Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt on Sunday defended the Trump administration's promise to bring back jobs to the coal and steel industries, saying the United States needs "fuel diversity" to keep the nation safe.
Pruitt called critics of President Donald Trump's ability to revive those fossil fuel sectors as "dead wrong," telling NBC News' "Meet The Press" job figures already "show the exact opposite."
"Since the fourth quarter of last year to most recently, [the United States has] added 50,000 jobs in the coal sector," he asserted. "In the month of May alone, 7,000 jobs."
"Here's what's key about our power grid in this country. You have to have fuel diversity . . . because if we go to an all renewable, all natural gas type of an approach, if there is an attack on the transportation network, there is only so much natural gas that can go into that facility to generate electricity," he offered as an example.
"We need solids stored on site to draw down upon for threats to our grid. Fuel diversity, stability, consistency is key to the manufacturing base. It's also key to keeping costs low. Our price per kilowatt is far less in Germany. We need to keep that approach."