Trump signs fracking memo on way to 3rd Pennsylvania rally
Timed just before his third rally Saturday, President Donald Trump released a memorandum on fracking and the oil and gas industry, which he told the western Pennsylvania crowd he signed on Marine One en route to the Butler County event.
Trump said the memo's intent is to "block any efforts to undermine energy production" in the state.
"So, in other words, if one of these maniacs come along and they say, we're going to end fracking, we're going to destroy the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you can say sorry about that," he said.
Trump used the memo to attack former Vice President Joe Biden over the Democratic presidential candidate's debate comment that he would "transition from the oil industry."
"If Joe Biden is elected, he will cancel our, and you know that, he's going to terminate, frankly -- a better word, terminate your energy industry and every job because they want to go to wind," Trump said. "They don't even want wind. Honestly, I don't think they want energy. Period."
Biden calls for net-zero emissions by the year 2050 in his climate policy, achieved by shifting away from fossil fuels but not completely banning them. Instead, Biden's policy would focus on developing carbon capture technology to reduce pollution and carbon outputs. Biden has called for no new fracking on federal lands, but that would not affect fracking already taking place or on private land.
The president also overstated what the memorandum would do. The Trump administration's memo only directed that government officials conduct an assessment of the "potential effects of efforts to ban or restrict" the use of "hydraulic fracturing and other innovative technologies for the use of domestic natural resources, including energy resources" within 70 days.
-ABC News' Will Steakin and Justin Gomez