The secretary of America’s energy department has cautioned that the nation’s grid is reaching its limit, arguing Trump administration decisions are actively preventing a disaster.
“In my department, we’ve issued four emergency orders just in the last few weeks to stop the closure of reliable plants, so we can keep the lights on and stop pushing up electricity prices,” DOE Secretary Chris Wright said on “Mornings with Maria” Thursday.
“We were on a course that was a train wreck,” he added. “We’re doing everything possible now to sweep out the nonsense.”
Earlier this week, the Energy Department issued its latest emergency order to address a heatwave across the Southeast, putting grid capabilities at risk of blackouts, allowing maximum utilization of certain areas’ electric generating units.
STRAIT OF HORMUZ DISRUPTION: MORE BARK THAN BITE FOR U.S. ENERGY, EXPERT CLAIMS
“We had to issue an emergency order a few days ago just to let utilities in the Southeast run their plants at full capacity so they could keep the lights on. Under the Biden laws, that’s illegal,” Wright claimed.
“Emissions rules would have prevented them from producing all the electricity they could, and they would have had rolling brownouts. That’s just total nonsense.”
Though this week’s emergency order lasted just one day, the Trump White House previously signed an executive order in April to strengthen the reliability and security of the U.S. electric grid.
Some of those key policy changes that aim to boost the grid include giving the Energy Department expedited access to emergency orders, and regularly analyzing electricity reserve margins in all U.S. regions.
“We need to make changes rapidly. We need to see new capacity built, smarter regulation, we need to use our grid wiser. There’s so many things we need to do to improve it. We can’t do it all overnight,” Wright noted.
According to a White House fact sheet, the nation’s electricity is expected to rise 16% in the next five years – triple the growth forecast just one year ago.
The country’s 2,700 data centers, operated primarily by tech giants like Apple, Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft, consumed more than 4% of U.S. electricity in 2022, and are expected to reach 9% by 2030.
“I can assure you, the team at [the] Department of Energy and across this administration are 24/7, seven days a week, working to get out the morass, the nonsense that got put in,” he said. “Free American energy production, and bring jobs back here. We want a shortage of electricity and plumbers and all that, that pushes wages up and that gives great job opportunities for all those hard-working Americans.”
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