Donald Trump said that he would make sure all regulations will be good for the American worker. | Getty Trump calls for ‘complete American energy independence’ 'This plan will make America wealthy again'

Donald Trump outlined an "America first" energy agenda Thursday that includes eliminating a slew of environmental regulations, expanding fossil fuel development, killing the Paris climate deal and ending U.S. reliance on OPEC — with the aim of creating what he called “complete American energy independence.”

“This plan will make America wealthy again,” Trump told an audience in North Dakota, an epicenter of the U.S. oil boom, which has been suffering in the past two years from a global plunge in petroleum prices. He said: “It’s a choice between sharing in this great energy wealth or sharing in the poverty promised by Hillary Clinton.”


Trump outlined a test for any regulation under his administration: "Is this regulation good for the American worker? If it doesn’t pass this test, this rule will not be under any circumstances approved."

He continued, "In a Trump administration, political activists with extreme agendas will no longer write the rules, because that’s what’s happening now.”

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee said he'll repeal President Barack Obama's climate regulations for power plants, as well as the Waters of the U.S. Rule, an EPA regulation that has drawn fierce resistance from the energy and agriculture industries. And he declared that he would "cancel" the Paris climate deal, while blocking climate-related funding to the United Nations.

On OPEC, Trump said, "We will become and stay totally independent of any need to import energy from the OPEC cartel," adding, "We don’t deal with them. We’ll handle them just fine.”

He said renewable energy has a place in his agenda, "but not to the exclusion of other forms of energy." His administration will focus on "real environmental problems," like clean water.

Trump also promised to lift moratoriums on energy development on public lands and "remove obstacles" to oil and gas development. He added that he'd use "revenues from energy production" to fund infrastructure improvements.

It would be difficult for a Trump administration to quickly overturn environmental regulations that have already been finalized, and challenging OPEC could result in retaliatory price increases.