PITTSBURGH — Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry is promising to expand energy production on federal lands, curb regulations and create some 1.2 million jobs in the process.
The Texas governor says the quickest way to turn around the economy is to deploy American ingenuity and to tap American energy. He plans to use the first policy speech of his White House run to pledge to put America back to work, creating energy the country could sell around the world.
Perry's speech on Friday comes as his campaign tries to move past some early bumps. Perry hopes to steady that course in a speech at a Pittsburgh-area steel plant. While echoing the call for increased drilling on federal lands, he also cast voters' choice in 2012 as a referendum on President Barack Obama.