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Secretary Wright, Newly Confirmed, Discusses LNG Permits and Unleashing American Energy With Newsmax

February 11, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:07:55

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What happened

Newsmax’s Greg Kelly introduced Chris Wright as President Trump’s newly confirmed and sworn-in Secretary of Energy, noting his engineering degrees from MIT and UC Berkeley and his founding and running of major companies with no prior government experience, as the program presented him.

Wright said he has loved energy his whole life and was thrilled to come to Washington to unleash American energy, as he put it. Asked how drill, baby, drill actually happens, he said the first thing done, right off the bat, addressed the prior administration’s suspension of permits to export liquefied natural gas: the United States went from the largest importer of natural gas to the largest exporter, able to bail out allies in Europe when Russia invaded Ukraine, yet permits to grow exports had been suspended a year earlier, as he described the history. On day one, the day Trump was inaugurated, the administration suspended that suspension and returned to normal-course permitting, as he stated the action.

On wind, Wright said de-emphasis sits more with the Interior Department on permitting, while the Energy Department’s mandate is to grow the supply of affordable, reliable, secure energy, and wind does not check those boxes, as he argued. He said the department wants next-generation nuclear, geothermal growth, and fusion power in the United States in the next few years, in addition to natural gas and oil — the main powerhouses today — and coal, still the third-biggest U.S. energy supply, as he stated the ranking. He said the source does not matter so long as energy makes American lives better, keeps prices down and expands opportunity, as he put it.

The program played President Trump’s inaugural remarks promising to end the Green New Deal and revoke the electric vehicle mandate, as the segment continued.

Why it matters

Wright’s first interview as Secretary sets the department’s test — affordable, reliable, secure — and its first completed action: LNG export permitting restored on inauguration day.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright joins NewsMax’s Greg Kelly - February 6th, 2025”, 2025-02-11 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-02-11). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.