President Donald Trump wants to make America "dominant in the energy field," Energy Secretary Rick Perry said in an interview with the Washington Examiner on Monday.
"We're sitting on one of the most prolific natural gas fields in the world, right under our feet. How to take that resource, add value to it," Perry said.
The former Texas governor then addressed the rise of petrochemical "cracker plants," which breakdown chemicals into natural gases such as ethane, propane and butane.
"President Trump's vision of making America dominant in the energy field — this is exactly what he's talking about," he continued.
"He doesn't want us just to be independent. He wants us to be dominant. That means that our allies, wherever they may be in the world, know that there will be a constant stream of these products that they need to develop their countries economically."
Perry also defended Trump's climate change skepticism, saying that "whether they're talking about the issue of global warming, or whether it's the issue of our energy resources, maybe the science isn't settled. It may be settled in somebody's mind, but it hasn't been settled in a lot of innovators' minds."
The secretary added that Trump "may" attempt to renegotiate the Paris climate agreement that Trump opposes, but said that "America doesn't have to have some accord that it's signed onto, quite frankly, one that costs our country a lot of money and I, along with the president, didn't see the real return on the investment [on those] billions…. I'm more interested in the results of having lower emissions and creating jobs."