Trump Says Talarico Will End Oil Drilling. Here’s What His Bill Actually Did

President Donald Trump claimed early Friday that Democratic Texas Senate nominee James Talarico would end oil drilling in Texas.

Talarico’s 2021 Texas Climate Action Act would have required state regulators to cap Texas’ greenhouse gas emissions at least 90 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, according to the text of House Bill 2206. While the bill did not mention drilling it did propose stringent emissions regulations in the name of combatting climate change.

The Texas Legislature’s website shows no reported action on the legislation since it went to a House committee in March 2021.

The bill would have required a 2030 limit at least 50 percent below the 1990 level and allowed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to adopt a system of “market-based declining annual aggregate emission limits” for sources of greenhouse gases, according to its text.

Texas emitted 570.1 million metric tons in 1990 and 663 million in 2022. The bill’s 2050 limit of 90 percent below 1990 works out to 57 million tons, about 91 percent below 2022.

Applied to the state’s energy-related carbon dioxide emissions alone, that limit would mean cutting them by about 91 percent from 2022 levels, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. The bill also directed state regulators to work with the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry, on parts of the plan covering petroleum refining and statewide fuel supplies, according to its text.

Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that Talarico “recently stated, with a large mask covering his face as he spoke, that, ‘FOSSIL FUELS ARE DESTROYING THE PLANET.'”

“In other words, no more drilling for Oil in Texas. That should be the end of his campaign!!!” the president added.

Talarico made the remark at a February 2022 forum on Winter Storm Uri, according to video of the event.