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Wright Touts Multi-Billion-Dollar Grid Loans and Defends Iran Policy on Bloomberg

October 28, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:11:58

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

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Bloomberg’s Balance of Power that the Department of Energy was announcing a loan of more than $5 billion connected to a Wisconsin utility project spanning Wisconsin and Iowa, following another roughly $5 billion deal with Constellation Energy announced the previous day, according to the Department of Energy’s upload of the interview. Wright said the capital-intensive infrastructure would take roughly one to three years to build and was aimed at keeping electricity reliable and affordable during severe winter cold and summer heat peaks.

Wright said the department’s energy dominance financing office had been deploying capital since he took office, structuring low-risk loans he said taxpayers would recover, and he contrasted that approach with what he described as the previous administration’s focus on greenhouse gases without weighing affordability. He said the loans were intended to reduce the price spikes that occur in extreme weather.

Asked about crude prices above $100 and the conflict with Iran, Wright said entering a conflict in a major energy-producing region would affect supplies, but that he supported President Trump’s decision, arguing a nuclear-armed Iran would have worse long-term consequences for energy prices, peace and regional stability. He said high prices also reflected a global shortage of refining capacity and that the administration was working to expand refining in the United States and with allies abroad.

Why it matters

The interview ties the department’s loan program directly to grid reliability and price relief in the Midwest, while presenting the Iran conflict’s energy costs as a short-term disruption the administration accepts for strategic reasons, as Wright framed it.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: Secretary Wright’s statement that DOE announced loans of more than $5 billion each for the Wisconsin/Iowa utility project and for Constellation Energy. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no verdict is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins Bloomberg’s Balance of Power – October 28, 2026”, 2026-10-28 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-10-28). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.