginia. (Applause.) Right? I think we won West Virginia by 42 points. (Applause.) That's a lot. I would say that's a lot. But they're great people. And, West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, I want to thank you for the invitation to be here today. Two great groups.

    We're honored to be joined by members of my Cabinet who are fighting every day to support the American energy revolution. By the way, if the other people ever get in, everything I said, forget about. You won't have money to pay for a ticket to this place. You'll all be out of business very quickly. In the meantime, you're doing better than you've even done.

    But I have Cabinet members here. Interior Secretary - largest landlord in the United States by a factor of about 200 - David Bernhardt. Where's David? David? Thank you, David. Stand up. What a great job. (Applause.) He's basically the landlord to about half of the United States.

    A friend of mine - a great gentleman. He's going to be leaving, and, I'll tell you, there's one that's going to do well. But he's been right from the beginning. We're almost three years, now. Energy Secretary, Rick Perry. Rick. (Applause.)

    Great guy. Great guy. Great competitor. I ran against Rick. He was nasty. He was tough. He was tough. But he - he was a gentleman. And when he decided that it was time to do something else, there was nobody that could have been nicer. He's been a tremendous asset to the administration. And he was a great governor of Texas. And he's been a great - great job with the energy. And that includes nuclear energy. Really fantastic job. Thank you, Rick. (Applause.)

    Another man who is here, who's been incredible - he is a man that, no matter what you do, it's never going to be considered right, because one group will like it and one group won't. But he's really tough. He's really smart. And, by the way, he loves the environment: EPA Administrator, Andrew Wheeler. Andrew, you've done a fantastic job. (Applause.)


    And he's, right now, working on small refineries, getting them everything they need to stay because it's a highly competitive business. We want to keep them really prosperous and keep them in business, Andrew. So, I know you're working on that. And he's dealing with them I think this week and next week, and you'll hopefully have something for the small refineries.

    Anybody here from small refineries? Yeah, a couple. Not too many. Don't forget the small refineries. We don't have - (laughter) - now, you're going to take care of those small refineries. They're great people, right? And they've really been incredible for our country.

    Several outstanding members of Congress - these are warriors; these are people that fight with me all the time on the witch hunts. I've had the Mueller witch hunt, the Russia witch hunt. I have witch hunts every week. I say, "What's the witch hunt this week?" (Laughter.) They can't beat us at the ballot box. They cannot beat us at the ballot box. So they want to try and beat us the old-fashioned way, which is not very nice. They are a nasty group of people.

    And, you know, it's very interesting: If you look at what's happened and what's been doing, and all the things we've done, and we have to get USMCA done, and they don't want to put it up for a vote. And the Do-Nothing Democrats, they will pass it, but it has to be put up Nancy Pelosi. So let's see what happens. But I think they're going to put it up, because everybody -

    AUDIENCE: Booo -

    THE PRESIDENT: No, everybody wants it, and I think ultimately they're going to do the right thing. But it's all ready to go. It's approved by Mexico. It's approved by Canada. It's approved by everybody that has to be approved. We have to give it a vote. It's been sitting for a long time. A lot of money wasted, a lot of jobs wasted. It's going to have a tremendous impact.

    But these are warriors that have been with me right from the beginning. A friend of mine, Mike Kelly. Congressman Mike Kelly. (Applause.) Mike, stand up. Great job, Mike.

    A man with the greatest name if show business: Guy Reschenthaler. (Applause.) Now, if anybody can get elected to Congress with that name, you got to be one hell of a talent. When you can have that name and get elected, I'll tell you what. But he's a warrior. They're all warriors.

    This group is incredible. I won't say it about every group. Some aren't warriors. But this group is incredible. It's called "Pennsylvania." It's in the genes. It's in the blood. Right? (Applause.) It's in the blood.

    Another terrific guy who's always there: Lloyd Smucker. Thank you, Lloyd. Great job. (Applause.)

    GT Thompson. We have them all today, huh? GT. (Applause.) We have them all.


    The great John Joyce. John, thank you. (Applause.) Great job. Thank you, John.

    Dan Meuser. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Dan. (Applause.) Thank you. That looks like Cary Grant, doesn't he? Have you ever been told that, Dan? It's not a bad compliment, I must say.

    Today we have Tom Arnold. In those days, you had a little different. Those days, you had Errol Flynn, Cary Grant. A little different. But today we're doing better in so many different ways.

    And, of course, somebody that fights like you've never seen before: Fred Keller. (Applause.) Fred. Thank you, Fred. Great. Doing a great job.

    Thank you all. I mean, these are fantastic people.

    And David. Where's David? Is here there? Where's David? What happened to him? All right, we won't mention his name. He's in the back. Pretend that I didn't say it.

    When I last spoke at this conference in 2016, American energy was under relentless assault from the previous administration. You know that so well. More than a third of all of the coalmining jobs had vanished. A moratorium had been placed on new coal leases on federal land. Drilling and mining on federal lands was blocked and restricted at every turn. Desperately needed pipelines were obstructed and denied. Federal regulations and bureaucrats were working around the clock to shut down vital infrastructure projects, bankrupt producers, and keep America's vast energies and treasures buried deep underground. They didn't want to let you go get them. So good for the American people in so many ways.

    I promised that, as President, I'd unleash American energy like never before, because our natural resources do not belong to government, they belong to the people of this country. (Applause.) American energy belongs to hardworking men and women like you who get up every day and make this country run. (Applause.)

    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. Every one. (Applause.)

    Wow. Look at the great people. Thank you very much. (Laughs.) Four more years. Why don't you drive them crazy? Go 16 more years; you'll drive them totally crazy. (Applause.) Sixteen more years. Thank you. Thank you.

    We're now energy independent. Who would've thought that? That wasn't going to happen for a long time. We've ended the war on American energy, and we've ended the economic assault on our wonderful energy workers. You were under assault for a long period of time, but no longer. No longer. That's why we have to keep it going. Because if you talk about assault, it was nothing compared to what would happen if one of these people got in office. What they would do to you would be unthinkable. And what they'd do to this incredible profession that you're in, but this segment of the economy that's so big and so vast and so many jobs, would be just absolutely terrible. Hard to believe they're even talking the way they're talking. And, in many ways, I think it actually would be worse than they're even saying it will be.

    ...

    Read the full transcript HERE.


You can visit a collection of all White House posts by clicking here.

• Contact: White House
•     Press Office