President Donald Trump’s Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, understands that sound energy policy is absolutely crucial for American national security and prosperity. Unlike his predecessor, who was an avowed climate alarmist, Wright describes himself as a “climate realist” who has “been studying, speaking and writing about climate change for over 20 years.”
This does not mean that Wright thinks climate change is an existential crisis. Nor does it mean that he believes we should rapidly reduce the use of fossil fuels. Instead, it means that Wright understands that human flourishing is impossible without access to reliable, affordable, and abundant energy.
According to Wright, “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.”
“We have indeed raised global atmospheric CO2 concentration by 50% in the process of more than doubling human life expectancy, lifting almost all 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,” Wright concedes.
As Thomas Sowell put it, “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”
I think Wright would agree.
“Responses to climate change bring their own trade-offs,” Wright recently said.
Of course, Wright is correct. As we’ve seen over the past few decades, particularly over the past four years, federal policies aimed at combating so-called climate change certainly carry massive trade-offs.
One of the most significant trade-offs that has become all too apparent for millions of hardworking American families is that federal energy policies designed to prevent climate change by replacing fossil fuels with “green” energy sources have resulted in skyrocketing energy prices.
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As The New York Post recently reported, energy prices soared more than 30 percent under President Biden — 13 times faster than the previous seven years. A study by The Heartland Institute in 2024 determined that the average family paid a whopping $2,548 more in energy costs due to the Biden-Harris administration’s climate policies.
Along with rising energy prices, misguided policies predicated on saving the planet have also made the U.S. grid more unstable than ever. Unbelievably, in 21st-century America, blackouts have become somewhat normal in places like California.
To be fair, Biden is not solely to blame for the flood of recent policies intended to curb global warming. This has been in the works for decades.
Moreover, this is not a partisan problem. Republicans are just as guilty as Democrats in smashing the climate change panic button.
However, President Trump seems determined in his second term to end this madness finally.
In his first term, Trump pushed for an American energy renaissance. Although he was partially successful in increasing American production of oil and natural gas, he did not do enough to defeat the climate alarmist industrial complex.
Fortunately, it looks like Trump learned quite a bit from his mistakes in his first term.
This time, Trump has surrounded himself with climate realists and energy experts who fully understand that the United States must become energy-dominant to maintain its place as a global superpower.
Chris Wright understands the seriousness of the moment. “We are unabashedly pursuing a policy of more American energy production and infrastructure, not less. Our goal is to re-industrialize America, not de-industrialize America.”
Wright has also pledged to reverse “policies that force consumers to pay more for clothes washers and dryers, hot water heaters and dishwashers that deliver inferior performance” and “the destructive mandates, forcing everyone to buy EVs that have been wreaking havoc on our auto industry and forcing higher prices and reduced choices on consumers.”
Perhaps most importantly, Wright understands that future technologies like AI and quantum computing will require “massive amounts of electricity.”
According to Wright, “The implications on national defense make it simply critical that America leads the AI race. We have the talent, innovative spirit and leading companies to win, but all that won't matter if we can't deliver the energy. AI is an energy-intensive manufacturing industry.”
Climate alarmists don’t want to acknowledge this point. Instead, they prefer a system where big tech companies are allowed the unique privilege of accessing dependable electricity for their data centers. At the same time, ordinary Americans must pay for expensive and unreliable energy, courtesy of windmills and solar panels.
If we learned anything from the past election results, it is that the American people have rejected climate alarmism. Going forward, they demand climate realism, which is exactly what President Trump and his new administration will deliver.
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is the editorial director at The Heartland Institute.
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