Photograph by Brandon Bell / Getty Images
words by miranda green
President Donald Trump’s roughly 108-minute State of the Union Address was the longest SOTU speech in history, and he didn’t mention climate change once.
Trump has, in fact, never mentioned climate change during any of his four addresses. Nor has he mentioned pollution, clean air, melting ice caps, or biodiversity.
The president on Tuesday largely danced around the fact that rising temperatures are contributing to widespread extreme heating events and worsening storm systems, and that the growing data center footprint is putting the U.S. power grid and our climate at peril.
I’ve covered the SOTU once in person.
Wedged between other reporters high up in the rafters of the House of Representatives chamber—typically the public viewing section during votes—I watched as then-President Barack Obama gave his last address to the nation. Sitting up behind him, I took in the choreographed dance of claps and boos, sitting and standing, the clear division between the Republicans and Democrats in the audience, and the occasional outburst from the crowd of members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, cabinet members, the vice president, and various invited guests.
Presidential SOTUs follow a typical formula: Show a roadmap for what’s behind and what’s ahead, highlight key areas of focus, call upon Congress to pass various laws, and make an appeal to the public for support.
For Trump’s first SOTU speech back in 2018, coal was the main energy star.
“We have ended the war on American energy and we have ended the war on beautiful, clean coal,” he said.
By the next year, coal was out and gas was in. Coal production had declined by 7% in the time between the two speeches and was at its lowest level since 1978. Yet, the U.S. had become the world’s top crude producer, and liquid natural gas exports were growing.
“We have unleashed a revolution in American energy—the United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world. And now, for the first time in 65 years, we are a net exporter of energy,” Trump said at the 2019 SOTU.
“Trump has, in fact, never mentioned climate change during any of his four addresses. Nor has he mentioned pollution, clean air, melting ice caps, or biodiversity.”
His 2020 speech took on a more subdued tone as Trump, in the middle of his first impeachment trial, battled for reelection against Joe Biden.
He referred to energy in the context of jobs: “With the tremendous progress we have made over the past three years, America is now energy independent, and energy jobs—like so many other elements of our country—are at a record high. We are doing numbers that no one would have thought possible just three years ago.”
That SOTU speech was the first of Trump’s to get an environmental mention. He pledged that the country would join the World Economic Forum’s newly launched initiative to plant 1 trillion trees, though it’s unclear what’s come of American involvement in that program.
Trump returned to the podium last night with more vigor. With approval ratings hovering around 40%—the lowest they’ve ever been—Trump at times spoke like a person with nothing to lose.
His speech was an assault on detractors, including former President Biden, and issues he’s long derided, such as the “green new scam.” It was also a rallying cry that boasted of a national comeback to a new “golden age.”
“In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it,” he said at the address.
That “winning” includes, by his estimation, American natural gas production—which he told the crowd was at an “all-time high, because I kept my promise to drill, baby, drill.” The White House simultaneously announced that the Energy Information Administration forecasts natural gas production will continue reaching record highs in 2026 and 2027.
He teed up other controversial issues as true economic victories.
“What the president left out were details that made the disaster feel so utterly devastating: namely, that it could have been avoided.”
He touted the U.S. invasion of Venezuela, which he called his “friend and partner,” and said the country has since given the U.S. more than 80,000 barrels of oil. He called the U.S. military’s victory there an effort to “unleash extraordinary economic gains.”
Trump announced during the speech that the White House had put together a “rate payer protection pledge”: an agreement with leading tech companies that they’d pay more for electricity in areas where they were building data centers. Data centers use a disproportionate amount of energy and water and have been found to drive local power prices up. Energy affordability has become a major political talking point on both sides of the aisle.
“We have an old grid … So I’m telling them they can build their own plant, they’re going to produce their own electricity … while at the same time lowering prices of electricity for you,” Trump said, without elaborating on how the plan would operate.
Trump remarked on the country’s “empty marshes and wide-open plains” while nodding to American exceptionalism and development since declaring its independence nearly 250 years ago. But he stopped short of mentioning our nation’s flora and fauna, its Indigenous peoples, or its public lands.
There was one poignant moment when Trump introduced two people in the crowd: Petty Officer Scott Ruskin and 11-year-old Millie Kate McClelland. Trump explained that Ruskin had rescued McClelland during the deadly flooding at Camp Mystic in Texas last July, where 27 people died. Trump bestowed Ruskin then and there with a medal for his courage. It was supposed to be a moment of humanity, highlighting bravery and generosity. But it also rang hollow.
What the president left out were details that made the disaster feel so utterly devastating: namely, that it could have been avoided. If only there had been stronger city planning laws, if only funding had been approved for a better flood warning system, if only the White House believed the science that says fossil fuel emissions are the primary driver of climate change, which is intensifying extreme weather.
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Trump’s Climate Silence at the Longest-Ever State of the Union
