Nick Pope
Contributor
HOUSTON — Energy Secretary Chris Wright sharply criticized the Biden administration’s restrictive energy policies during a keynote speech to energy industry leaders Monday, explaining how the Trump administration’s approach is oriented around unlocking human flourishing.
Wright made the speech to kick off the 2025 CERAWeek conference, one of the premier annual summits for the energy industry. He characterized the Biden administration’s maniacal focus on climate change as counterproductive and impoverishing for ordinary people, pledging to take a radically different approach than his predecessor by unleashing U.S. energy and private sector innovations to make life better and more affordable for Americans, announcing that he is approving a liquefied natural gas (LNG) permit during the speech to prove his point. (RELATED: Biden Admin Spells Out All The Ways It Wants To ‘Decarbonize’ American Buildings In Latest Climate Plan)
“The previous administration’s ‘climate’ policies have been impoverishing to our citizens, economically destructive to our businesses, and politically polarizing. The ‘cure’ was far more destructive than the disease,” Wright said. “There are no winners in that world, except for politicians and rapidly growing interest groups. The only interest group that we are concerned with is the American people. Our focus will be steadfast on the American people and our allies abroad.”
Wright explained how much of the world’s population lives in poverty in large part because they do not have access to the cheap, efficient energy that powers modern life and its conveniences that only a fraction of humanity enjoys at present. The new energy secretary — who has worked with nuclear, oil, gas, solar and geothermal energy over the course of his private sector career — argued that the U.S. can and should play a leading role in proliferating prosperity with energy instead of regulating the sector too aggressively in the name of climate change.
“Recently I have been called a climate denier or climate skeptic. This is simply wrong. I am a climate realist. I have been studying and writing about climate change for over twenty years. The Trump administration will treat climate change for what it is: a global physical phenomenon that is a side-effect of building the modern world,” Wright said. “We have indeed raised atmospheric CO2 concentration by 50% in the process of more than doubling human life expectancy, lifting most of the world’s citizens out of grinding poverty, launching modern medicine, telecommunications, planes, trains and automobiles too. Everything in life involves trade offs. Everything.”
“The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens. Running the math on what might have been the benefits from these policies yields perhaps only a few hundredths of a degree reduction in global temperatures in the year 2100,” Wright continued. “The Trump administration intends to be much more scientific and mathematically literate.”
While former President Joe Biden said that climate change poses a threat to humanity that exceeds that presented by nuclear war, Wright’s remarks make clear that the Trump administration will not be treating climate change as an existential threat that takes precedence over other priorities.
The vision Wright laid out in his speech represents a stark departure from the positions of the Biden administration on nearly all fronts, including on the issue of approvals for LNG export projects. The Biden administration unilaterally froze approvals in January 2024, keeping the pause in place for most of the year, in what critics characterized as an election year move to shore up support from the well-funded climate lobby.
To drive home his point that American energy is open for business with the Trump administration leading in Washington, Wright announced that he will be approving a LNG permit extension for the Delfin LNG project, a major development proposed for construction off the Louisiana coast and a victim of the Biden administration’s January 2024 freeze on approvals.
“I am honored to play a role in reversing what I believe has been a very poor direction in energy policy. The previous administration’s energy policy was focused myopically on climate change, with people as simply collateral damage. My predecessor was on this stage one year ago saying that LNG exports would soon be in the rear view mirror. Think about that for a moment,” Wright said during his speech. “Natural gas today supplies 25% of global primary energy and has been the fastest growing source of energy over the last 15 years. Wind and solar, the darlings of the last administration and so much of the world today, supply roughly 3% of global primary energy … Everywhere wind and solar penetration have increased significantly, prices on the grid went up and stability of the grid went down.”
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“The Biden administration unilaterally froze approvals in January 2024, keeping the pause in place for most of the year, in what critics characterized as an election year move to shore up support from the well-funded climate lobby.”
Unlikely. For the climate it doesn’t matter where the gas is burned. Much more likely it was an election year move to shield US gas users from having to pay close to world prices.
The reason gas prices were high was because there was a limited supply.
So what happens if you open up to a whole lot of new buyers currently paying higher prices?
The extra supply of natural gas would have reduced world prices. The US price for gas would have been world prices minus the shipping costs, which include liquefaction.
The whole aim is to increase USA supply, which would increase world supply.
Prices drop. !
There is also the point that once this anti-CO2 idiocy collapses…
… other countries will be able to access the gas they have available.
The whole world will prosper. !
This is the very last thing that leftists want to happen.
Take some courses in economics. Econ 101 addresses supply and demand.
Nick making shit up again
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/biden-pauses-approval-new-lng-export-projects-win-climate-activists-2024-01-26/
reuters probably too right for lefty Nick lets try his own believers at carbon brief
https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-does-bidens-lng-pause-mean-for-global-emissions/
Oh they agree it was an election year stunt to appease climate activists based on his COP26 and COP27 pledge
Nick never lets fact get in the way of his opinion.
“For the climate it doesn’t matter where the gas is burned.”
That is a complete nonsense statement
Burning gas makes absolutely ZERO difference to the climate
But burning gas is absolutely imperative to maintain modern civilisations.
I am constantly amazed by your pearls of wisdom, Nick.
I’m not sure what your first pearl claims was ‘unlikely’. That Biden froze approvals? That critics made claims? That the move shored up support from the climate lobbyists?
I’m not sure what relevance your second pearl of wisdom has to anything quoted. Perhaps it refers to the pointlessness of freezing US drilling approvals while the US still needs to burn gas?
And I’m totally flummoxed by your third pearl. Freezing approvals would be a move to shield US gas users from world prices?
It’s a Nick fact if you restrict gas supply it apparently makes it cheaper. It’s like cheap renewables you just declare ot contrary to all actual data that says opposite.
Mind you if the oversight committee is right it was just an auto-sign signature on something old Joe didn’t even understand that one of his advisors did.
There were things that Joe understood? Who knew, eh?
“US drilling approvals”
The “approvals” here were for the expansion of export facilities. Gas exported is gas unavailable to US customers. Gas will go to the highest bidder.
So USA has to make sure the supply increases.. Basic economics.
So will generated electricity, bread or milk. Or anything, really. An exception might be “climate research” which nobody is willing to pay for with their own money, being completely useless.
>>>>>
The pause “sees the climate crisis for what it is: the existential threat of our time,” said Biden
<<<<<
Joe was saving us but according to Nick he must have been lying or perhaps he was in mental decline.
And apparently keeping down gas prices in the process.
It appears in Nick’s world the concept of supply and demand is completely reversed. If you limit supply, demand decreases and prices stay down. If you increase supply, demand goes up and prices go up.
In the real world where exploration and supply are not limited *by Government interference or what ever), when demand (and prices) start to rise, exploration and production rise to meet demand and keep prices down.
We have lots of gas available. Increasing export capability will just allow producers to open the taps a bit more and make more money. Other producers around the world might need to drop their prices to hang on to market share. Prices go down, profits remain strong – everyone wins. What’s not to like?
You are missing the point, as is quite a bit of the speech. Take this as a for instance:
The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change’
The Biden administration, like the UK Labour Party and the Conservatives before them, did not have any policies on climate change. What all of them have or had is energy policies which they market by invoking climate, but which have no effect on it.
The wind and solar lobbies do promote their products and services, and try to get gas and coal banned, by talking about climate. But actually their policies have nothing to do with climate. Properly considered they are just energy policies.
In the same way the gas power required to make it possible to connect wind and solar to the grid is referred to as ‘backup’. It isn’t backup at all, its a supplement to an already adequate conventionally supplied grid.
The reason that the policies have no effect on climate is that, right or wrong about CO2 and global warming, none of these policies have any effect on global CO2 emissions. Because the biggest and fastest growing emitters are not buying it and are growing their emissions just as fast as economic growth requires. And have no intention of stopping this.
I said Biden et al had no policies on climate. Not quite fair, they did. It was to get tens of thousands of delegates from all over the world to fly to obscure expensive locations where they could collectively refuse to reduce their emissions despite being implored to do so by the US, UK, Australia and Canada.
The Biden policies were the impossible in pursuit of the useless. But that did not stop the climate lobbies from pushing them.
Tough luck Nick. Your cult beliefs have been sacrificed on the altar of reality.
You can shut up shop now. Bye.
Once Biden and Johnson were alone in the Oval Office, the speaker asked the president about his pause on LNG exports.
“I cannot answer this from my constituents in Louisiana,” Johnson recalled telling Biden. “Sir, why did you pause LNG exports to Europe? Liquefied natural gas is in great demand by our allies. Why would you do that? Cause you understand we just talked about Ukraine, you understand you are fueling Vladimir Putin’s war machine, because they gotta get their gas from him.”
Johnson recounted how a stunned Biden replied: “I didn’t do that.”
This is incredibly important. If the allegation about these EO being signed by auto signature rather Biden actually doing it knowingly are proven true then a whole raft of things become illegitimate.
We may not have actually had a president after all.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/who-is-behind-this-autopen-six-criminals-were/
pardons auto penned in Washington while Biden was away on vacation ….
Here in western Europe natural gas prices are (mostly ?) set in the “Dutch TTF” spot market.
On the other side of “The Pond” they are (mostly ???) set by the “Henry Hub” spot market.
.
[ Very non-scientific ] Conjecture : If your purely hypothetical “world price” for natural gas were a reality, then the ratio between those two spot markets for “global” natural gas would be a constant.
Observation : Attached is a graph of the prices in those two spot markets since 1/7/2021, along with their (daily) ratio.
Conclusion : Hmmmmmm … how about letting you work it out …
.
PS : Between 2 and 2.5 years ago there were a lot of media headlines along the lines of “Electricity from gas is nine times the cost of electricity from renewables [ / wind and solar ] ! ! !”.
It’s absolutely amazing how environmental activists have stopped trying to advance that particular narrative (since mid-2023).
Dang, Nick. 48 comments (49 now) and 51 down votes. Maybe you should possibly rethink the logic (or lack of…) of your statement.
It’s like this Nick with the Trump administration going after Biden administration policy-
Energy Secretary Chris Wright sharply criticized the Biden administration’s restrictive energy policies during a keynote speech to energy industry leaders Monday
Now for some typical leftist epiphany-
Left-wing media turns on Biden: ‘Cowardly’ activists slammed for their sudden shift
There’s no rats like leftist rats Nick because for them it’s all about power and not outcomes.
Right. And concurrently was EO mandating no natural gas heating or cooking.
For societies to enjoy widespread prosperity, they need to harness abundance of resources, not create scarcity.
The WEF mantra “you will own nothing but you will be happy” is the kind of arrant nonsense that only “progressive” losers would buy.
Unfortunately, the western world has an over-supply of “progressive” losers.
“For years, we operated under the belief that we could continue consuming our planet’s natural resources, without consequence. We were wrong.”
I am a conservationist and a climate pragmatic. As an engineer/scientist I also am a skeptic.
I do not believe any of the popcorn thrown in “Day After Tomorrow.”
However, there is wisdom in the final comment in that speach.
Every action, every decision has consequences. Paying attention to potential consequences is significant in conservationism.
We must be wise in our decision. This man-made climate catastrophe has no wisdom.
Wright gets it mostly right. An A-. His comment that climate change “is a side-effect of building the modern world…” reveals a belief that man controls the climate, which is true in locals with UHI or other land use changes. But which is not true where industrial GHG are considered a significant control knob. His misconception must be addressed.
There is a subtle difference between “inconsequential” and “none”. I can make a decent case GHGs have an inconsequential effect on climate and human welfare. Proving a negative is an exercise for grad students drinking Irish Coffee, drinking and staying awake in an endless fruitless discussion.
I’ll go with evidence of an effect. Over the entirety of the Earth’s climate history, NOT just the parts the Eco-Nazis like.
They have none. On the other hand, ample evidence of CO2 being a complete non-factor exists, like the full-blown GLACIATION with TEN TIMES today’s levels, and repeated episodes of REVERSE CORRELATION in the ice core reconstructions.
Yep, a couple of AGW mantra based errors he needs to address.
1… Building a modern world only effect temperatures in Urbanised areas
2… Humans are only responsible for a small amount of the highly beneficial increase in atmospheric CO2. The natural carbon cycle has grown considerably as the planet has warmed naturally, dwarfing human emissions.
I think in essence that was just a throw-away line. I think it’s much more important to focus on the overall policy shift and not get down in the weeds and distracted by a single statement in a speech.
Understood, but it isn’t helpful to keep conceding bullshit as if it were fact.
Leaving their pet hypothesis hanging out there to fester is like killing off an entire ant colony but leaving the queen alive. That bitch will just keep laying eggs.
This is exactly right. Conceding that C02 plays any significant factor gives the cultists too much ‘air,’ you could say. There are many seemingly reasonable folks who like to insist that between polarized opinions the answer is always in the middle, but we know this is often not the case. I recall an analysis by Judith Curry, who was still working in the C02 effects in a warming study … but in conclusion conceded that with so many variables, such as ocean currents, Milankovitch, solar cycles, Hunga Tonga, etc … that nailing it down was impossible because of “noise.” Our largely beneficial rebound from the Little Ice Age should not be considered a downside of progress, especially since those who say such things are mainly pushing a Trojan horse of “global equity.”
From the article: ““We have indeed raised atmospheric CO2 concentration by 50% in the process of more than doubling human life expectancy, lifting most of the world’s citizens out of grinding poverty, launching modern medicine, telecommunications, planes, trains and automobiles too. Everything in life involves trade offs. Everything.”
We have indeed raised CO2 levels in the Earth’s atmosphere, but it is no warmer today than it has been in the past, when there was much less CO2 in the air, so CO2 has had little effect on our temperatures today, so there is no tradeoff to be made here. Ignoring CO2 would be the best course of action. Pretend it doesn’t exist, and carry on.
The warming is moot you have billions more people on the planet and it’s going to have an effect and not all of it good. The only solution the lefty greens offer is having billions less people.
Yes but amazing that those who call for reductions in human population are never looking in the mirror when they do it.
[My whoops. Deleted…]
From the article: ““The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens. Running the math on what might have been the benefits from these policies yields perhaps only a few hundredths of a degree reduction in global temperatures in the year 2100,” Wright continued. “The Trump administration intends to be much more scientific and mathematically literate.”
So the Trump administration thinks any CO2 warming of the atmosphere will be minuscule.
Good! I think that’s what the Science says, too.
The same thing applies to the UK and Germany: Any reductions of CO2 by them in the future will have a minuscule effect on the Earth’s temperatures. They should give up the windmills and solar and stop bankrupting themselves trying to reduce CO2. All their efforts will not make one bit of difference to the temperatures, or the Earth’s climate. They are just spinning their wheels.
Go have a long talk with the Trump administration.
“Any reductions of CO2 by them in the future will have a minuscule effect on the Earth’s temperatures.”
All they will end up doing is sending manufacturing to developing countries, almost certainly increasing global CO2 emissions (which have no measurable temperature effect anyway,)..
.. also increasing “real” pollution as a consequence.
The quoted part contains the biggest flaw in the whole speech.
BENEFITS?! WHAT “BENEFITS?!”
A warmer climate IS BETTER, not worse. Still conceding THE BIG LIE. Therein lies the problem. Time to drive a stake through the heart of that nonsense, once and for all!!
First time I have ever seen a senior politician type actually state the reality. It is blatantly obvious left/green emission control is never going to work come up with a better plan if you really believe your doom and gloom.
Not only will it never “work” the “goal” is a fool’s errand. Why would any rational person fight AGAINST an IMPROVEMENT to the climate?!
WARMER is BETTER!
A very straightforward critique of Biden’s energy and climate change policy. Noting the program would at best reduce temperatures a few hundredth of a degree in 2100 if carried out, it is obviously not worth the expense.
And rejecting the misanthropic basis of the Green Blob’s program is important as well. Growth in general helps people in general.
Not to mention that “reducing temperatures” by any amount is an idiotic aim to begin with.
Stop accepting THE BIG LIE. WARMER is BETTER.
Goebbels is laughing at “the west” from hell.
Someone needs to push wright and Trump to convene a public debate on the science and the data.
All bad policy flows from “climate emergency”, this has to definitely shown to be nonsense otherwise we risk relapse in the future with a change of government.
Trump missed this boat last time, he must get this done and take the wind out of the remaining net zero crazies.
Get on with it.
Trump had a big learning curve and a lot on his plate the last time.
Since that time, Trump has had four years to focus on what is important, and I think the things we want done will be done this time around with regard to CO2 and Human-caused Climate Change.
If we can get past a knuckleheaded Republican politician or two.
Republican Rep. “My Way, or the Highway” Massie, says he is voting against the Trump agenda. If he does, then Elon Musk and me are going to be making campaign contributions to his Republican opponent at the next Republican Primary Election in 2026.
Trump is going to end up balancing the U.S. budget, but Massie can’t see it. Massie must think that it is realistic to expect every Republican to vote his way. I think he is just hard-headed and thinks making a Stand makes him look good. We’ll see how good he looks in 2026. Murkowski, too.
I agree. Maybe they will have that debate if and when they get around to reversing the CO2 endangerment finding.
If only the UK had a Chris Wright. Instead we have the fanatical Marxist, Ed Miliband (aka Red Ed, Ed Microbrain, etc etc).
The guy with two kitchens? Right?
Probably both with gas stoves…
Actually I’m not too sure that we have been affecting the climate. Everyone agrees that the most countable metric TROPICAL CYCLONES have not changed in a century. So if your ‘climate change ‘involves more extreme flood, wildfire, drought events- all fluffier stats – how come cyclones are unchanged? Sorry, didn’t hear your reply?
There are not any more extreme floods, wildfires or droughts, either. The Earth’s weather gives no indication that things are getting worse with regard to the weather. There has always been extreme weather, but it is no more extreme today than in the past, and in some instances, it is less extreme now than in the past.
There is NO indication that CO2 is having any influence on Earth’s weather. It’s not there.
This is an amazing time to be alive. I never thought I would see this kind of messaging coming out of our government.
In no small part, thanks to you and John.
I don’t know if you will see this or can answer, but I was just curious if you ever have any contacts or dealing with the people at LaRC (Langley Research Center) in Virginia?
Yes, we were headed down a very destructive road and then the whole scene changed with Trump’s election.
We, all of us, the whole world, got so lucky with Trump’s election. We now have a chance to get the world back on the common-sense track, and all of us will benefit if Trump gets his way.
I heard a good description of the extreme Democrats and and their depraved behavior since Trump got elected, from Mark Levine, the other day. He said: The Extreme Democrats are Power-Hungry and are Furious that their political power has been diminished.
I think that is exactly right. They are furious at not being in charge anymore and they are acting out like spoiled children who think they have been deprived of something they deserve. And here they are, opposing everything Trump tries to do to get the United States back on track. They are harmful to the future of the United States. We are lucky to be rid of them for a few years. If we are really lucky, we will be rid of their kind of demented thinking forever. There will always be crazy people in society, we just don’t want them in a majority and directing our lives. We’ve seen what that was like. Joe Biden and his radical cronies showed us just how bad a radical, extreme Democrat administration can be. Radical Democrats hold the U.S. back. All of them. They are control freaks. We don’t want control freaks in charge. And now, they are not in charge. Oh, Happy Days!!!
It truly is an amazing time. I never thought I would live to see it. And many thanks also to you and your colleagues who have fought for the truth. I like to think that, however long it takes, the truth always wins in the end.
As it happens, I’m also Chris Wright. People should pay attention to Chris Wright, because he is always Wright!
Chris
One thing’s for sure they’re fixing any housing affordability problem in Washington-
Linda McMahon’s two-word description of fired government workers
They’ll certainly be required in the classrooms at the blackboards by all accounts whipping those educational outcomes into shape.
There was a time, some decades ago, when I thought nobody but the usual fringe wack jobs could believe the climate fantasy that people like Hansen and Al Gore were cooking up. If it were true, they wouldn’t need to wildly distort the climate record and current reports. Now it’s a surprise, and a massive relief, to hear government agency heads like Wright and Zeldin slap down this nonsense that was hollowing out our society.
No video link to the speech?
Zeldin Cancels ‘400 DEI and Environmental Justice Grants,’ Saves Nearly $2 Billion
They’re apparently looking for a wee bit of DOGE over Dundee way-
University cuts 632 jobs to plug £35million black hole
The worry is they actually teach a lot of accounting and business economics courses-
Undergraduate courses | University of Dundee, UK
Perhaps cut back on the Honours streams?
The whole point of energy is largely to keep us warm and healthy domestically, and in meaningful work economically. Without energy we would not have made the strides we have and many would still be dying at very early ages in poverty and from the cold. We still have plenty time to find much better solutions to the ongoing energy conundrum via new discovery and we should be much more upbeat and encouraging about our prospects rather than getting hung up or overwrought.
Politicians just love worriers and their easy votes.. .
A further reminder of how renewables continue to struggle to become relevant in providing widespread global energy supplies are these figures from J.P. Morgan. It claims that despite over $3 trillion spent worldwide on wind, solar, EVs, energy storage, electric heat and power grids during the past decade, renewables are growing by only 0.3%-0.6%annually. That glacial pace is further supported by the Statistical Review of World Energy which shows that energy consumption from carbon-free sources has increased from 14% in 2012 to 18% in 2024. At that rate of increase the world wouldn’t be carbon free in energy generation until past 2200. So unless there’s some monumental power-generation breakthrough, it appears we’ll be depending mainly on fossil fuels for another 175-plus years
Very nice. Wind and solar are not and can not be a substitute for fossil fuel and nuclear. Get over it.
There’s nine trillion reasons that make it a bit hard to get over it-
Net-zero is a ‘useless money pit’: Andrew Bolt