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Wright Defends the $13 Billion Green Energy Clawback and the President's UN Climate Remarks on Fox News

September 25, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:07:09

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

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright joined Fox News after President Trump’s address to the United Nations, in the interview the Department of Energy uploaded, as the department moved on what the program described as $13 billion in subsidies earmarked under the Biden administration for fighting climate change. Wright endorsed the President’s U.N. characterization of climate policy as a con job, arguing that $5 trillion spent on wind, solar, batteries and grid infrastructure had reached only 2.6 percent of global energy while raising prices wherever penetration was meaningful and shifting industry to China, as he stated the figures.

On the $13 billion, Wright said the funds had never been allocated to anything — part of hundreds of billions directed to green energy projects and electric cars that, he argued, Americans do not want to buy — and he put the savings at over $100 per American family, as he stated the arithmetic. He said hydrocarbons supplied 82 percent of U.S. energy both when President Biden was inaugurated and when President Trump was inaugurated, as he stated the share, and argued that record is why the President was elected to stop the spending, as Wright framed the mandate.

Challenged with a Lazard analysis finding utility-scale solar and onshore wind the most cost-effective new generation on an unsubsidized basis, Wright dismissed the firm’s levelized-cost method as politicized and incomplete, arguing it omits the system costs of intermittent generation, as he presented his critique in the exchange.

Why it matters

The interview pairs a concrete fiscal action — $13 billion of unallocated green funds being clawed back — with the administration’s fullest defense of its U.N. climate rhetoric, including its rebuttal to the standard industry cost comparison.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: Wright’s September 25, 2025 statement that the Energy Department would claw back $13 billion in unallocated Biden-era green energy funds — a checkable fiscal claim flagged for the scoreboard editor; no verdict is entered here.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins John Roberts on Fox News – September 25, 2025”, 2025-09-25 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-09-25). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.