“Many states and businesses are backing off ambitious climate targets, and Democrats are less vocal nowadays about climate change. Tech companies are using more natural gas to meet exploding demand for data centers. The International Energy Agency, after some browbeating by Mr. Wright, is revising up its projections for how long fossil fuels will stick around.” – New York Times (below)
Brad Plumer, a “a Times reporter who covers technology and policy efforts to address global warming,” recently explained (September 23, 2026) the “energy dominance” position of the Trump Administration. “The Former Fracking Executive Selling Trump’s ‘Energy Dominance’ Vision” began with the subtitle: “Energy Secretary Chris Wright is pitching a future of fossil fuel abundance. It’s not always an easy sell while war drags on and oil prices surge.
A fair article like this would have incensed the late Joe “head exploding” Romm. But the bully is gone, so others of less stature are left to fuss (see the reader comment below).
The Article
Quotations from the Plumer article follow:
“… Energy Secretary Chris Wright brought a sunny message to Houston last week at a gathering of energy ministers from the G20 nations. The Trump administration, he said, was ushering in an era of energy abundance by expanding oil and gas supplies in places like Alaska and Venezuela.”
“Mr. Wright acknowledged some tension, though he insisted it was temporary. ‘Everyone’s frustrated with higher energy prices,” he said of the mood at the meeting. “But I’ve not met one person who’s comfortable with a nuclear-armed Iran. So everyone gets what we’re doing and this is a critically important mission. It creates dislocations in the short term. But the only answer to short-term dislocations is the energy abundance agenda.’”
“Whereas Mr. Trump speaks bluntly about energy — chanting ‘drill, baby, drill,’ calling wind turbines ugly, or claiming that global warming is a hoax — Mr. Wright gives his arguments an intellectual gloss. He cites figures on how solar panels underperform during winter storms. Or he argues that global warming is not as big a problem as energy poverty, which he says can only be alleviated with more oil, gas and coal, even if that means more planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.”
“Administration allies say that has made Mr. Wright invaluable. ‘He has been one of the most consequential picks for energy secretary I’ve seen,’ said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a research group that promotes fossil fuels. ‘He’s very experienced, brings a lot of substance, and he articulates President Trump’s vision clearly.’”
“… since taking office, [Wright] he has been more combative, deriding wind and solar power as a ‘parasite’ on the grid, blasting Democratic-led states for environmental policies that have shut down coal and gas plants, and accusing Europe of being in thrall to a ‘climate cult’ that is crippling economic growth.”
“… Ben Dietderich, an Energy Department spokesman, said in a statement: ‘Secretary Wright doesn’t have preferred energy sources. He just believes in being honest about math and energy security. Unfortunately, many in the climate lobby don’t like that. The Department is proud to have ended energy subtraction policies that lead to higher prices, less energy security and human impoverishment.’”
“[Wright] argued that people in developing countries still lacked enough energy to enjoy a decent standard of living and that renewables couldn’t replace oil, gas and coal to provide that power.”
“’At the height of this era when everyone was saying energy policy should just be about climate, Chris Wright was one of the few C.E.O.s that ran oil and gas firms who clearly and vocally spoke out,’ said Arjun Murti, a partner at the energy research firm Veriten.
Mr. Wright also had a flair for the dramatic. He once drank fracking fluid on video to show it was safe. In 2021, he rented billboards around Denver to heckle The North Face after the company declined to work with an oil firm.
“Mr. Wright quickly transformed the department. Out were programs to develop novel technologies to fight climate change, like green hydrogen or low-emissions steel. Instead, federal funds went to help utilities finance gas plants, nuclear reactors and transmission lines or upgrade older coal plants, which officials say are essential for meeting rising electricity demand. Mr. Wright also lifted a Biden-era pause on expanding exports of liquefied natural gas, now the nation’s fastest-growing export, and has pressured Europe to ease rules on methane, a potent greenhouse gas, saying they could hurt U.S. exports.”
“’He brought a whole new attitude to the agency,” said Scott Segal, an energy lobbyist at Bracewell. ‘It’s all about how do we produce enough energy to support A.I. and economic growth.’”
“Mr. Wright, who often criticizes wind and solar for not running at all hours, has cut renewable energy programs and renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as the National Laboratory of the Rockies. While experts agree that the variability of wind and solar poses real challenges, many say it goes too far to call the sources ‘worthless.’ Texas gets roughly one-third of its power from renewables and has kept costs low.”
“Mr. Wright’s supporters say he has helped steer the country away from what they saw as the Biden administration’s unrealistic plans to rapidly phase out fossil fuels. Some say the debate is shifting in his direction. Many states and businesses are backing off ambitious climate targets, and Democrats are less vocal nowadays about climate change. Tech companies are using more natural gas to meet exploding demand for data centers. The International Energy Agency, after some browbeating by Mr. Wright, is revising up its projections for how long fossil fuels will stick around.”
“’There’s been a real shift in how investors and others now talk about energy,’ said Travis Fisher, a director of energy and environmental studies at the libertarian Cato Institute who worked with Mr. Wright to organize the agency’s climate report. ‘Climate has become a lot less salient.’”
“Mr. Wright, for his part, says fossil fuels are too useful to recede anytime soon. ‘We will never, ever come remotely close to running out of hydrocarbons, which means you need better technology and innovations to eventually eat into their market share,’ Mr. Wright said at a Cato event in May. He said he was excited about recent breakthroughs in areas like fusion. But, he added, “the biggest innovations the rest of my lifetime in energy are almost certainly going to be in oil, gas, and coal, because they are what matter.’”
Romm-like Complaint
A comment from ‘bl in Rochester’ was featured in the Times comment section. “It’s appalling to give wright an unchallenged forum to spew out his denialist propaganda,” he began. “Covering [Chris Wright’s] speech as here, or his ‘interview’ at the climate forum, does just that.” Continuing:
He’s conducting a full out war on renewable energy sources and technology using false reasoning, no rigorous scientific argumentation, and manipulative, cherry picking economic analyses that only “answer” the irrelevant questions he chooses to ask to justify his policy choices. This is socially destructive, and will be suicidal if not stopped in the near term.
He offers no coherent reply to the increasing climate instability. He carelessly dismisses the data, and provides vapid bromides to the evident dangers with fantastical assertions while ignoring the very real costs that will be incurred. Still he remains unchallenged in public.
He chooses the present with no concern for the future. That is not leadership. It is profit protection for one energy industry.
This is doubly damaging because all sorts of roadblocks have been imposed to block renewables. He therefore condemns generations to suffer horribly from such unhinged policy insanity.
The fact that no immediate follow up rebuttal by a climatologist is allowed makes this demagoguery even more vile and sickening. Indeed his “interview” with this paper was with a journalist not a scientist, and produced a predictable, unchallenged stream of idiocy without addressing at all the reality of climate change incurred damage,
And so the debate continues….