In his first week in office, Chris Wright put forth a plan to meet the projected rise in energy demand through fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
The first secretarial order issued by Chris Wright, secretary of energy, is a nine-point action plan to solve what President Donald Trump has deemed a national energy emergency brought on by the Green New Deal.
Wright ordered a reversal of the pursuit of a “net-zero carbon future,” which was a key objective of the previous administration’s energy department.
Wright stated that net zero policies have done little to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, raised the cost of energy, jeopardized reliability, and harmed energy and national security.
Challenges confronting the new administration include the high price of gasoline, projected rising demand for electricity, insufficient generation capability, a deteriorating and antiquated transmission grid, and a depleted strategic petroleum reserve.
Trump has repeatedly declared that abundant, dependable, affordable, and clean energy is the United States’ biggest asset and the answer to many of the nation’s problems and needs.
The increased production and export of those energy assets is a main pillar of Trump’s economic plan.
Wright, a 60-year-old engineer and businessman with a background in mineral rights and royalties, fracking, and nuclear technology, wasted no time in directing his department’s 16,000 employees and 100,000 contract workers to get busy implementing the president’s vision for a new “Golden Age” based on U.S. energy dominance.
“Energy is the essential ingredient that enables everything we do,” Wright wrote in the preamble to the secretarial order issued on Feb. 5, two days after he was confirmed by the Senate.
“A highly energized society can bring health, wealth, and opportunity for all.”
Opponents Push Back
The Sierra Club, a national environmental advocacy group, was critical of the new agenda. Executive Director Ben Jealous wrote that the president’s actions “lay bare his determination to undermine the health and wealth of working families by polluting our air and water while ceding ground to China as he attempts to shutter the brand new factories powering our nation with clean energy.”
By Steven Kovac
