trump LIE #4287: His predecessors put Energy under lock & key.

trump on his predecessors: "They put American energy under lock and key." — speech on Monday.

THE FACTS: On the contrary, energy production was unleashed during Obama's presidency, largely because of advances in hydraulic fracturing that made it economical to tap vast reserves of natural gas. Oil production also greatly increased, reducing imports. Before the presidential election last year, the U.S. for the first time in decades was getting more energy domestically than it imports. The government estimated this year that the U.S. could switch from being a net importer of energy to being a net exporter as early as 2019, depending on what happens to oil prices, energy resources and economic growth.

Trump, a Republican, has rolled back some obstacles (including regulations protecting them from Black Lung Disease), for the coal industry, which indeed complained of overregulation by Obama, a Democrat. But coal's decline in recent years was driven mainly by competition from cheap natural gas.

Despite his rhetoric about U.S. energy production, one of trump's most consequential actions as president has been to open the U.S. to another source of foreign oil, with his approval of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada.

Obama's two-term predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, was no adversary of the energy industry. Neither president put energy "under lock and key.”