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FIRST ON FOX: A coalition of conservative groups representing the energy industry is hailing a list of ten regulatory and fiscal “wins” under the Trump administration’s new Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, which they say have “restored America’s path toward true energy dominance.”
“Secretary Chris Wright has delivered the boldest course correction in modern energy policy, and the results speak for themselves. He has led the largest deregulatory initiative in Department of Energy history, cut billions in wasteful green subsidies, and restored a clear path to American energy dominance,” Jason Isaac, CEO of one of the groups that signed on to the published list of Trump administration energy sector wins, wrote.
“He halted dozens of harmful appliance rules, streamlined NEPA, canceled politically driven wind, solar, and carbon-capture spending, reignited U.S. LNG and nuclear development, and used emergency authority to keep critical coal capacity online, so the grid stays stable when it matters most,” he continued. “This is what it looks like when Washington finally puts consumers, reliability, and American workers first.”
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Vice President JD Vance, left, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, right, in Greenland while honoring the 55th anniversary of Earth Day 2025. (Reuters)
Groups from the letter include the Heartland Institute, the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute, Truth In Energy and Climate, the American Energy Institute, and others.
Several of the “wins” they touted focused on deregulation, such as the rescission or blocking of 47 specific regulations and standards for a variety of consumer appliances, reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) aimed at reducing permitting delays for energy infrastructure, the cancellation of “billions of dollars” in funding for wind and solar projects, the fast-tracking of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects that the coalition says were “stymied” under the Biden administration, and an initiative to critically review the impact of greenhouse gasses on the U.S. climate, among a list of other reforms.
However, environmental groups who spoke to Fox News Digital about the conservative coalition’s victory lap, argued the recent reforms actually serve to help big businesses and not the average person. They noted that the viewpoint that President Donald Trump’s environmental agenda is making the country stronger is also a facade.
“These policies might be good for Trump and Wright’s rich corporate buddies, but they are downright evil for working people,” Tim Donaghy, Greenpeace USA’s research director, told Fox News Digital. “The decisions made in the last nine months are literally sucking money out of Americans’ wallets and putting it into oil industry bank accounts, while pretending they’re making the country stronger.”
Donaghy said that President Trump’s plan to increase energy exports, for example, “will increase” costs for American families and exacerbate climate change, which he argued was another driver of increased housing insurance costs for families.
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“The sad thing is that the Trump administration’s policies are creating more pollution that will make Americans sick. Every year 350,000 Americans die younger from being exposed to toxic air pollution from burning fossil fuels. We need that number to go down. These ‘wins’ all but guarantee it will go up,” Donaghy concluded.
The “wins” touted by the “American Energy Dominance Coalition” did not exclusively include deregulation efforts in the energy sector, but also featured increased investments in nuclear energy production. The list also praised Sec. Wright for launching a critical review earlier this summer looking into the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the U.S. climate, as well as a study focused on identifying pipeline needs and potential permitting reforms that could be used to help speed up oil and gas production.
Some of the additional deregulation ‘wins’ listed by the coalition include the termination of $3.7 billion in carbon-capture and decarbonization grants, the cancellation of “hundreds-of-millions” in electric-vehicle and battery manufacturing grants, and a push towards rescinding energy-efficiency standards for federal billions, which the conservative coalition argued could lead to saving millions of dollars in “unnecessary upgrades.”
“Chris Wright has done an amazing job of actually prioritizing American energy development and affordability rather than globalist misguided climate agendas,” Heartland Institute President James Taylor said. “American energy policy must continue to bolster affordable and reliable domestic energy sources rather than the agendas of foreign nations that are often hostile to American interests.”
Meanwhile, Sal Nuzzo, Executive Director of Consumers Defense, also praised Sec. Wright and his administration’s “most sweeping de-regulatory initiative in U.S. history,” for overturning “burdensome regulations” that Nuzzo says hurt both consumers and businesses.
Nuzzo also pointed out that the Trump administration has taken a stand against “politically motivated” environmental, social, governance (ESG) “schemes,” which he said have been inflating energy costs and weakening U.S. independence while also undermining the free market system.
But the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) Bernadette Del Chiaro, who is EWG’s Senior Vice President for its California-based operations, dismissed that the policy “wins” touted by these conservative groups were actually “wins” for the American people. Instead, Del Chiaro described them as “giveaways” to the fossil fuel industry that will result in greater pollution, higher energy costs, and fewer choices for consumers.
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Energy Department Secretary Chris Wright (right) is juxtaposed in this split-image next to a photo of an environmentalist protester holding up a sign reading ‘BIG OIL PROFITS. LA BURNS.” (Getty Images)
“Slashing support for wind and solar cripples U.S. leadership in the rapidly expanding clean-energy economy. These rollbacks kill jobs, strand private investment, and hand global economic advantage to China just as the rest of the world races toward cheaper, cleaner and more competitive energy sources,” Del Chiaro told Fox News Digital.
“If the priority is affordability, the Administration is on the wrong track as there’s no cheaper energy resource than solar,” she added. “And if beefing up American energy independence is the goal, once again, we are veering off course because there is nothing more abundant than the sunshine that falls on our country ‘from sea to shining sea,’ or more homegrown than the wind that whips across our Great Plains.”
