Governors' Wind Energy Coalition

Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, was in a less jovial mood, citing the release as another example of the executive branch reaching “Orwellian new heights in its propaganda” in a statement.

The choice of words is the latest linguistic flourish from an administration promoting an “energy dominance” agenda — that is, one in which the United States focuses on expanding all forms of energy production, including fossils fuels, in an effort to make the country a net energy exporter.

The news release is also the latest effort by the Trump administration to highlight one facet of that agenda — its expansion of the number of gas export terminals on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

This month, President Trump flew to Louisiana to christen a newly constructed portion of a liquefied natural gas export terminal there. An additional three terminals are under construction nationwide to help bring the recent boom of fracked gas to international buyers in South America, Europe and Asia.

But during his speech Trump went off-topic, mocking Democrats such as Pete Buttigieg (‘Boot-edge-edge”), Elizabeth Warren (“Pocahontas”) and Bernie Sanders (“crazy”) each seeking to unseat him from the White House in 2020.

Still, Jason Bordoff, founding director of Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy, told The Washington Post’s Steven Mufson there is a “kernel of truth” to the White House rhetoric because U.S. gas provides an alternative to energy from Russia, which has used its trade relations as a cudgel against regional rivals such as Ukraine by cutting off its energy supply.

But Bordoff added: “I worry about the extent to which rhetoric like this risks politicizing a commodity whose very benefits derive from the fact that it is market-driven.”