Trump’s Energy Secretary Comes Out Swinging with Plan That Takes Sledgehammer to Several Biden-Era Policies 

From THE DAILY CALLER

Daily Caller News Foundation

Ireland Owens
Contributor

Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright unveiled his first secretarial order on Wednesday in a move to overturn many of former President Joe Biden’s green energy policies and restore “energy dominance” in America.

Wright’s order aims to reduce energy costs in the U.S. and expand domestic energy production, according to a press release. The order outlines several of the DOE’s plans to improve the U.S. energy sector by tackling issues caused by several Biden-era energy regulations.

The DOE’s order also outlines a plan to begin a comprehensive review of the agency’s Appliance Standards Program to make home appliances and products more affordable for Americans and promote consumer choice for appliances. The Biden-Harris administration led a push toward regulating the use of certain gas appliances, including introducing several stringent efficiency rules for gas stoves and some water heaters.

The DOE also plans to “strengthen” the U.S. power grid’s “reliability and security,” according to the press release. Notably, the Biden-Harris administration introduced stringent emissions standards for U.S. power plants in April 2024, leading to some power grid operators warning that the administration’s standards were pushing the grid toward conditions that could lead to blackouts.

Wright wrote further that the DOE plans to work to “unleash” America’s nuclear energy. Notably, the sole nuclear reactor to come online in the U.S. in the past several years is Georgia’s Vogtle plant, which connected its fourth unit to the power grid in March 2024 after facing significant delays and financial hurdles.

The agency plans to refill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The Biden-Harris administration released about 180 million barrels from the SPR ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, causing the reserve to near its lowest levels in roughly 40 years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The press release also references Biden’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) pause — which Trump ended on Jan. 21 — writing that the action was restoring the agency to “regular order,” after the Biden-Harris administration paused approvals for certain new LNG exports facilities in January 2024 to assess whether additional exports were in the public interest.

“President Trump has outlined a bold and ambitious agenda to unleash American energy at home and abroad to restore energy dominance,” according to the press release. “To compete globally, we must expand energy production and reduce energy costs for American families and businesses. America must lead the world in innovation and technology breakthroughs, which includes accelerating the work of the Department’s National Laboratories. We must also permit and build energy infrastructure and remove barriers to progress, including federal policies that make it too easy to stop projects and far too difficult to complete projects.” (RELATED: One Of America’s Priciest Green Boondoggles May Be Going Offline After Sucking Up Subsidies And Incinerating Birds)

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antigtiff
February 7, 2025 6:18 am

Joke Biden has an uncanny ability to choose the wrong way. Just do the opposite of Joke.

Rich Davis
Reply to  antigtiff
February 7, 2025 7:01 am

Dementia Joe didn’t choose anything. His teleprompter told him what 0bama needed him to say. And half the time he couldn’t even get that right.

Ron Long
Reply to  Rich Davis
February 7, 2025 9:17 am

Apparently a lot of persons are waiting for a Cognitive Decline test and finding for Joe, then a judge gets to assess how far back the condition prevented him from signing documents (and provides for criminal charges for anyone who knowingly put something in front of him to sign). My guess is July 21, 2024, when he withdrew from the presidential race. Waiting…..

Dave Fair
Reply to  antigtiff
February 7, 2025 9:48 am

Obama himself said: “Never underestimate Joe’s ability to fu*k things up.”

davemar
February 7, 2025 6:28 am

The Climate Justice Department of the EPA is gone. All the employees have been fired.

Rich Davis
Reply to  davemar
February 7, 2025 6:56 am

So much winning!

ResourceGuy
Reply to  davemar
February 7, 2025 1:15 pm

Excellent!!!

Tom Halla
February 7, 2025 6:52 am

Well, eliminating all the Green New Deal actions as a start, then deal with subsidies and other perverse incentives to switch to wind and solar. Then deal with permitting and EIR reform, which should really require changing the underlying laws to deal with over fifty years of accumulated trash rules. That is more like computers accumulating ever more recursive instructions until the system works very slowly, if at all.

Reply to  Tom Halla
February 7, 2025 9:54 am

The Green New Deal needs to be repealed by Congress. Trump’s EOs can only do so much. But a damn good start. A yuge start, in fact. There’s never been a president do so much in 18 days.

So much winning!

Intelligent Dasein
Reply to  More Soylent Green!
February 7, 2025 1:02 pm

No “Green New Deal” was ever passed by Congress in the first place. It remains a policy proposal, not a law. What are you talking about?

TheImpaler
Reply to  Intelligent Dasein
February 7, 2025 1:49 pm

The completely mis-titled “Inflation Reduction Act” was the green new fraud, er deal.

2hotel9
Reply to  Tom Halla
February 7, 2025 4:59 pm

Elon and his wonderkind are already railing this!

Dr. Bob
February 7, 2025 6:52 am

The whiling and gnashing of teeth will begin and all hell will break loose on the left complaining about the damage done to every aspect of our lives. Time to invest in Popcorn Futures and watch the show.

John Hultquist
Reply to  Dr. Bob
February 7, 2025 7:49 am

will begin  has begun bigly
Fixed it for you.

Kevin Kilty
February 7, 2025 7:23 am

In the short term we are going to have to build new thermal plants because that is what keeps the grid up when wind/solar disappear. I am sure Chris Wright understands this fully, but lots of others have to be on board as well. The endangerment finding has to be revised heavily to consider the endangerments arising from the endangerment finding.

It would be best also if we can avoid having to attach CCS to every plant in order to commission them. There are mini-tyrants in legislatures, public utility commissions, environmental regulators and activist groups that simply wish to hobble gas/coal in everyway they can, and then complain that coal/gas add too much expense to utility bills and that what we need is more cheap wind/solar. Phooey.

Scissor
Reply to  Kevin Kilty
February 7, 2025 8:38 am

Endangerments from the endangerment finding reminded me of this song.

Kevin Kilty
Reply to  Scissor
February 7, 2025 10:46 am

Indeed!

Keitho
Editor
Reply to  Kevin Kilty
February 7, 2025 11:42 pm

Hopefully Lee Zeldin will take care of this in short order.

CD in Wisconsin
February 7, 2025 7:26 am

Al Gore and Bill McKibben will be s-o-o-o-o upset. LOL

observa
February 7, 2025 7:51 am
strativarius
February 7, 2025 8:19 am

On an amusing note

Miliband forced to backtrack on net zero pledges. – The Telegraph

Reality may be about to bite

Corrigenda
Reply to  strativarius
February 7, 2025 9:33 am

Let us all hope so. Net Zero as an idea is already seen to be rubbish – and ludicrously unscientific too. Other countries are abandoning it and it is a huge waste of a country’s money – just like the Paris Agreement was.

Dave Yaussy
February 7, 2025 9:25 am

Chris Wright is going to be phenomenal

Bob
February 7, 2025 1:24 pm

Very nice.

antigtiff
Reply to  bnice2000
February 7, 2025 5:23 pm

Start the XL pipeline again even though the cost has probably doubled – open Alaska and the Gulf of America to drilling…..in general just reverse everything Joke Biden did.
….. say to Joke….read my lips kiddo…..no more CO2 is a pollutant.

Robbradleyjr
February 7, 2025 6:16 pm

No federal grants to nuclear, hydrogen, or ‘carbon management’ to be fair to all energies and their technologies. All explicit subsidies eliminated….