September 8, 2020 | 4:53pm | Updated September 8, 2020 | 5:28pm
President Trump on Tuesday banned oil drilling off the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina — dramatically expanding a more narrow expiring moratorium covering Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Trump compared himself to conservationist President Teddy Roosevelt during a speech in swing-state Florida, which he called “my home.”
“Number one since Teddy Roosevelt. Who would have thought, Trump is the great environmentalist?” he said. “I am, I am. I believe strongly in it.”
Trump issued the 10-year ban on oil drilling as a new NBC News/Marist poll finds him tied with Democrat Joe Biden in Florida, with both candidates having 48 percent support.
Trump recently hit Biden during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania for supporting a ban on fracking of oil and natural gas — a stance Biden then disavowed.
In his remarks in Florida, Trump touted his recent signature on the National Parks-funding Great American Outdoors Act. In that context, he first compared himself to Roosevelt, who was president from 1901 to 1909.
“They came to my office, a lot of the senators that I just introduced and [Florida Gov.] Ron [DeSantis] and everybody, they came to my office, they said that this will make us and make you the number one environmental president since Teddy Roosevelt,” Trump said.
“I said, ‘Huh, that sounds good.’ Because I wasn’t going to do it, I figured you know let’s not do it. But when they said that, that was like a challenge. So I said, ‘Well, why does it only have to go back to Teddy Roosevelt, which is over 100 years? Why can’t we say from George Washington?’… They said. ‘Well, we’re not quite there yet, but one other bill like this, we will be there’.”
Trump slammed Biden as mentally “shot” and Democrats as less effective at environmental protection, despite his administration’s controversial regulatory rollbacks that roiled career Environmental Protection Agency staff.
“The contrast between our vision and the radical left has never been more clear. They talk a big game, and they do nothing,” Trump said. “To our political opponents, environmental policy is just an excuse to advance a socialist platform that will impose trillions and trillions of dollars in new taxes and send our jobs overseas.”
