Trump made nearly 500 false or misleading claims about the environment while in office.

The United States has the cleanest air. The Green New Deal will cost a 15-figure fortune. And Paris has been suffering for the climate agreement that bears its name.

Those are just some of the many dubious - or just plain wrong - statements Donald Trump has made during his first three years as president.

On his third anniversary in office this week, Trump has racked up more than 16,200 false or misleading claims, according to a running tally kept by The Washington Post's Fact Checker team.

Of those statements, ranging from half-truths to outright whoppers, 492 concerned energy and environmental issues.

"We started this project as part of our coverage of the president's first 100 days, largely because we could not possibly keep up with the pace and volume of the president's misstatements," The Post's Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly wrote this week. "We recorded 492 claims - an average of just under five a day - and readers demanded that we keep it going for the rest of Trump's presidency."

Here are the false or misleading statements on the environment that Trump has repeated most often, according to The Post's count:

Trump's claim: His administration has ushered in the boom of oil and natural gas production in the United States.

Number of times repeated: At least 60.

A recent example: "We ended the war on American energy," Trump said at a campaign rally in Milwaukee on Jan. 14. "The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere on Earth."

What's really going on: The United States is indeed pumping a lot more oil and natural gas than it used to, but Trump shouldn't be taking the credit. The decade-long boom in domestic oil and gas production is mainly the result of new drilling techniques - most notably, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The rate of U.S. oil production has increased rapidly since 2010, and the country has actually led the world in natural gas production since 2009. That's 10 years before Trump took office.

Trump's claim: The Paris climate agreement would have cost the U.S. trillions of dollars.

Number of times repeated: At least 31.

A recent example: "We withdrew from the one-sided, horrible, horrible, economically unfair, 'close your businesses down within three years,' 'don't frack, don't drill, we don't want any energy' - the horrible Paris Climate Accord that killed American jobs and shielded foreign polluters," Trump said during remarks at the Economic Club of New York in November. "You're talking about trillions and trillions of dollars of destruction would have been done to our country with the Paris Climate Accord."

What's really going on: Under the 2015 Paris accord, each country set its own goals for cutting climate-warming emissions. So if Trump wanted to alter the commitments offered by his predecessor, Barack Obama, he could have done so while staying in the agreement. The Paris agreement also doesn't have any requirements about how nations reduce emissions - meaning there is no rule against fracking or other forms of oil and gas extraction, as Trump suggested.

Trump's claim: The United States became an energy-exporting powerhouse under his watch.

A recent example: "We're the largest energy producer now in the world, and we're an exporter of energy for the first in our history, really," Trump said at a public White House meeting in December.

Number of times repeated: At least 31.

What's really going on: The United States has been the world's leading energy producer . . . since at least 2014. And the country has also exported some of the fuel it has produced . . . since around the time of the Civil War. What the United States is not - at least, not yet - is a net energy export, meaning that it sells more energy to other countries than it buys abroad. But that's a threshold the country could cross before Trump leaves office, according to estimates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Trump's claim: The United States has the cleanest air and water in the world.

A recent example: "Who's got the world's cleanest and safest air and water? AMERICA!" the president tweeted in September.

Number of times repeated: At least 24.

What's really going on: According to one independent arbiter, this claim isn't just misleading, it's downright wrong. The United States ranks 10th for air quality and 29th for water and sanitation, according to the Environmental Performance Index. But let's give credit where credit is due: The index, which is a project by Yale and Columbia universities, gave the United States the top rank for drinking-water quality.

Trump's claim: The Green New Deal would cost $100 trillion and prevent people from flying.

Number of times repeated: At least 22.

A recent example: "Now, under the Green New Deal that all goes away, that all goes away," Trump said during a rally in New Mexico in September. "No more cows, no more airplanes, no more trips. A single car, make it electric, single car, you're not allowed to travel more than 162 miles. They'll call us the hermit nation, we'll never leave our house. Now it's crazy, but that's OK."

What's really going on: The Green New Deal, introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., last year, is a nonbinding resolution that would not have force of law if passed. Rather, it is a call for a major restructuring of the economy to drastically cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and expand access to health care and high-quality jobs. Not included is any demand for a ban on flying or eating beef. Neither does it come with a cost estimate. A conservative think tank, American Action Forum, estimated it would cost $93 trillion, but that figure includes programs that are not in the resolution.

 

*Title Photo : Photo: Alex Brandon, AP /

On his third anniversary in office this week, President Donald Trump has racked up more than 16,200 false or misleading claims, according to a running tally kept by The Washington Post's Fact Checker team.

 

 

 

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