Rick Perry's answer to joblessness: US needs to be more like Texas (VIDEO)

GlobalPost

Rick Perry has unveiled his plan to reboot the U.S. economy and add jobs: muzzle "environmental bureaucrats," scrap regulations and ramp up domestic energy production. 

Perry, striving to re-energizing his faltering presidential campaign with his first major policy speech, told workers at the Mon Valley Works steel plant in West Mifflin, Pittsburgh on Friday that increased drilling for oil and gas, mining for coal and the tapping of offshore resources could add more than a million jobs.

"Right here in Pennsylvania, and across the state line in West Virginia and Ohio, we will tap the full potential of the Marcellus Shale and create another 250,000 jobs," Perry said Friday, the Christian Science Monitor reports. "We have the resources we need to fuel our cars, our homes, and our power plants," Perry reportedly said. "They can be found in ... Oklahoma, North Dakota, New Mexico, Alabama, Kentucky, throughout the American West, and, of course, Alaska."

The Atlantic quotes the Texas governor as saying: "The quickest way to give the economy a shot in the arm is deploy American ingenuity to tap American energy... But we can only do that if environmental bureaucrats are told to stand down."

In short, the CSM writes, "his point is that the nation's job climate wouldn't be so bleak if the rest of the nation takes a cue from his own home state." 

The New York Times' blog The Caucus said the proposal "resembled a wish list for the oil and gas industry."

While The Slatest is running a report on Perry's plan, which he calls "Energizing American Jobs and Security," under the headline "Perry's Energy Plan: Drill, Baby, Drill"

The Washington Post, meantime, writes:

His proposals on energy, which broke little new ground, reflected the Republican view that increased domestic production of natural gas and oil are necessary to revive the struggling U.S. economy and that the Obama administration is limiting drilling and exploration because it is too tied to environmental groups.

Rival Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann, meanwhile, sarcastically thanked Perry, accord to a report in the LA Times: "I want to thank Gov. Perry for endorsing my energy plan, that he's coming out with today,” she told journalists after an event at a small Christian college in Iowa.

According to Fox News, Obama’s campaign said Perry’s plan “isn’t the way to win the future, it’s straight out of the past — doubling down on finite resources with no plan to promote innovation or to transition the nation to a clean energy economy."

Polls show Perry slipping from as much as 38 percent support shortly after he entered the race in August to just 16 percent.

He plans to give a speech about job creation in South Carolina this month, according to aides.

More GlobalPost coverage of Rick Perry:

Rick Perry makes Revolutionary War gaffe (VIDEO)

Rick Perry, Mitt Romney spar at latest Republican debate

Polls show Herman Cain surging past Rick Perry

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