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Secretary Wright on Newsmax: Half-Trillion in Subsidy Savings, Nuclear Revival and NEPA Reform

July 2, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:05:48

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright joined Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren on July 1, 2025, to discuss the energy provisions of the bill then moving through the Senate. Wright called it tremendous progress and great news for 340 million Americans, who he said win twice: saving half a trillion dollars in subsidies the government was going to pay out over ten years, and getting lower-priced energy and automobiles. He argued energy subsidies have been perverse — the more paid, the more expensive the product to consumers, as he stated it.

On energy’s future, Wright said fossil fuel supply is virtually unlimited, that hydrocarbons burn cleaner in modern engines, and that wind, solar, and batteries are about 3 percent of U.S. energy and less than 3 percent globally — not a substitute for oil, natural gas, and coal. He noted 2 billion people still cook and heat with wood and dung indoors.

On nuclear power, Wright said it has the safest track record of any energy source, including the incidents at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima, and contrasted France’s roughly 70 percent nuclear electricity with Germany’s costlier wind-and-solar path. He said U.S. nuclear became expensive and economically risky because permitting takes too long amid lawsuits and NEPA reviews dragging six to eight years. He said the administration is all in on changing that through executive orders and permitting reforms at the Department of Energy, that the Supreme Court’s recent 8–0 decision supports restoring NEPA to a thoughtful environmental check, and that DOE released new NEPA rules that day, as he stated it.

Why it matters

The interview lays out the administration’s energy philosophy and its nuclear strategy in one sitting: subsidy repeal as consumer savings, and permitting reform — not technology — as the binding constraint on nuclear power.

Scoreboard watch

Wright’s figure — half a trillion dollars in subsidy savings over ten years under the Senate bill — is a checkable scoreboard number.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren - July 1, 2025”, 2025-07-02 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-07-02). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.