Rick Perry unveils energy plan in Pittsburgh area

Rick Perry visited the Pittsburgh area today to talk with steel workers about creating more than… Rick Perry visited the Pittsburgh area today to talk with steel workers about creating more than one million American jobs by breaking the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

The current Texas Governor and contender in the Republican presidential race, spoke to an audience of more than 120 people at the United States Steel Mon Valley Works Irvin Plant in West Mifflin on Friday to unveil his energy plan.

Perry said his plan, coming less than a month after President Barack Obama unveiled a sweeping jobs plan, is based off one simple premise: “Make what Americans buy, buy what Americans make, and sell it to the world.”

The main point of Perry’s economic package is to create 1.2 million good-paying jobs across every sector of the American economy through a series of executive orders that seek to tap into American energy to “rebuild the engine of American prosperity.”

Perry, who joined the race in August, said his four-part plan can be put in motion within the first 100 days of his presidency, if elected. The plan would help the 14 million unemployed Americans.

The main aspects of Perry’s plan include breaking America’s dependence on foreign oil from “hostile forces” and “unstable Middle Eastern countries,” stopping the Environmental Protection Agency’s measures related to carbon emissions, reforming the bureaucracy in the government and leveling the playing field among all energy producers.

“We’re creating foreign jobs, we’re creating foreign profits,” he said. “It’s wrong, hypocritical and unfair.”

Perry said that the U.S. has untapped supplies of coal, oil and natural gas that Obama and the “over-reaching environmental agency,” the EPA, won’t allow America to draw on.

“America should not, and will not be when I’m elected, be held hostage by foreign oil and foreign bureaucrats,” he said.

Perry said he wants to take concrete actions to open the oil and gas fields that are currently off-limits by authorizing a series of executive orders: open up Alaska’s natural resources to create 120,000 jobs, initiate offshore exploration to create 55,000 jobs, resume exploration in the Gulf of Mexico to create 230,000 jobs and build the Keystone XL Pipeline to create 20,000 jobs.

He said natural gas exploration is a “game-changer,” that will create jobs and lower energy costs. And in Pennsylvania, there is the possibility of creating 250,000 jobs through tapping the full potential of Marcellus Shale, he said.

“Western Pennsylvania is known for producing some pretty great quarterbacks,” Perry said. “And I want western Pennsylvania to quarterback a new revolution.”

He criticized Obama’s jobs proposal, which the president spoke about on a visit to Pittsburgh earlier this week, saying that his administration is doing behind the scenes work to “grind the economy to a halt,” by destroying American jobs through EPA resolutions and regulations.

If the Obama administration has its way, Perry said that 2.4 million jobs will be lost on the oil, coal and gas industries.

He also accused Obama of purposely raising the price of electricity, making it more costly in order to drive consumers toward green energy. But America doesn’t produce enough green energy to cover all that, so the result is more dependence on foreign oil, Perry said.

Choosing between the environment and the economy should not be the only option, he said.

Perry also said that states need to have more say in what goes on in their environments, and the federal government cannot impose a “one size fits all” mentality when it comes to environmental regulations.

“I reject the notion that Washington is more committed to the energy stewardship than the state and local officials who have to live with the consequences,” he said.

Perry ended his speech by telling the audience that they have two very different choices in the 2012 election.

“Creating jobs in America is as simple as changing presidents,” he said before walking out to the tune of Toby Keith’s Made in America.