Pence: Energy Independence Key to National Security, US Military Strength

Former Vice President Mike Pence told supporters gathered at a conference in Orange County, California, today, that America’s national security hinges and military strength hinges on domestic oil and gas production and on energy independence.

Energy is more than a domestic issue. It affects foreign policy, Pence said at the Nixon National Energy Conference at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda.

Under the Trump administration, a strong economy helped the United States rebuild its military to serve as a deterrent to would-be foreign threats. But the Biden administration has put a stop to domestic oil and gas production, he said.

“A vibrant energy sector powers American strength and independence on the world stage. And with that renewed economic strength during our administration, we were able to not only rebuild our economy but we rebuilt our military after years of reckless budget cuts,” he said.

Pence said the energy policies that the Trump administration proposed were based on ideas Nixon proposed.

“The truth is we didn’t invent the energy playbook,” he said. “In fact, it looked an awful lot like the Nixon playbook that was ignored by the Congress of his time 50 years ago.”

Then as now, he said, the energy crisis that Nixon faced in the early 1970s was “government induced.”

One of the Trump administration’s first actions was to withdraw the United States from “the unfair, one-sided” Paris Climate Agreement, which punished American industry while allowing China “to continue polluting with impunity,” he said.

The Trump administration replaced the Obama administrations Clean Power Plan with affordable free market clean energy rules, approved the Keystone and Dakota pipelines, expedited the approval of the Burgos pipeline, and opened the Alaska National Wildlife region to responsible oil and gas leasing, Pence said.

“It was an extraordinary record of success,” he said. “Within months of unleashing American Energy … our economy took off like a jack rabbit as we say in Indiana.”

The United States became the top producer of oil and natural gas in the world, and for the first time in three quarters of a century, became a net exporter of natural gas, with energy imports falling to the lowest level in 60 years, Pence said.

“We fueled economic growth—7 million good paying jobs—unemployment plummeted to a 50-year-low, we moved 10 million people from welfare to work,” he said. “It was the largest poverty reduction in American history. That’s what happens when you unleash American energy: America prospers.”

Under Trump, the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, and renewed American strength and independence, as well as achieving first new peace deal in the Arab World in 25 years in the Abraham Accords.

“We made history,” he said.

But, for more than two years, the “war on energy” is back with a vengeance under the Biden administration, and the United States is “weaker on the world stage than ever before,” Pence said.

Criticizing Biden for saying he wanted to “end fossil fuels” during his campaign, Pence blasted Democrats for claiming efforts to increase domestic oil and gas production is “partisan” politics.

With the support of the Democrat majority, Biden cancelled the Keystone and XL pipelines, imposed drilling moratoriums, refused to auction oil and gas leases on federal lands, and “now, he wants to weaponize the SEC to choke out financing for traditional energy sources through capricious ESG regulations,” Pence said.

Environmental Social Governance, or ESG, supported by the World Economic Forum, is a complex and highly politicized system of credits given to corporations who support and promote government policies.

Biden has failed to protect hardworking Americans from woke ideology in corporate boardrooms and is now trying to force two-thirds of all gasoline vehicles off the road with draconian new standards, according to Pence.

Unrealistic demands to drive gas-powered vehicles off the road in California and replace them with electric vehicles is “being done to appease the radical left in America” and will increase U.S. dependence on China, the world’s dominant battery maker, he said.

“Under their policies, American consumers will lose and China will win,” Pence said.

“President Biden has turned a surplus of American oil and gas into a deficit in the name of environmental extremism, and all at the expense of American workers.”

Pence also blasted Biden for depleting half of the national strategic petroleum reserve intended for emergencies instead of increasing domestic energy production.

Biden, he said, then “went hat in hand to OPEC” asking it to increase production, and “as evidence of America’s waning influence on the world stage, OPEC turned him down, and now Middle Eastern countries are drawn closer to China and Russia by the day.

“The truth is President Joe Biden has weakened America at home and abroad,” he said.

Biden’s “war on energy” has sapped American strength and influence in the world.

“The time has come for America to return to the policies that will drive American growth and American strength, and it begins with American energy,” Pence said.

Foreign Aggression

Pence blamed the Biden administration for its “disastrous withdrawal” of American troops and military equipment from Afghanistan which “emboldened Russia.”

“President Biden has replaced American strength with weakness and he’s made the world a more dangerous place,” Pence said. “And, so now more than ever, we need to renew American strength to recognize that America is the leader of the Free World.”

Pence said Russian President Vladimir Putin is responsible for “the unprovoked invasion in Ukraine” and that Putin Russia “need to be held to account.”

Expounding on points he made at a “fireside chat” at a private fundraiser for the Lincoln Institute on Tuesday, Pence said America is “the arsenal of democracy.”

“If America isn’t leading the Free World, the Free World is not being led,” he said. “The war in Ukraine is not our war, but freedom is our fight.”

Pence said he believes the United States should continue to give the Ukrainian military the means to repel the Russian invasion and reclaim their sovereignty.

“It is in the interest of freedom—theirs and ours,” he said. “We must make it clear that we will not tolerate naked aggression and attempts to redraw national boundaries by force anywhere in the world, whether it’s in Europe, on the Korean Peninsula or in the Taiwan Straits.”

Energy independence and a strong military, he said, also serves as a defense against Chinese communist aggression.

“The fate of Ukraine will reach far beyond the European continent. I guarantee you that Communist China is watching. I believe history teaches that weakness arouses evil, and weakness in Europe today may very well arouse an even greater evil in the Asian Pacific,” he said.

While Nixon opened the door to U.S.-China trade relations in the hope China would embrace greater liberty for its people with a stronger economy, Pence said that in recent decades, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “has only grown bolder in repressing their people, trampling on religious liberty, human rights, committing trade abuses, intellectual property theft, threatening Taiwan and engaging in aggressive military actions” that threaten the navigation in the Asian Pacific.

“This week alone, we learned the two Chinese nationals were arrested for running an illegal police station in New York City, which existed to harass dissidents who had fled China to come to the land of the free and the home of the brave,” he said. “China may not yet be an evil empire, but under President Xi it certainly aspires to become one. President Xi’s vision for the world is one in which freedom is constrained but Beijing’s power is not.”

Earlier this month, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, to push back against the CCP’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific region.

McCarthy called on Congress to hasten the supply and delivery of military weapons to Taiwan amid rising tensions between the self-governed democracy and China’s ruling communist regime. He urged the United States and its allies to stand against China’s aggression with “one voice” and a clear and consistent message to promote peace and protect democracy.