From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Nick Pope

“The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright sharply criticized the Biden administration’s restrictive energy policies during a keynote speech to energy industry leaders Monday, explaining how the Trump administration’s approach is oriented around unlocking human flourishing.

Wright made the speech to kick off the 2025 CERAWeek conference, one of the premier annual summits for the energy industry. He characterized the Biden administration’s maniacal focus on climate change as counterproductive and impoverishing for ordinary people, pledging to take a radically different approach than his predecessor by unleashing U.S. energy and private sector innovations to make life better and more affordable for Americans, announcing that he is approving a liquefied natural gas (LNG) permit during the speech to prove his point.

“The previous administration’s ‘climate’ policies have been impoverishing to our citizens, economically destructive to our businesses, and politically polarizing. The ‘cure’ was far more destructive than the disease,” Wright said. “There are no winners in that world, except for politicians and rapidly growing interest groups. The only interest group that we are concerned with is the American people. Our focus will be steadfast on the American people and our allies abroad.”

Wright explained how much of the world’s population lives in poverty in large part because they do not have access to the cheap, efficient energy that powers modern life and its conveniences that only a fraction of humanity enjoys at present. The new energy secretary — who has worked with nuclear, oil, gas, solar and geothermal energy over the course of his private sector career — argued that the U.S. can and should play a leading role in proliferating prosperity with energy instead of regulating the sector too aggressively in the name of climate change.

“Recently I have been called a climate denier or climate skeptic. This is simply wrong. I am a climate realist. I have been studying and writing about climate change for over twenty years. 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,” Wright said. “We have indeed raised atmospheric CO2 concentration by 50% in the process of more than doubling human life expectancy, lifting most 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.”

“The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational, quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens. Running the math on what might have been the benefits from these policies yields perhaps only a few hundredths of a degree reduction in global temperatures in the year 2100,” Wright continued. “The Trump administration intends to be much more scientific and mathematically literate.”

While former President Joe Biden said that climate change poses a threat to humanity that exceeds that presented by nuclear war, Wright’s remarks make clear that the Trump administration will not be treating climate change as an existential threat that takes precedence over other priorities.

The vision Wright laid out in his speech represents a stark departure from the positions of the Biden administration on nearly all fronts, including on the issue of approvals for LNG export projects. The Biden administration unilaterally froze approvals in January 2024, keeping the pause in place for most of the year, in what critics characterized as an election year move to shore up support from the well-funded climate lobby.

To drive home his point that American energy is open for business with the Trump administration leading in Washington, Wright announced that he will be approving a LNG permit extension for the Delfin LNG project, a major development proposed for construction off the Louisiana coast and a victim of the Biden administration’s January 2024 freeze on approvals.

“I am honored to play a role in reversing what I believe has been a very poor direction in energy policy. The previous administration’s energy policy was focused myopically on climate change, with people as simply collateral damage. My predecessor was on this stage one year ago saying that LNG exports would soon be in the rear view mirror. Think about that for a moment,” Wright said during his speech. “Natural gas today supplies 25% of global primary energy and has been the fastest growing source of energy over the last 15 years. Wind and solar, the darlings of the last administration and so much of the world today, supply roughly 3% of global primary energy … Everywhere wind and solar penetration have increased significantly, prices on the grid went up and stability of the grid went down.”

MxM News

Quick Hit:

After a six-week review, Sen. Marco Rubio announced the cancellation of 83% of USAID programs, citing wasteful spending and harm to U.S. national interests. The move eliminates 5,200 contracts worth tens of billions of dollars, with remaining programs shifting under the State Department for better oversight. Rubio thanked staff for their efforts in implementing what he called a “historic reform.”

Key Details:

• Sen. Marco Rubio revealed that 5,200 USAID contracts have been canceled after a six-week review.
• The cuts affect tens of billions in foreign aid, which Rubio argued was not serving U.S. national interests.
• The remaining 1,000 programs will be administered under the State Department with improved oversight.

Diving Deeper:

In a sweeping reform of U.S. foreign aid spending, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) announced on Monday that the federal government has canceled 83% of programs administered by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). According to Rubio, the decision followed a six-week review that exposed extensive waste, inefficiency, and, in some cases, harm to core U.S. national interests.

“The 5,200 contracts that are now canceled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, and in some cases even harmed, the core national interests of the United States,” Rubio stated. His move reflects growing scrutiny among conservatives regarding how taxpayer money is used in foreign aid, particularly under USAID, which has long been criticized for funding controversial projects abroad.

Rubio clarified that approximately 1,000 remaining programs—just 18% of USAID’s previous operations—will now be administered under the State Department. This transition, he noted, will ensure these programs are managed more effectively with greater oversight from Congress. His announcement signals a significant shift in how the U.S. approaches foreign aid, moving toward a more targeted and strategic approach rather than broad, unchecked spending.

The decision has drawn praise from fiscal conservatives who have long argued that USAID’s operations lacked accountability and often funded programs that failed to advance American interests. Critics of the agency have pointed to cases where U.S. foreign aid dollars went to projects promoting ideological agendas or funding corruption in foreign governments.

Rubio thanked the Department of Global Engagement (DOGE) and USAID staff who worked tirelessly to carry out what he described as a long-overdue reform. The announcement is likely to spark debate in Washington, as Democrats and globalist policymakers have traditionally defended USAID’s expansive role in international development.

The restructuring of USAID under the oversight of the State Department represents a dramatic reimagining of America’s foreign assistance strategy—one that prioritizes accountability and ensures taxpayer dollars are spent in direct service of national security and diplomatic goals.